NLD 38 - Opening Day Season

Great race for the fourth spot.

To play for best record and home field advantage....

Or

To rest my regulars (which, most are injury risks) and play to stay away from Big A in the first round.

I have a losing record against 1 playoff contender, and thats Big A. The rest of the playoff teams, I can hold my own against, but Big A owned me all season.

With that in mind, the competitive side of me says, go for the gusto and best record!

The financial side says, play to stay away from your nemesis.

Decisions. Decisions...

I'm sitting my guys with 2 points of injury. Still leaves guys like panik and Ortiz exposed. I'm OK with my chances in post season if I'm at full strength.

^^^ I almost always rest my regulars if I get the chance, and that's what I'm doing tonight. My home/road split is unusually high with this team, but I can't really justify the injury risk in my own mind. Having said that, it happens sometimes anyway when a back-up gets injured.

Normally I have a few guys with 600+ plate appearances, but on this team I've only got 1. I would play those guys, but this time it's just Pedroia who's starting with 600+ PAs.

Tiebreaker:

2-way:
Spider beats AT, loses to BigA
AT beats BigA, loses to Spider
BigA beats Spider, loses to AT

Three-way:

Spider and BigA would have same divisional record, AT worse, so
Run Differential edge is clearly in BigA's favor (+47) to Spider's +30 and AT's +13.

Would dearly appreciate help from JTJ and nythawk.

Thanks for the tie breakers Spider.

We will do our best, but we are 2-7 in his park. That doesn't bode well.

I think we have the edge on the pitching matchups
Tillman v Flande
Cueto v latos
Smardzija v Beckett

but he's got a better offense than us.

Exciting finish for the wild card spot - which went to BigA. My guys needed a sweep (would have lost the tie-breaker), but didn't come close. The Phanatics took two of three on my home field.

This should be an interesting playoff, with no team dominant this season.

Well, good luck to the playoff teams. May the best team win!

MG, looks like you may have been smart to stay away from Big A in the first round. Smokey is going to have his work cut out for him.

You were also smart not to play any one run games with GB in the first two.

BTW, I had a chance to go back and look at Smokey's rating. I found that I had made a mistake with his lineup and he actually went up about 100 points to 2204, tied with Zim.

These next two games are huge for me. If I can split, with no major injuries, I should be ok games 5 thru how ever many are needed...

If I lose two tonight, especially with a key injury or two...

I can very easily piss away this two game lead and the series.