The home stretch

There's a week to go in the regular and fantasy baseball seasons and while the most people watch the Mets and Red Sox hold their leads or not, my gaze is firmly fixed on my injury-riddled fantasy team.

Orlando Hernandez, Chris Sampson, Willy Taveras, Milton Bradley, and Ken Griffey Jr. can't be replaced. (UPDATE: Nor can Carlos Beltran.) The rest of the gang is keeping up, however. Over the past four weeks, my team is hitting .327(!) with 52 home runs.

The loss of Taveras has really hurt my steals and I've fallen two steals behind eight place - but unless Taveras comes back soon, it might as well be 200.

My starting pitching is performing well, but I'm just not getting the wins. A series of relief meltdowns has cost me, but that has cost me all year. My pitchers have thrown 104 quality starts but have only 73 wins to show for it (and that includes Russ Springer's seven wins in relief). The team in first has 88 quality starts and 74 wins. The team leading in wins, with 102, has only 112 quality starts.

Nevertheless, three teams have separated themselves from the pack. First place is all but decided and so I find myself in a fight for second.

.278 batting average (3rd)
249 HR (2nd)
973 RBI (2nd)
109 SB (9th)
3.96 ERA (1st)
1.27 WHIP (1st)
73 wins (6th)
25 saves (8th)