Inter division play

[ANDYCOCHRANE]

In the last 20 or so games all the teams in each division play each other. Is there any particular thing to look out for during this stretch? I have often lost a league lead or totally dropped out of contention at this crucial point. Any ideas what to look for, other than what pitchers I am going to face?

[pedakrla]

After game 126, all of your games are against division rivals (the last 36 games). If the race is close, you can try fine-tuning your team to maximize its performance against the 3 other teams in your division.

I haven't learned all the tricks of the trade yet, but here's one situation you might look for. My last team was in a division where 2 of the 3 teams hit LHPs hard. The rest of the league was hard on RHPs. So I went most of the season with 2 RH starters and 2 LH starters, but when game 126 rolled around I dropped my weakest LH starter and added a RH starter. (I looked for a trade first, but came up empty.) I also had a RH spot-starter I used in place of my LH starter in certain situations.

This was fairly successful--I was something like 61-65 after game 126, and finished the season 82-80 (still last place though--aaaargh!)