Wow, this fantasy baseball stuff is stressful. There’s just today and tomorrow left in the regular season, and I have one final pitching game to throw. Now, last week, I’d decided to save that final game for Chris Carpenter – my number-one-draft-pick-who-was-barely-worthy-of-a-number-one-pick-at-the-beginning-of-the-season-but-eventually-began-to-redeem-himself-and-pile-on-the-points. So while I spent much time yesterday mulling over my choices for my second-to-last game, my LAST game was a no-brainer. It was Chris Carpenter.
And then this morning I start to check out baseball news, and discover that Chris Carpenter will only be starting on Sunday IF St. Louis loses today’s game. In other words, there won’t be any way to know if he’s pitching until today’s games are behind us. And he was the only pitcher I had with a game tomorrow – my other pitchers have games TODAY. So I was faced with a conundrum – if I pitch someone today, and they do a horrible job, and St. Louis happens to lose, I’ll be kicking myself for wasting my last game on a bad pitcher when I COULD have used it for Carpenter. Or, I could take a chance and NOT pitch anyone today, and hope St. Louis loses – but if they win, then I waste a pitching game. Or I could not pitch anyone today, hope St. Louis loses, play Carpenter, and watch him give up 6 runs in the second inning like Contreras did last week.
I finally decided that the smart thing to do would be to start someone today and make sure I use that final pitching game. Of course, this presented me with another problem – which of my two pitchers should I choose? It was between Jake Westbrook with Cleveland, and Jeff Suppan with, interestingly enough, St. Louis. My first instinct was to play Westbrook – but then I realized that by doing that, I was assuming that St. Louis would be losing today. And if St. Louis is going to lose, then I should just wait and pitch Carpenter tomorrow. I should be hoping that St. Louis WINS today’s game. And if St. Louis is going to win, then perhaps I should be pitching Suppan. So that was the choice I finally made after much worrisome thought. Please, please win today, St. Louis…
And in other sports news – Rutgers University (alma mater of Eric and Faisal… and maybe Dave? I can’t remember… sorry Dave. You’re so forgettable. Just kidding. :) No, I’m not. Seriously – I have no idea if you went to Rutgers. If only I’d eaten that life-changing fried chicken when I was in Chicago… I’d probably remember everything…) um, what was I saying? Oh yes – Rutgers University has an undefeated football team so far this year. They’re 5-0. This is just insane. Just a few years ago, Rutgers was unable to win ONE game, let alone five in a row. I remember watching a game where Rutgers was losing something like 56-0, and by the fourth quarter, it was quite apparent that “winning” was out of the equation. So all I wanted was to see them score. Something. Anything. Every time they’d get to a fourth down, I’d be yelling at the TV, “just go for it! Don’t punt! Just GO for it!” But they’d never listen. I mean, when you’re obviously going to lose anyway, who cares if the opposing team happens to get better field position? I just wanted to see a SCORE. Any score. A field goal. Something.
And now they’re undefeated, and actually RANKED in the top 25. How crazy is that? So if Rutgers can go from playing like a high school team to playing like one of the best 25 in the country, it gives me hope for sporting events everywhere. Like fantasy baseball. (Please take a cue from Rutgers and win today, St. Louis…) :)
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