Shaun Marcum pitches a GREAT game and vaults The Generals into the lead.

How about that Shaun Marcum? After yesterday’s post detailing my thought process in putting up Marcum to start, he completely fulfills my faith in him by hurling a gem: 7 innings, 6 hits, one walk and one run.

The result? Before the day started I was down 1-7-2 to Mock Draft Central. Combined with saves from CJ Wilson, I am now winning for the week, with a 5-4-1 lead. If only every decision worked out so well.

There is a good lesson in this though, and that is that even if Marcum got hammered it would have still been the correct decision. One of the very first posts I wrote for this site was on why one should not worry about the results as long as the decision making process was valid.  In this case I think the decision was clearly correct based on the discussion from yesterday, and that it worked out is only gravy, but it might have blown up in my face.  Had it done so, that would not impugn the decision.

So think through in great detail each consideration of a decision and then stride confidently after it is made. If you do this then you will be right more often than not assuming you have good judgment and you at least will know that you did the right thing even if the result was wrong.

What’s next? Minimizing my innings. The ERA/WHIP race now stands at 2.328 to 4.154 in my favor, and 1.138 to 1.154 in my favor. Mock Draft Central has five starts left for the week, including two by Meche and Morales and two by Peavy and Santana, so it could go any way. It will be a close call.

They key to the week will be my offense picking it up. Yesterday Aramis Ramirez and Magglio Ordonez hit homers (and I had the pleasure of seeing Magglio’s on the Extra Innings package). I am still losing in the batting average category, but I expect to pick that up over the weekend, so if I can hold my ground on ERA and WHIP (no easy feat) I should be able to eke out a win.

It also shows the value of having a flexible strategy. As in war, flexibility is of paramount import, and being able to respond to fluid conditions in a daily transaction league is probably the most underrated concept. Had I not put together the strategy that included a few starting pitchers so that I could respond precisely as I did here the strategy would have failed as it would not have afforded me this flexibility, and, as a result, I would probably be facing an inevitable loss this week.