No Hope, No Hope, At the End of My Rope

It hasn't been my best year for Roto. I'm in four leagues, and in only one of them am I currently sitting in the money. Fortunately, it's in my long-standing A.L.-only, where I've been playing since 1996 and loving almost every minute of it.

Despite being in fourth place for the last couple of weeks, it looked like I had an outside chance at a title coming into yesterday. But with a five steal gap to make up in one of the categories and two days left, it's starting to look like a win isn't in the cards.

I'm in a three-way tie in HR and three HR behind one of the other contenders. If I can swing that category completely, that's a two-point gain. That would leave the standings like this:

Decimators 80

Towers 78

Quints 78

Benedictines 77.5

Those are the only two points I have even a slim chance of gaining barring a stolen base miracle.

For the teams ahead of me, there are two ways they can lose points: to spoilers (non-contenders) or to each other. First, the spoiler factor.

Decimators 

Can lose one point in stolen bases. If Rajai Davis runs at all this probably won't happen (and in fact they could gain a point) but the Decimators  - and Davis - haven't stolen a base in over a week.

Can lose one point in ERA. Felix Hernandez's poor start put this team at a 3.50 ERA. The team behind them has a 3.53. The Decimators have Jake Peavy going tonight and Jered Weaver and Ryan Dempster pitching tomorrow. The spoiler has Jeremy Guthrie and Doug Fister squaring off tonight.

Towers

Can lose two additional points in HR if the two teams I'm tied with also pass the Towers in HR.

Benedictines

Can lose half a point in wins. They have Dan Haren pitching tonight and David Huff and A.J. Griffin throwing tomorrow. The spoiler in this scenario has Blake Beavan, Jeremy Hellickson and Brandon Morrow all going on Wednesday.

If all of the spoiler scenarios play out in addition to me maxing out my points, then the standings would look like this.

Decimators 78

Quints 78

Benedictines 77

Towers 76

As far as the contender versus contender scenarios go (besides me stealing a HR point from the Towers, this is what that looks like:

Batting Average

Entering tonight's action, it's tight.

Decimators .2683

Towers .2679

Benedictines .2673

I could win if I maxed out my home runs, the Towers fell apart in home runs, and the Towers passed the Decimators in batting average. Then I'd be up 78-77-77-77.

Wins

The Decimators are one win ahead of the Towers 83-82. The Towers have James Shields going tonight and Gavin Floyd and Max Scherzer tomorrow. If they flipped this category instead of batting average (or even tied it), the same 78-77-77-77 lead would apply.

If I had to guess as to what I think will actually happen...

I'll probably break the tie with the two non-contenders in home runs but fail to catch the Towers. The Decimators will lose that steals point. The Benedictines will break the tie in wins in their favor. And The Decimators will hold on to their ERA point.

That would really leave the standings looking like this.

Decimators 79

Towers 79

Benedictines 78

Quints 77

This assumes that batting average doesn't move at all. With two days left in the season, I'm not even going to bother guessing what is going to happen in that category. But it would seem that whichever team wins the batting average tussle among the contenders is assured at least a first place tie.