A Boy Named Seo

Chuck James is the dork that broke his hand jumping off a roof, right? Good start so far, 1-nil, bases loaded in the bottom of the first as I type: Us: Reyes - SS Wright - 3B (first app. this year batting 2nd) Beltran - CF Delgado - 1B PeeHands - LF Castro - C Green - RF Easley - 2B Ollie - P Them: Kelly Johnson - 2B Renteria - SS Lawrence Jones - 3B Andruw - CF Frenchy - RF McCann - C Diaz - LF Craig Wilson - 1B James - P Perez sounded sharp on my radio, K'ing two in the top of the first.

Benson in the '79 "We Are Family" get-up. Those shoes and the long pant legs don't really fit, though. And is the ball still in his glove? What up?

]"I love playing behind Dukie. We're good friends." Ramon Castro, 4/19/07, hopefully talking about sharing the catching duties...er... getting to back up Lo Duca... um..., I mean, you know what I mean.

Muniz picked up his second save in as many chances tonight as the B-Mets shut down the Thunder of Trenton tonight in Eastern League action. He had the Scarlet Knight family backing him in person tonight as he shut down Trenton in they house. Thanks again for the email update, SK!

Frayed Knot wrote: ]Baseball Cube had limited info on him. He was born in Amherst, NY in May, 1985.Baseball-Reference.com (and Gary Cohen) have him born in The Netherlands. Limited and apparently inaccurate. Van Der Beek does expose the ball very early in his delivery. Wonder if the dudes could see his grip? Castro popped that like he knew it was coming.

The Fox Sports Florida guys said Vanden Hurk speaks fluent Dutch, German, English, and Spanish. They said Olivo was freaked out the first time Vanden Hurk spoke to him in Spanish. His hook is pretty serious. Baseball Cube had limited info on him. He was born in Amherst, NY in May, 1985. Here's a thing from MVN (the Most Valuable Network, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean). #11 Rick Vanden Hurk - Starting Pitcher - 22 years old - Throws: Right - Bats: Right Signed at age 17 out of the Marlins’ Dutch academy, Rick Vanden Hurk has been one of the more successful European imports in the system. Pitching in just 8 games between the Gulf Coast League and Jupiter, Rick was absolutely dominant this season. He had a combined 1.80era to go with a 0.92whip and a 14.76k’s per 9 innings. The one caution area is the 5.04 walks per 9 that he was allowing, but that can be attributed to his lack of command after coming off of elbow surgery. Throwing on a steep downhill plane, Rick throws a 96-97mph fastball to go with a big 12-6 rolling curveball, which hitters have a hard time with coming off his fastball. Vanden Hurk was invited to the Hawaii Winter League this season and had a very promising short season there. His velocity started to fade as the HWB season progressed but that is not much to worry about. In 40 innings, Rick compiled a 2-2 record with a 3.60era with 17 walks and 60 strikeouts. Opposing batters hit just .162 off of him in the HWB. The 6-5 Dutchman should start the season off in Carolina and spend most of the season there before having a chance to make the big club out in 2008. Although if the big team needs bullpen help, he may be in line to make the Marlins out of Spring Training.

Get Charlie Manuel and Joey Crawford in the octagon NOW!!!

Not to be. He's starting at B'ton, a jump from St. Lucie, where's he's spent most of the last 2 seasons. 6 K's in 3 IP so far. C-ya soon, C-Los.

Uh oh.

Is there any reason to dispute this streak because it's occurring over the course of two seasons? The Nats announcers last night said that peeps are talking about David Wright's hitting streak, but it's not legit. I think Jimmy Rollins' streak last year was under the same circumstances. Pretty sure that Cal Ripken game streak didn't reset on Opening Days.

"Great catch, Endy!" "And he what?" "Endy made that catch, that's all." "But you said, 'and he'..." "I know, Endy made the catch". "But what'd he do first?" "Endy ran to the ball." "What do you mean 'and he' ran to the ball? He had to run to the ball first!" "That's what I said!"

From FanGraphs.com: The play log has win expectancy for ever batter of the game, plus some other neat stuff. Edit: Got rid of the graph. I don't want to fuck up the game. You can still get it here.

7 hitless for Felix Hernandez...

I thought there was a way to switch to "Classic" mode, but I can't figure out how. No ad in the right pane and the larger box score almost makes the old one the way to go, but I'm a sucker for the pitch speeds and ball trajectory.

I think it's still the coolest thing I ever read.

That is the coolest thing I've ever read. And he's dead-on about all of it, especially Wagner. No question mark necessary. Lou Reed. Met Lovin' Bigshot. Great find.

Willets Point wrote: So now that this game is over, someone explain to me what a lidlifter is.Hope opener. Like peeling the top off a new can of tennis balls.

="Johnny Dickshot"]Met wins this season have been a lot about the opposition fucking up.7 runs, 2 earned in the 8th. Yikes. At least we're taking advantage.

Nice to see you again, David. And your 18 (19?) game hit streak is still in-tact.

Rotblatt wrote: ]Can't make too big a deal out of 6th-inning matchups in April. This was as good a time as any to see how/if he'd rise to the occassion.I'd argue that every game counts until you clinch, and that it was pretty predictible how Burgos would do against Howard given their respective histories. I'm not saying you'd predict a home run, but it's a no-brainer that Burgos is less likely to be successful against Howard than one of our lefties. Yeah, that's not the kind of situation Burgos would be used in anyway, even if he was successful for the team this year. Feliciano's killer against lefties, and that's pretty much all Schoenweis can do. You have to walk Howard, the reigning freaking MVP Howard, and face Burrell, or bring in one of the lefties. You want to see what he's got, but you still have to give your team the best chance to win.

The Indians are going to host the Angels... in Milwaukee. Hmmm...

They've already called today's games, too. My friend is a huge Indians fan and already took vacay in May for the series out here w/ the Angels. He's hoping Mother Nature knocks it off and lets the kids play this week.

Rotblatt wrote: Bizarre-sounding play. According to Howie, the catcher Ruiz called for the pop up, but Howard didn't hear him and barrelled into him.Reyes did the right thing and hustled despite hitting what should have been an easy out, winding up on second . LoDuca gets jammed but hits it to the right side, advancing Reyes to third. Beltran walks, and Delgado hits a long fly ball to bring Jose home! Edit: Wait, it was Nunez? How did the 1B collide with the 3B? I shouldn't be listening to Mets games while trying to work. I suspect I'm not doing either thing particularly well. It was Nunez. The pop-up was right at the mound where Nunez and Howard converged. On the replay you could see Nunez calling it, but Howard kept drifting and drifting and slammed an elbow into his head as they both reached for the ball. The Lo Duca grounder was no accident. First pitch he took a hack at a high fastball and tried to drive it. In the dugout after the AB, he was shaking his head and saying "too high". He wasn't trying to move anyone over with that first pitch. Then he tried to bunt and fouled it back. On the grounder to second, though, he really went "inside out" as the dudes in the booth described ad nauseum.

Rotblatt wrote: ]Back-to-back 3-2 change ups. That kid's got some stones.But that's his out pitch! What the fuck were Wright & Delgado thinking--that he'd groove a fastball in there? Come on, guys, read your scouting reports! Last inning he busted off a wicked 2-1 curveball to Beltran and all he could do was watch. He's thrown any pitch in any count today. Maybe they did read the scouting report and it just said "Good luck".

Great job, Gwreck. Cole Hamels looks outstanding. 23-years old, almost 12.5 K/9 in 200 IP in the minors and he doesn't really walk peeps either. I'm excited to see him pitch, yet I'm a little scared at the same time. He gave up 19 homers last year in just 132 IP, and 10 of those came on the road, so he wasn't really victimized by his home park. Seems like if he just keeps the ball down a little, he might be a monster.