Opening Week O-o-T-S

[Frayed Knot]

- The reigning NL MVP HR'd in the top of the 1st in Atlanta
Murph, batting 5th following Zimmerman and before Werth, draws a 2-out walk in his first Nats' AB
1-0 Nats. Scherzer vs Teheran


- Yanx/Astros rained out in the Bronx
Ditto BoSox @ Cleveland (snowed out actually)
Delayed: Twins @ Bal'mer


- If Cincy is so upset about the disregard of tradition and their loss of the first game of the season status, why do they then delay their game until 4PM?

[Frayed Knot]

FFF (Fucking Freddie Freeman*) goes long in bottom 1 to tie it up - and thus prevents Scherzer from any shot he had at "consecutive" no-hitters.

Jeremy Blevins, you're on notice.



* copyright ZVon Enterprises Inc.

[Frayed Knot]

Nats score one in the 9th and another in the 10th to win 4-3. Not a lot of good bull penning from either side.
HR, 2B, 2 BBs, 2 RBI for Muffy

Edited April 4, 2016 by Guest

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Dodgers beating the shit out of the Padres 9-0. I think Kershaw can hold this lead.

[Chad ochoseis]

Zach Greinke has an RBI single, but is getting hit very hard in the 3rd against the Rox in Phoenix. 5-1 so far, one out, runner on 2nd.

OE - 7-1 in the 4th, with Greinke still in. Trevor Story, who is replacing Jose at SS, has 2 HR, 4 RBI so far in his first MLB game.

OE - Dbacks make it 7-5 with a bases loaded single. The genius in the booth notes that it's "the biggest hit of the Diamondbacks' season so far".

[Frayed Knot]

The 'Utley Rule' claimed its first victim in yesterday's Nats/Braves game when the Nats were awarded a double play, even though the throw to 1st was clearly late, after Nick Markakis's slide into Daniel Murphy was ruled illegal.

The slide was legit in that Markakis started before reaching 2nd (unlike Utley) and was well within reach of the bag, but it looks like they nailed him on the over-slide portion of the rule when he failed to hold onto the base and wound up a couple feet past it.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

MFYs playing their first game now, leading 2-0 on a 2-run dubble by Starlin Castro in his first MFY AB.

Astros threatening now in 4th, 1st & 3rd, 0 out.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Lotta empty seats in The Great Ball Yard in the Bronx. Pussies.

[Guest cooby classic]

And those that are there look cold heehee

Tonight's game at Pittsburgh oughta be nippy too

[Ceetar]

d'Kong76 wrote: Lotta empty seats in The Great Ball Yard in the Bronx. Pussies.

This is interesting. If the rain date for the opener isn't actually going to draw that well, is it really needed?

[Frayed Knot]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: MFYs playing their first game now, leading 2-0 on a 2-run dubble by Starlin Castro in his first MFY AB. Astros threatening now in 4th, 1st & 3rd, 0 out.

3 in the 8th for Houston off Bettances. Astros still batting, up 5-2

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

MFYs lose 5-3!

Even got to hear Sterling call "Yes, inDIDI! Yankee fans are uproarious... for Gregorius!"

[Guest themetfairy]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Even got to hear Sterling call "Yes, inDIDI! Yankee fans are uproarious... for Gregorius!"

Makes you want to wash your ears out, doesn't it?

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I love John Sterling! Love him!

[Frayed Knot]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: MFYs lose 5-3!

Yanx protested the game.
During that 8th inning rally for the Astros, Carlos Correa (who HR'd earlier - #MVP candidate) dribbled a swinging bunt up the 1st base line. Had the throw from Bettances hit Correa he could/should have been out as he was running well inside the baseline as he went, but the toss was a shot-put lob which sailed several feet over the head of Teixiera and into short RF.
Girardi is claiming the position of the batter/runner affected the throw (although Bettances never had a good grip on it) and therefore should have gotten the call. Needless to say, the umps disagreed.

I don't know exactly the rule reads but I've never seen it called on a runner for merely being potentially in the way and there should be zero chance that this is going to stand up.

[Guest d'Kong76]

He had a beef, dude ran up the grass the whole way. Protest away.

[Frayed Knot]

Sure. But is it interference without the ball actually going anywhere near the runner?
And whether the runner affected the throw or not all comes down to a judgement call by the umps (they did get together on it) and judgement calls never get flipped.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: MFYs lose 5-3! Even got to hear Sterling call "Yes, inDIDI! Yankee fans are uproarious... for Gregorius!"

I have to say... that's pretty terrible-magnificent.

Frayed Knot wrote: The 'Utley Rule' claimed its first victim in yesterday's Nats/Braves game when the Nats were awarded a double play, even though the throw to 1st was clearly late, after Nick Markakis's slide into Daniel Murphy was ruled illegal. The slide was legit in that Markakis started before reaching 2nd (unlike Utley) and was well within reach of the bag, but it looks like they nailed him on the over-slide portion of the rule when he failed to hold onto the base and wound up a couple feet past it.

Interesting... especially on a day where Utley himself did something a little bit janky, slide-wise.

[Frayed Knot]

The Jays/Rays game Tuesday night [u:ropi4oex]ended on a slide-rule call[/u:ropi4oex], and not just on a slide rule call but on a [u:ropi4oex]replay reversal[/u:ropi4oex] of a slide rule call that essentially reversed the outcome.

Jays batting / Down by a run / Bases-loaded / Top 9 / 1 Out --- Bouncer to 3rd gets winged to 2nd for the force but then thrown wildly to 1st (looked like batter/runner would be safe anyway) allowing not just the runner from 3rd to score but the one from 2nd as well. So it's Jays still batting, now [u:ropi4oex]UP[/u:ropi4oex] by a run with a runner at 2nd/2-outs.
But a replay review determines that the sliding runner didn't attempt to stay on the base (too busy pawing at the fielder's foot) so the out at 1st was awarded, both runs negated ... Game Over, Rays Win!!

The bitter and often macho-leaning Toronto manager John Gibbons, perhaps predictably, took the 'next we'll be wearing dresses out there' route in his post-game comments.



http://m.mlb.com/news/article/170622448/new-slide-rule-impacts-blue-jays-rays-ending

[Edgy MD]

Frayed Knot wrote: Sure. But is it interference without the ball actually going anywhere near the runner? And whether the runner affected the throw or not all comes down to a judgement call by the umps (they did get together on it) and judgement calls never get flipped.

The thing is, guys are almost always out of the baseline.

It shouldn't matter unless (1) they are out of the baseline avoiding a tag, or (2) out of the baseline interfering with a play. The pitcher's responsibility, I guess is to realize that the reason he can't get a clear throw to the bag is that the guy is out of the baseline, and so make a throw that's not exactly an intentional beaning of the baserunner, but in modestly good faith directed at the bag, but indifferent to whether it hits the runner.

That's perhaps a lot to ask of a fielder hustling to make a play. The argument the team seems to want to make is that the runner outside the baseline interfered with the play not by running into a fielder or getting hit with a thrown ball, but by obscuring the line of sight to the base.

That's not altogether unreasonable, but it's a stretch, and I doubt that the protest review committee (protest review board? guy? Joe Torre?) is big about setting that sort of precedent, essentially making new rules based on an interpretation of established rules. Baseball just doesn't tend to operate that way.

[Frayed Knot]

So who's the top story of the opening week? ... why it's Trevor Story of course: 3 Games, 4 Hits, 4 HRs
Story is the rookie SS for the Rockies, their 1st round (45th overall) draft pick in 2011 out of an Irving, Tx HS

In doing this he becomes:
- the first player in history to HR in each of his first 3 ML games
- the first to have each of his first 4 ML hits be HRs


The 4 HRs also give him more Colorado HRs as a SS than Jose Reyes did in a half season last year.
With no word yet on when Reyes will be ready to play or when the suspension everyone knows is coming will even allow him to play, you wonder what will become of him when he gets back.
At $22 mil over each of the next two seasons (although the suspension would relieve them of some of that) plus another $4 mil for the buyout to keep from paying $22 again in 2018, one wouldn't figure that they'd be looking at them releasing him with that price tag but it's not like he'd bring back a lot in a trade either.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

MFYs knocked Collin McHugh out of the box with 6 runs in the first inning tonight but Pineda goes out in the second and surrenders a salami to George Springer and its 6-5.

[Frayed Knot]

Yanx withdraw their protest from Game 1

[Frayed Knot]

The top early statement series of this season goes to Pittsburgh and their three-game home sweep of the Cards; the Bucs sandwiched wins of 4-1 & 5-1 around a 6-5 11th inning walk-off.
For a team that has been looking up at the Cards since forever ago and has got to be desperate to avoid a 4th straight finish in the precarious WC spot while also having to contend with the overwhelming betting favorite Cubs (hell, the already-anointed Cubs in some circles), that's a nice way to not fall into an early season funk.




The not-so-hot start of the year goes to San Diego who not only got swept at home by the Dodgers but failed to even score, losing 15-0, 3-0, and 7-0

[Guest d'Kong76]

Frayed Knot wrote: The not-so-hot start of the year goes to San Diego who not only got swept at home by the Dodgers but failed to even score, losing 15-0, 3-0, and 7-0

Which is now being reported that it's record!

Interweb Interplanetary wrote: On Wednesday, the Padres became the first team in baseball history to be shut out in three consecutive games to start a season. San Diego was swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers.

[Edgy MD]

What a star-crossed franchise they are.

In a favorite novel of mine, Foolscap, by Michael Malone, the author describes this hapless aristocratic British family, whose great house has fallen into hard times over the centuries. They've historically been decent folks as far as landed gentry go, but they have a family history of always betting the wrong horse, backing the wrong prince whenever there's been a struggle for the crown, being Catholic when it was safer to be Protestant, being Protestant when the smart move was to be Catholic, selling off land when there's been whispers of land reform that turned out to be nothing, but holding on to land when it turned out to be forfeited years later.

In latter years, they've kept up the estate by turning it into a tourist attraction, making it gaudy by adding a zoo and a medieval torture dungeon, but always one sad attraction behind the neighboring big house, and so still hemorrhaging in value.

The Padres always strike me like that, finally figuring out that it's OK to zig, just when everyone else has put zigging behind them and the real foreword-thinkers are zagging.

Fire up the 1962 Mets tracker.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Reds slapped an 8 run 4th on the Phillies to soften them up some
for us tomorrow...

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Sterling in good form today. First "It's is HIGH, it is FAR, it's is... off the wall and uh, Castro is in a second. Uh, he's out" of the season!

Astros up 3-1 on backtobackbellytobelly HRs

[Frayed Knot]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Sterling in good form today. First "It's is HIGH, it is FAR, it's is... off the wall and uh, Castro is in a second. Uh, he's out" of the season!

Did you hear Sterling's call when Castro hit an actual HR? -- Star-light, star-bright... Oh Starlin hit that with all his might




Yanx shutout today on 3 hits by Jordan Zimmermannnn and a couple of Tiger relievers (including former MFY Justin Wilson) in Detroit's home opener.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Frayed Knot wrote: John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Sterling in good form today. First "It's is HIGH, it is FAR, it's is... off the wall and uh, Castro is in a second. Uh, he's out" of the season! Did you hear Sterling's call when Castro hit an actual HR? -- Star-light, star-bright... Oh Starlin hit that with all his might Yanx shutout today on 3 hits by Jordan Zimmermannnn and a couple of Tiger relievers (including former MFY Justin Wilson) in Detroit's home opener.

I did. He added "Oh, Starlin. You're DARLIN'!"