Elder Barry Whine

It’s Monday evening, and the Giants are struggling to hold a 4-3 lead over the Reds in the 5th on TV in the background as I write. The Pecklers’ own Sean Casey is coming up with men on 1st and 2nd and two out.

I just got off a long phone call with our buddy, The Elder Barry. I remember learning early on that Barry is more of a phone guy than an email guy. It’s always fun to talk with Barry, as the conversation wends its way through a variety of topics, punctuated by comments about baseball and BABI. Medical problems, mystery writing, sleep, work – it’s always fun to chat with Barry.

Casey walks to load the bases. Correia can now go ahead and get the third out because the Pecklers don’t care.

I called Barry, of course, in response to his recent email with the simple message: “I Give Up”. It’s a message of frustration with the one thing we’ve all struggled with: decent pitching. Frankly, Barry has done more than struggle. He’s had some really bad pitching. He’s got 46.5 hitting points, but only 9.5 pitching points. This week he’s sporting an ERA of 7.52 and a WHIP of 1.892. Yesterday’s line was 13-2/3 IP, 16 ER, 21 H and 9 BB. Those are some bad numbers.

The easiest thing that can happen to a fantasy team is to have bad pitching. Every move makes it worse. Ultimately when your numbers suck beyond belief, your only hope is to load up with starting pitchers because you need lots more innings to fix anything. It takes weeks to fix a line like Barry’s yesterday.

And it can happen to anyone. The Leaguers have been masters of pitching. The team was pretty bad early in the season, but the pitching numbers have steadily improved bringing them in hailing distance of the leaders. Until today. So far, the Leaguers’ pitching numbers are: 8 IP, 7ER, 18 H, and 2 BB. That’s a WHIP buster.

The Pecklers have certainly been there too. Old timers in BABI will remember our pitching staff which included Jim Bullinger, Steve Traschel, Livan Hernandez, Al Leiter and Hideo Nomo all having terrible years. They were all pretty cheap ($10 or less), but that hardly matters when they all have ERA’s north of 5. For years we had a BABI rep of good hit, no field.

Our pitching isn’t so bad this year, but don’t think we’ve actually learned any lessons. Actually, we have, the only lesson that counts regarding pitching. It is: no matter how much study you put into pitching, it’s all a matter of luck. Now Noel, the pitching guru of the Hobos, may take that as an insult. Noel, don’t take it that way. Consider your job to manage your team’s pitching luck, which is even harder than managing the pitching itself.

It’s not much different in real baseball. Remember how in the off season the Giants and their fans were so confident about the team’s prospects? They spent money on hitting and a closer, but started the season with the same starting rotation that they ended last season with. It didn’t work out so well. Woody was released yesterday, Jerome Williams has been gone for months, and Schmidt, Tomko and Lowry, despite flashes, have been disappointments. Dave Righetti is not managing the team’s pitching luck very well, and it may cost him his job.

Getting back to Barry, he really hasn’t given up. At least he hasn’t given up enough to want to sell his players. If you’ve got the right thing, you can probably get Ensberg, but he’s going to try to battle his way to 5th place, and his current 6th place gets some money and the #1 minor league pick next year. He’s still got some upside in ERA and wins, but some more days like yesterday and he’ll be looking up and the Pounders too.

We’re looking down from the top again today for the first time in a while. We are the 4th team to hold first place this week. It’s the best BABI pennant race in our 12 years in the league. There is still a lot of baseball to be played, and most of the contenders are running (or have run) out of chips. Pretty soon it’s just going to be in the hands of the players themselves. Good luck to them all.

Correia snuck out of the 5th after loading the bases. Then in the 6th, the Giants had a rally that brought the score to 7-3. Hey, they’re only 7-1/2 out. Like in BABI, hope springs eternal.