I had my first brush with the possibility of a big payout tonight. And it was due more to luck than skill.

I set 12 lineups, six of which had Max Scherzer going, four of which had Noah Syndergaard and one of which had Chris Heston. Those were obviously dead.  The other one had Lance Lynn, of whom I might have had more shares, but I heard him talked up by some pundits in my Twitter feed, and my instinct is usually to fade them. Because I know this is wrong, I often mute much of my Twitter feed on days I plan to play, so I don't get influenced one way or the other.

In any event, I used one Lynn lineup, and I got lucky it was also my best hitting lineup with an obvious Dodger stack (Adrian Gonzalez, Joc Pederson, Yasmani Grandal and Alberto Callaspo), Brandon Moss, Ben Zobrist and Marlon Byrd among others.

That I had Callaspo in there at all was an accident as I set my rosters an hour before game time, but the Dodgers-Rockies were late to come out with their night lineups because they were still wrapping up the first game of their doubleheader. I actually had Justin Turner, and I realized at 4:03 pm PT (two minutes before rosters locked) he wasn't playing and needed a similarly priced ($2800) replacement quickly. I scrolled down the 3B list to the $2800-range and saw Callaspo at $2700, didn't like him but had no time to be picky. It was better than taking a zero.

Fast forward five hours later, and my team is 14th out of 44127, roughly 12 points out of the $20,000 first place spot. The Dodgers were down 8-5 in the ninth inning with Callaspo, who had gone 1-for-3, leading off.  He singles, and the Dodgers load the bases with no one out, and I'm thinking not only is he likely to score, but Pederson and my other Dodgers are coming up. But first, Turner, who entered the game as a pinch hitter steps to the plate. And I'm thinking - how crazy would it be if Turner hit a game-winning grand slam, and I cost myself a couple thousand dollars because at the 11th hour I caught my "mistake" of leaving him in the lineup. Mercifully, he struck out, sparing me a descent into permanent despair, faithlessness and nihilism.

Then Peterson comes up - and keep in mind I can't actually watch the game because I live in Los Angeles and have DirecTV rather than Time Warner - and on the MLB.com site, it says he flies out to left fielder Brandon Barnes. I have no idea how deep it was, but with the Dodgers down three in the ninth, it made no sense for Callaspo to tag, and therefore no sense to get me a run and an RBI, two valuable points. But the next batter Alex Guerrero hits a grand slam (of course), and I get my run from Callaspo, moving me up the leaderboard slightly.

That brings Adrian Gonzalez, also in my stack, to the plate with two outs and no one on. He walks. Next up, Grandal (in my stack), gets a single. Next Howie Kendrick (not in my stack) miraculously walks, and who should come to the plate but Callaspo again! I'm not the only one with Dodgers, of course, and in the meantime the Chris Archer teams are moving up as well, but I'm 10.5 points out of first at this point, and a grand slam is worth 11 to me (nine for Callaspo and one each for Gonzalez and Grandal). Even a single or double moves me up from $400 into the thousands - pending the Archer win and also some points for other players in the top 10 who have Dodgers. Callaspo works the count to 3-2, fouls a pitch off, then lines out to center field.

In the end, with Archer getting a few more Ks and the win, I probably would have finished sixth at best ($2000) had Callaspo gone deep, and I'm sure it would have been more like 10th ($1000) because Gonzalez and Grandal would have added 1-2 points for a few others. Without those 11 points (actually it was negative .25), I wound up 143rd, good for $150. But it was cool to be one swing away from the big score.

In the end, I invested $60, took back $150 for a profit of $90. I had $1010.60 when I started the day, now I have $1100.60.

One other note: I recommended Clay Buchholz Monday on our SXM show, and afterwards a Twitter follower pointed out Buchholz was much better on the road. I looked it up, and he was right, but the game was rained out anyway, so I didn't think much of it. But tonight when I was setting lineups, I suppose I had internalized the significance of Buchholz's home/road splits (dating back a few years) and didn't even consider him as an option. Would I have used him had I not gotten that Tweet? I'll never know, because it was a whole different slate of pitchers, and chances are he would have been matched with one of my many losing stacks of hitters anyway. But it shows the danger of letting your ideas be influenced by the opinions of others, even if they have good arguments. If you've watched baseball for a long time, and something strikes you as interesting or plausible, trust it.