Championship Week

I'm back in familiar territory. To the annoyance of the three people who read this blog (there IS a reason I haven't been actively marketing this blog), I am going to blog about all things Colonel Coker in what is the final week of The RedZone baseball league's season. It's title time.

I won the RedZone championship last year, but the final week blazed by. I honestly don't know how I won it, who won it for me or even whether I deserved to win it. All I know is that I beat BobcatNation All-Stars and Alfonso Soriano (thanks you-know-who!) hit 14 homers last September.

This year, I fear I may have peaked a week too early. After the Kyle Stack Comeback Classic against Tunez, I entered last week against the best overall team in our league, USSR Lightning. I didn't activate any starters, relying on my relievers to rack up saves while hoping they could keep a low ERA and WHIP. You could say I was also influenced by USSR's seven or eight starting pitchers. There was no point in trying to compete with him in strikeouts, and likely wins, so why fight it? I chose to play to one of the strengths of my team.

My offense supplied enough firepower with homers, RBIs and OPS to give me a chance to win, and I did.

Entering this week, I was immediately confronted with the option of playing Aaron Harang, who is making a great late-season comeback after crapping the bed for most of the year. He had a 1.97 ERA and a 0.93 WHIP in four September starts, including two straight scoreless outings. My confidence was palpable. But Harang's effectiveness on Monday was unacceptable. He allowed four earned runs in seven innings, giving the Cokers the high ERA and WHIP I didn't encounter last week.

I started Harang on the pretense that my bullpen wouldn't go through another zero-run week. Lo-and-behold, Luis Ayala gave up one earned run on three hits and a walk in a typical Mets bullpen inning. Great. I did sign Joey Devine to add an extra closer for the week -- and to take away a potential closer option from the Slutties, team I'm playing this week.

Anyway, I'm down 6-2-2 with most of the night complete. I won't give much credence to the first couple days since OPS, ERA and WHIP are still extremely volatile due to low sample sizes. And I don't know if I'm going to go with another starter; my bullpen may need to bring down my pitching averages.