[IBL] For all you owners with bad beat stories

[Doug Palmer]

All,

As the season hits the 1/3rd mark or something like that, I thought that
you might like to hear about a funny thing that happened Week 9.  Well, not
so much funny, but the next time the rollbot serves you a PuPu Platter of
loving, well, this might make things feel better.

Week 9 and BAL got to play Jed and his Tri-State (TRI) team.  When these
two meet, throw away the records cause Katy bar the door its gonna get
rough.  Now, many weird things have happened this year, and in G1, another
peculiarity occurred.  Now, you may remember several weeks ago when I had
to go into a ballgame with only 2 pitchers available.  That was tense.
Well, during game 1 of the BAL/TRI tilt, Jed lost his catcher to an
injury.  Now, things like that happen to all of us, except Jed's OTHER
catcher (Butera) was already hurt and DTD.  Butera was actually hurt on the
day OFF between weeks 8 and 9.  So Butera missed his DTD roll before G1 and
Jed's backup and only other catcher on the roster, Garneau, gets dinged.
So to finish out G1, Chase Utley mans the catchers gear and catches.

Now, what you may not know is that a position player who plays catcher has
horrible numbers. +4 throwing and a Pr rating for wild pitches.  But not
only are the numbers bad, but the pitcher must use fatigue numbers.  So
your pitcher is screwed just as much as your catcher.  A recipe for
disaster, right?  But what you fail to account for is the Baltimore Sand
Crab horrific luck.

G1 finishes and the Crabs can get NOTHING done.  With 5 legitimate base
stealers, you'd thing that SOMETHING could happen.  But no.  For the last
several innings, the Crabs are kept at bay and lose 4-1.  Oh well, that
happens.  The Crabs aren't the worst batting team in the league for
nothing!  I mean, when you're putting guys like Jose Altuve and Manny
Machado out there on a daily basis, well, you're going to take your lumps
in the batting department.  But the story is just starting boys and girls.

G2 and Jed has to make DTD rolls for BOTH of his catchers.  And of course,
neither get their rolls.  So G2's starting catcher is gonna be....you
guessed it, Chase Utley.  But now Jed has to go the entire game with a +4
catcher and a fatigued rated pitcher.   I mean, Vegas had to take the game
off the board when they heard the news.  And early on, somehow, the Crabs
are winning.  They can't score more than their mandatory limit of 3 runs,
but they score.  Runs?  Nope.  Fatigued pitcher doesn't give up runs.
Stealing?  Can't do that without baserunners.  So we head to the 8th and
off a Crabs lefty reliever who is now torn in a million pieces and will
remain that way for the time being, faces Chase Utley with a couple men
on.  And of COURSE a DF roll goes Jeds way and it's suddenly tied at 4
(yeah, somehow the Crabs got an unearned run in the 8th to have 4 runs!!!
Call the presses!!!  Break up the Crabs).  Next batter.....Mookie Betts
does it the regular way and smacks another homer.  Mookie Betts has 15 HR
numbers on his card.  Betts I buy. But Chase Utley and his RSP/Fr rating?
A DF threat??    Needless to say, the Crabs go down 2 and the game is
essentially over.  Except that young Mr. Utley suffers a foul tip behind
the plate in the 9th, so TRI gets to try out their FOURTH catcher, one
Chris Owings.  Game over, TRI wins as the crabs can only manage 9 hits off
a fatigued pitching staff!!

G3 was played the next night because I was too busy kicking the dog and
yelling at my kid for simply breathing air.  But it's a game I tell myself,
and remarkably enough, the anger subsides and I go on with the day.  G3
will hold until the next night.  Jed's injury luck continues as neither
Butera nor Garneau make their DTD rolls, and so we go to backup
extraordinaire Chase Utley.....but HE doesn't make his DTD roll either.  So
Chris Owings gets to man the gear again and Jeremy Hellickson (not to be
confused with Cy Young) gets to be fatigued.  The Crabs get their
obligatory 4 runs early and then.....nothing.   Yet, somehow, Elvis Andrus,
a modified 13 on the basepaths, gets caught stealing AT 2ND mind you, not
picked off, CAUGHT STEALING not once, but TWICE by the aforementioned Chris
Owings!.  How, might you ask?  Well, you roll a 00 and the replay doesn't
go your way, then roll a 01 the next time and get caught, it happens.
So....meanwhile, the intrepid heroes (that would be TRI) are getting solo
homer after solo homer.  And by the 8th, it's a 1 run game.  BAL can't BUY
a run and TRI keeps putting the tying run on base.  On 2nd!  ON THIRD
people.  The game tying/go ahead runs were on base EVERY INNING from the
6th onward.  Through the grace of God and David Robertson (who put a runner
on 2nd) did the Crabs take 1  And that's where I got my solace.

The rollbot is a random number generator that doesn't know that you
substituted Mancini for Davis and the number was a hit for Mancini.  It
doesn't care that your pitcher has a monster card and that in real life, he
NEVER gives up a homer.  I used to jump up and down and curse out the
rollbot as if it had a personality.  It doesn't (SHUT UP...IT
DOESN"T!!!!.....la la la la la...I can't hear you).  I've had my share (and
probably some of your share) of bad luck.  Jose Altuve strikes out 25% of
the time.  Rajai Davis has been thrown out as a 12+ on 5 occasions so far.
And a .260 hitter IRL last year is batting under the Mendoza line....like
WAAAAAAY under.  But that's this game.  It's a dice game.  And it's gonna
kick you every so often.

So the next time you get screwed on a roll, just remember, somewhere,
somehow, the Crabs are getting it WAY worse :)

Doug Palmer
BAL
IBL

And I want Chase Utley on the All Star Ballot as catcher this year!!!
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