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Can Your Season Be Sunk in One Week?

I ask this because though most of my teams are doing well, I have one that's off to a pretty rotten start. We always advise readers that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and if you've got some horrible luck early on, it can be fun to take it as a challenge to see how high you can climb. But what if you drafted this pitching staff:

Brandon Webb
Daisuke Matsuzaka
Jon Lester
Cliff Lee
Chris Carpenter
Chien-Ming Wang
B.J. Ryan
Jason Motte
Joey Devine

It would have looked pretty good on March 15, but at this point might be tough to salvage even if the healthy pitchers turn it around, and the injured ones come back reasonably soon.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have Lee, Lester and Wang on my LABR team, and though A.J. Burnett started to dig me out of the hole yesterday, I (and for this I have no one to blame but myself), lost out on the bidding on Michael Wuertz this weekend - (I foolishly bid $1, he went for $2), and Eddie Guardado therefore remained in my lineup. (I know I should have brought up a minor leaguer for him in that case - actually Aaron Laffey, who got called up to start today, is on my bench).

Anyway, I'm going to enjoy the challenge of clawing my way back - but the ERA damage from Wang/Lester/Lee and now Guardado might be too much to overcome in a 12-team AL-only league. Or put differently, I've used up my allotted beatings for the entire season in one week.

It's like being Jack Bauer in "24", only the show is changed to "24/7/365".