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Astounding injury results!

PostPosted: Sat Oct 06, 2012 10:53 am
by BDWard
I've got a team in Minute Maid in Barnstormers round 5, $100 mil no DH.

Like many of us, I've felt that my team has underperformed all season. While we all have tales of woe concerning our teams and while I'm certainly not seeking, nor do I expect, any sympathy here, my team started slowly and just when it looked like they were starting to rebound, it got hit by an unusual amount of long injuries. I know, I drafted these guys, you win some you lose some. Through 60 games, my team had suffered the following injuries:

Bagwell - 15 games
Lajoie - 10 games
P. Guererro - 11 games
D. Henderson - 10 games
Aaron - 1 game

While this game is tough enough, try playing down $5-$10 mil every game.

So after 60 games, after going 2-13 in the previous 15 games when my team suffered partially overlapping back to back injuries to Bagwell and Lajoie, my team was 24-36, the worst record in the league, and was a dozen games back in the standings, but at least it looked like the injury plague was over and things were looking up.

Then Josh Gibson got injured for 15 games in game 63. My team's record was 26-37. Boss Schmidt is the backup.

My team was at the crossroads. I knew that it couldn't possibly withstand another 2-13 stretch and hope to bounce back for a playoff spot if it were some 20+ games below .500 with just half a season left. Although the 20% cut penalty would be a big hit, I figured that I could pick up another catcher and use whatever money was left to improve pitching and hope to get back in the race. ANYTHING would be better than playing Boss Schmidt!

But a funny thing happened. I couldn't pull the trigger on cutting Gibson. I decided to dance with the people I brought to the dance.

I had looked at the schedule and noticed that after 3 road games against the division leaders, my team had 18 straight home games. I figured if my team got swept on the road, but could split the last 12 games of the injury at home, that my best chance of getting back into the race was with Gibson on the team and to hope for good health.

I made no changes to the team. Boss Schmidt put on the tools of ignorance.

Well, my team got off to a good start by inexplicably sweeping the division leaders by a total of 4 runs on the road. Surely a fluke I thought, but Schmidt went 5-13 during the series.

But Aaron got hurt in the last game of the series. Would this season long nightmare of injuries never end? Fortunately, Aaron's injury was for 1 game only. I decided to take this a game at a time.

My team lost the game with Aaron and Gibson out, then reeled off 6 wins in a row, with Aaron, Bagwell, Mathews and Lajoie all stepping up during the streak. After another loss, they won 4 more in a row.

They finished an amazing 13-2 with Gibson out, evening their record at 39-39, and are just 5 games behind the division leader.

Were they lucky during the 15 games Gibson was injured? ABSOLUTELY, but there's a certain element of luck involved any time a team wins 13 of 15. I just hope that they didn't use up a season's worth of luck in those 15 games.

By the way, just to keep me on my toes, the Strato gods did foist another injury upon my team during the last series of Gibson's injury: Earl Averill, my lefty pinch hitter off the bench, got injured for 6 games. I think I can live with that.

This is starting to get interesting.

Stay tuned.

http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/807851