TOUT WARS!

Most of you might think Mortal Combat but no Sub Zero is the temp my squad is performing at right now. Some late night late inning thunder from Morales and Matsui last night aside team MLB.com has gone into a deep deep sleep on pitching and offense. The good news is that even though Lawr has put some distance between us it’s still only 3.5 points and definitely attainable, but for what seems like a week now I stare at the live scoring, MLB.com AT Bat or my TV and see my guys pop up, ground out or carry their bat back to the dugout.

I think however I may have found some unlikely help on of all places the wire. In a slew of moves I was able to add Jose Bautista of Toronto and send MIA Carlos Guillen to the pine, I also picked up Lou Marson who is getting a look see from the Tribe to catcher and jettisoned another Tiger in Alex Avila who is productive but not always playing and finally I added Kevin Jepsen of LA to see if i can pick up a win or save since Scioscia does like him and all I had to do was bench Matt Guerrier. There are teams coming at me fast and furious with loaded up rotations so a good start from Ervin Santana tonight plus a solid week from Edwin Jackson are desperately needed but really what I need is for my bats to WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Siano

well, i had my fingers crossed all through the mess of an oakland game, where the rangers beat the athletics like they were an old rug hanging in the yard. at least good old david murphy banged three hits and drove in two, thank you.

but, my laptop completely melted down during the game, wreaking havoc on my scoring chores, and worse, making it impossible for me to see the details of the yankees/angels game which featured my pitchers, andy pettitte and joe saunders.

but, by the time i got home, a couple of homers and a win and some great innings from my starters kicked me back up to 94.5 points and a bit more cushion.

i still have seven starts this week, to just four for mike, and seven for dean peterson and 11 for jason grey, so i am guessing that mike, in playing a tad defensively in pitching, might drop a point in whiffs and maybe another in wins if jason’s starters hit paydirt.

of course, it goes against the grain of zen playing to wish trouble on another team and players.  the essence is to pick players and root for them. so, i hope, as usual, mike’s team and jason’s and dean’s do well. as long as mine stay on track too.

but, if you wonder how this works on the inverse, after sitting lyle overbay for two weeks (he went around 5 for 21 during that span, with an RBI) and played mike sweeney, who belted a homer and hit around .318. but, since the season was nearing an end, i sensed sweeney would not get the same playing time, so i reactivated overbay for the final two weeks. and, overbay gave me a homer today, so, i pulled that string correctly.

all i can say is “whew.” and i only have to hang for 13 more days. they will be long and torturous days. but, i would not trade with anyone in the league. even mike!

whew. made it through the weekend, scoreboard watching while the athletics dismantled jeremy sowers. but, since it was rosh hashona, i watched jake peavy and scott feldman go into the sixth and eighth, respectively, but until seth kweller confirmed wins for each i was unsure of the standings.

sure enough i managed to gain a lead over mike of 93.5 to 90.

then ian snell took over for even though i gained a half point, tying joe sheehan in homers (thank you howie kendrick who is red hot) but losing it right back to dean peterson who is now tied with me in wins with 77 (mike has 76).

but, thanks to snell steve moyer passed me back up in ratio and ERA so i go into the penultimate week with a slim lead of 91.5 to 90.

i do have room to move, meaning there are points out there. but, i also can lose some points. i have picked up on mike in rbi, btw (he has 12 more than i with 848 to my 836).

so, time to breathe. at least i have the lead. for now. two weeks to go.

focus. breathe. rinse, and repeat is my mantra.

i guess today is the day. though, as mike pointed out in a previous post, it could be a whole lot of nothing.

but, today jake peavy starts for me, and that indeed might tell the path forward. with peavy i have scott feldman and carl pavano starting today: three pretty good ratio pitchers.

which is good because right now i dropped to 90 points with mike holding steady at 92.

the points i lost were basically ratio points and i dropped from ninth to seventh.

but, again, to get how close this is i will give you ratio and whiff totals…

ratio
siano 1.319 first
colton 1.327 second
walker 1.330 third
they are clustered, followed by

erickson 1.359 fourth
moyer 1.360 fifth
michaels 1.363 sixth
berry 1.365 seventh
shandler 1.374

note ron shandler has 81.5 points, a third not as distant as it may seem. but, you can see a lot of room for movement all over.

as for whiffs, mike is sort of safe. sort of…

siano 937 first
peterson 912 second
walker 900 third
michaels 898 fourth
grey 897 fifth
shandler 895 sixth

again, things could stay the same, move all over and stay the same, or flip flop us all over.

note that right now grey, peterson, and i are all loading up with starters to get a chance at wins because

siano 76 first
michaels/peterson 75 second

in the scheme of things i traded cc sabathia gambling i could survive and hopefully replace sabathia with peavy.

and, i have and well, jake starts today. a good solid start might point the way to two more this season which would be great.

it will be tough without him.

for now, i am off to the yard to score the athletics/indians game. but, i will be scoreboard watching.

so, i have been sitting at my desk in my office this afternoon, working with the TV on. jeremy gutherie is pitching and well, i need wins and strikeouts and a good whip and ERA: the usual stuff.

but i cannot watch, though i feel compelled to. eyes squinting,i  turn the game on and gutherie coaxes a third out with elsbury on second. safe. so i turn the channel back to the news (watching another game would just make me want to check out gutherie even more) and during commercials, kibbitz the game.

first commercial, gutherie allows a single and kotchman scores. crap, that kills era and ratio and puts me behind with one swing.

i turn the channel. and when i turn it back it is just as luke scott clobbers a home run, tying the game, and daring me to continue watching. since i have scott on my xfl team, all the better.

when the score shifted to 2-1 boston, i turned back to the news.

but, i opened a window on my desktop to the tout wars live scoring page instead.

now i started today in first place, with 92.5 points to mike’s 92, and it had actually simply stayed like that for a day, but, when i tuned in, i had dropped to 91.5 and mike was ahead. i looked and noticed jeff erickson passed me in ratio thanks to my watching gutherie.

and bingo, as i scrolled back up i suddenly dropped to 90.5, then a second later jumped back up to 92.5, passing mike back up and putting me back in first.

but, the changes were all in the blink of an eye, so i am not really sure they really happened, you know?

there are actually five categories–whip, ERA, runs, whiffs, and wins–that pretty much moment to moment, are so tight that literally an extra out or run or strikeout initiates the pinball effect i had witnessed. mike is pretty stable in whiffs actually, leading by around 30, and i have a commanding lead in runs scored. but whiffs i want and runs he needs. in ERA we both go up and down with a coupleo of other teams and same with whip, but not against one another.

in wins, however we are fighting for the same turf with dean peterson (to whom i traded cc sabathia: a move i had to make, but one that could indeed come back to haunt). mike leads with 76 and dean and i both have 75.

sigh. while i was writing this–over a 20 minute spread– i dropped back down to second with 91.5.

see what we mean?

nerve-racking. and there is another four hours of games to play tonight.

of course it is a very cool thing that my team is even in the race, so, i am not complaining. but, this is not for the faint hearted.

Day two of the daily blogging as I battle Lawr for AL Tout supremacy with a creeping Shandler approaching. You would think this would be a landmark day in deciding the winner. I had Edwin Jackson going vs. KC and Big Erv Santana vs. Boston while Lawr was waiting all day for Masterson to battle the A’s.  E-Jax was a 1pm ET start so of course I had to watch at my desk and know that this would be ulcer inducing (here is my Twitter post before the game:  Need a big start from Edwin Jackson today so I’ll be watching which means line will look something like this 6IP 4ER 7H 4BB 1,423 pitches L) see how smart I am? I actually did lose a point in WHIP during the early going dropping from 1st to 2nd, but got it back 3 outs later. Next up was Santana, the Sox lineup is a little banged up so I had that going for me and Erv did a decent enough job to not impact the standings, Billy Wagner got the L and he’s on my squad too so that kind of stunk. Finally at 10:05pm ET I am “forced” to watch Indians @ A’s. Masterson had a dicey first and then a mighty swing a few innings later from kurt Suzuki made me sleep like a baby. Final tally on a big pitching day:  Siano=6.60ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 13 Ks and no wins or saves / Lawr: 11.25 ERA, 2.50 WHIP, 6ks no wins or saves. A potentially big day adding up to a whole lotta of nothing. ……..Siano

you have to start chewing your fingers.

to tell the truth, i am having trouble watching games now. oh, i scoreboard watch some on my laptop, but i am better off watching TCM and Law and Order repeats . better on my nerves. and, well, my team plays better.

yesterday, as soon as i tuned into joe saunders, thinking by the sixth inning i was safe, he got whacked . thought. so i turned on the giants and watched matt cain give up a homer to troy tulowitzki.

robot chicken, here i come…

but, to give you an idea, mike and i had an email exchange, and he cannot look either. he tried earlier today and look what it did for edwin jackson (on his team).

sigh. as of now, ervin santana, his guy is beating the red sox on the stick of my guy, howie kendrick, who i got as part of my cc sabathia spoils.

if i do not write tomorrow, it will be because i have no fingers left.

a bad plight for a guitar player…

why, would my fingernails factor into a tout wars blog entry?

because i don’t have any more thx to the nail biter my team is having with mlb.com’s mike siano.

swear, we have changed places maybe 10 times over the past three days, and it looks like there is no end in sight.

hopefully, over the rest of the season we can both chime in here and share our thoughts.

for now, i am in first by half a point. ugh. not enough./

i can pick up 2 points if justin masterson does his thing tonight and cops a win and 6-8 whiffs. if.

of course, like mike, i can lose 2-3 points with now rbi or a win somewhere else.

sigh. welcome to the teeter totter. to bad i cannot dig my nails into it. remember, i have none.