Fantasy baseball: Lilly getting no love here

I have to admit that I'm on the manager's side of the Monday dustup between the Blue Jays' John Gibbons and Ted Lilly.

And it's not just because I always seem to take the more prominent hothead's side when it comes to sports altercations — some of my favorite all-time sports personalities are temper-challenged types like Lou Piniella, John McEnroe and Ron Artest.

It's because Lilly did to Gibbons' team on Monday in Toronto's 12-10 loss to the Athletics what he did to my fantasy-baseball team last Wednesday: Took what looked like a sure win and turned it into a devastating loss.

I was on vacation last week but managed to get online Wednesday afternoon to check out the progress of the Nye Mets Squadron (name is in reference to a line from "The Simpsons," if you care), my then-league-leading team in a 12-category, head-to-head, daily-moves league.

I was matched up with the second-place team and my pitching was off to a solid start, with Dodgers rookie Chad Billingsley and Erik Bedard of the Orioles giving me strong outings the night before.

But since I carry just five starting pitchers most of the time — I use four of my 21 roster spots on closers — I often stream in a few each week if need dictates and I find a matchup that strikes me as a can't-miss.

Well, a few hours before game time Wednesday I was looking at probables (we can pick up and activate a player on the same day as long as his team's game hasn't started yet) and saw that Lilly was set to face the Devil Rays at Tropicana Field, where the left-hander was 3-0 in four lifetime starts with a 1.08 earned-run average and a 1.00 WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched).

Then I looked at Lilly's solid career numbers against Tampa Bay's best hitters and, coupled with the fact the Devil Rays had averaged two runs over their previous seven games, decided there was a strong outing to be had.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Lilly went on to give up six runs — all earned — in five innings and take the loss, earning a trip back to the waiver wire after becoming the chief reason I lost ERA (3.38 to 3.27) and WHIP (1.13 to 1.12) and tied in losses (3-3) to fall 2 ½ games off the pace and into third place in a league in which the top two teams get a first-round bye in the playoffs and the regular-season champion gets his entry fee back.

So, manager Gibbons, I have no problem with A) your decision to pull a pitcher who ended up allowing seven runs in an inning after being staked to an 8-0 lead and B) your alleged skirmish-starting shove of said hurler in the tunnel after he had the gall to show you up on the mound because he was delusional enough to think he should have been allowed to stay in.

I can only hope that as you went after Lilly you got in a line as classic as manager Piniella's in the early 1990s when he was wrestling with reliever Rob Dibble (another infamous hothead) in Cincinnati's clubhouse: "You don't want to be treated like a man!"

Got questions about fantasy baseball? Send them to Jerry Faull: jfaull@seattletimes.com, or Jerry Faull, Seattle Times Sports, 1120 John St., Seattle, WA 98109. His look at fantasy baseball will appear each Wednesday during the major-league season.