Benjamin Grimm

Aguila hits for Santana. (Pssst, Willie: Keep in him the game in left field! Late inning defense! Do it!)

Easley's now been plunked twice today. I'm assuming that Willie will PH for Santana this inning. I'm sorta hoping he doesn't.

HE STRUCK HIM OUT! Ten K's in 7 innings for Johan.

Owings hitting for Haren. Does Valadius have an erection right now?

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I guess what I don;t get is why Tatis today when Aguila hasta be the better fielder and Santana such a flyballer. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Tatis should only play left field in an emergency. Treat him like he's Rusty Staub in 1985.

Santana through 6: 96 pitches, 9 strikeouts, 2 walks, 2 hits. The pitch count is probably too high to expect him to go the distance, but I do like to see a CG/ShO.

I'm with Ralph!

Santana's thrown 72 pitches through four. Hopefully he'll get a quick inning or two so we can get him through the 7th inning.

G-Fafif wrote: Ralph and Ron arguing (actually mildly contentious) over Willie removing Pelfrey in the ninth last night. Nice when Kiner is treated like one of the guys. Who took which position? Me, I would have kept Pelfrey in until there was one more baserunner.

I guess that means that Alou will go on the DL about 11 days from now.

Wow. Santana strikes out the side in the second. (And had two in the first.) That's the way to do it when you have Fernando Tatis in left field.

I'm going to put on my Valadius hat: Why the HELL is Tatis playing left field?

I agree. I'd let him pinch hit, or come in for late inning defense so that he can still take pride in playing 162. But I think that David could, as Ed Coleman would put it, "use a blow." (And who couldn't?)

I found this interesting: ]Had the Braves not left in 1953 for Milwaukee it is quite possible that in a few years they would have become more popular than the Red Sox as they went on to win 2 pennants and a World Series in Milwaukee led by a young slugger known as Henry Aaron. Today we might be fans of Boston Braves Nation. A similar quirk in timing affected Philadelphia. For so many years, the Athletics were the dominant team in that city, but at the time that the first wave of franchise moves hit in the 1950's, the A's were in a downturn and the Phillies had recently won the 1950 NL Pennant. And I remember reading that Bill Veeck was jockeying for the Browns to get the upper hand in St. Louis at that pivotal time, in the hopes that the Cardinals would relocate and he'd have the city all to himself. (That effort, obviously, failed. He probably never really had much of a chance.) But if the Braves had stayed in Boston, and the Red Sox had gone to Milwaukee, or Kansas City, or wherever, I imagine that the Pirates would have gone to the NL West in 1969 (the Cubs and Cardinals were insisting that they stay in the same division) which would have certainly made the early years of divisional play much different. The 1969 race would have featured the Mets, the Cubs, and the Braves, who won the NL West that year. And the Pirates ended up winning the NL East five years out of six starting in 1970. If they were in the West instead, they might have taken some of the steam out of the Big Red Machine and cleared the way for some lesser teams to compete in the East during those years.

It doesn't have to be Tatis though, does it? Easley and Anderson are possibilities as well.

Voting for Tuesday night's 9-5 loss to the Diamondbacks will close on Friday morning: http://cranepoolforum.net/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=9244

Yes, but I think he's had some good pitching performances on regular rest. "Wins" are a fun stat, but they don't really mean a whole lot. Pelfrey pitched great last night, and didn't get a win. For a while now, my hope for Mike Pelfrey was that he'd find himself, and despite his shaky beginnings, would become a quality dependable starter. (Craig Swan and Mike Scott are Mets pitchers who did this.) I'm allowing myself to be optimistic that we're seeing that happen now.

I don't even remember Trachsel as a 29! (I'm much less likely to notice or remember uniform numbers than I used to be.) The only name that I associated with 29 was Magadan.

Pelfrey 5 Beltran 5

I was one of the two Beltran votes. I stopped watching immediately after the home run, but I popped in here briefly before going to bed last night. I definitely went to bed anticipating a loss, so it was a nice surprise to hear about the win. But since I didn't see it, I still haven't fully shaken the contempt and disgust I felt at seeing Pelfrey's terrific performance go down the drain.

Gary asked Omar "what surprises you the most?" and Omar said the "streakiness." The question made me think: Of all the reasons the Mets are around .500, are any of them particularly surprising? The only one is that Beltran is having a subpar season so far. Nothing else seems surprising. Not the injuries. Not the uneven performances from Perez.

So, does Aguila step in as the starting right fielder until Church returns? I figure, why not?

Well, yesterday's loss means they'll have to play .626 to get to 92 wins. (And who says 92 will be enough.) What's discouraging is that they have to play at a .626 pace to get to only 92 wins. (92-70 is a .568 winning percentage.)

Which is exactly the reason it would be a great move: fewer sacrifice bunts. I'm sure Randolph wouldn't see it that way, but hopefully he'll be fired soon.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Our team is dead-diddily-ead. I feel the same way. And it sucks that we're already at this point in mid-June.