The Jason Lane Experience
Posted: Tue Oct 13, 2015 5:55 pm
That playoff series was the craziest thing that's happened to me in my 10 years in this league (even crazier than Mike Piazza homering off Roger Clemens to give me my first playoff series win against JB with team 1997). I want to write some stuff out to remember it by, enjoy or not at your discretion.
Prologue:
None of this should have happened. I picked up CJ Wilson to shore up the rotation as an improvement on Chris Heston, who had been OK as a 5th starter but not great, and to give me the flexibility to use Danny Duffy out of the bullpen in the playoffs. CJ Wilson hit the DL for the rest of the season basically the instant DMB processed the trade, and Anibal Sanchez hit the DL two weeks later. Was not able to add anything else at the trade deadline, so I went with Jason Lane, who had been the long man out of the bullpen and also one of my top right handed pinch hitters before the rosters expanded, since the FA cupboard was almost completely bare. This was pretty much because I figured the offense would offset the pitching deficiencies and that was something, but he gave me some pretty not awful pitching performances through late August and early September.
Then came September 28th, first game of the basically winner take all series against the Dodgers. I totally blew it and didn't send an MP for the series right beforehand and Kluber pitched the game before, so he'd be unavailable for the whole series. And my only available SP for game one? You guessed it, Jason Lane. It did not go well. 4 runs in the first inning. 4 runs in the second inning. 9 men to the plate both times meaning that Russell Martin led off his 3rd inning in a row in the top of the 3rd, and he hit a ball hard that fortunately didn't find the ground. Ryan Braun came up next, and he hit it hard and it didn't find dirt either, it found the left field bleachers. The plan was just to let Lane pitch until his arm fell off so I wouldn't have to burn the bullpen. That didn't turn out to be possible as he kept giving up home runs, Lane's final line was 5.1 IP, 11R 17H and 6BB and 3 home runs. Let's just say I wasn't feeling so confident about making the playoffs from there.
Fortunately the real pitchers in the rotation (Arrieta, Duffy, and Heston) were able to take 2 out of the remaining 3 so I was one game up with 3 to play, and 2 wins would clinch the division. Unfortunately I didn't have an off day to set up my rotation, so it was going to go Kluber, Lane, Arrieta. I liked the first and the last but not the middle. And worse, Nate wasn't available to H2H so it was all up to the sim gods. Kluber did his Kluber thing in game one, so I clinched at least a game 163, and then some time Sunday morning I looked at the site and saw this:
Col 0
SF 4
Incredulous I clicked on the box score and saw this line:
Lane W 7-4 9.0 5 0 0 0 6 112 74 3.54
(Oh and he singled to drive in a run).
The craziest 19 IP (and counting) scoreless inning streak in IBC history was underway!
Prologue:
None of this should have happened. I picked up CJ Wilson to shore up the rotation as an improvement on Chris Heston, who had been OK as a 5th starter but not great, and to give me the flexibility to use Danny Duffy out of the bullpen in the playoffs. CJ Wilson hit the DL for the rest of the season basically the instant DMB processed the trade, and Anibal Sanchez hit the DL two weeks later. Was not able to add anything else at the trade deadline, so I went with Jason Lane, who had been the long man out of the bullpen and also one of my top right handed pinch hitters before the rosters expanded, since the FA cupboard was almost completely bare. This was pretty much because I figured the offense would offset the pitching deficiencies and that was something, but he gave me some pretty not awful pitching performances through late August and early September.
Then came September 28th, first game of the basically winner take all series against the Dodgers. I totally blew it and didn't send an MP for the series right beforehand and Kluber pitched the game before, so he'd be unavailable for the whole series. And my only available SP for game one? You guessed it, Jason Lane. It did not go well. 4 runs in the first inning. 4 runs in the second inning. 9 men to the plate both times meaning that Russell Martin led off his 3rd inning in a row in the top of the 3rd, and he hit a ball hard that fortunately didn't find the ground. Ryan Braun came up next, and he hit it hard and it didn't find dirt either, it found the left field bleachers. The plan was just to let Lane pitch until his arm fell off so I wouldn't have to burn the bullpen. That didn't turn out to be possible as he kept giving up home runs, Lane's final line was 5.1 IP, 11R 17H and 6BB and 3 home runs. Let's just say I wasn't feeling so confident about making the playoffs from there.
Fortunately the real pitchers in the rotation (Arrieta, Duffy, and Heston) were able to take 2 out of the remaining 3 so I was one game up with 3 to play, and 2 wins would clinch the division. Unfortunately I didn't have an off day to set up my rotation, so it was going to go Kluber, Lane, Arrieta. I liked the first and the last but not the middle. And worse, Nate wasn't available to H2H so it was all up to the sim gods. Kluber did his Kluber thing in game one, so I clinched at least a game 163, and then some time Sunday morning I looked at the site and saw this:
Col 0
SF 4
Incredulous I clicked on the box score and saw this line:
Lane W 7-4 9.0 5 0 0 0 6 112 74 3.54
(Oh and he singled to drive in a run).
The craziest 19 IP (and counting) scoreless inning streak in IBC history was underway!