Frayed Knot

I'm going out of turn here and also skipping around, but while looking into this squad it's tough to go position by position because they don't have a lot of guys who have had set positions since the start of the season. Only Martin at catcher (51 starts) and Josh Donaldson at 3B (60) have started at one position more than 45 times in Toronto's 64 games this year. So considering all that, WTF is up with LF/RF/1B Chris Colabello? The 31 y/o was plucked off waivers by the Jays over the winter after playing part-time over the last two seasons for the Twins who had signed him as an un-drafted FA in 2012 at the age of 29! Prior to that his �career� had consisted of playing for mighty Assumption College in Worcester, MASS and then for Worcester & Nashua in the independent Canadian-American Association for Seven Seasons!! (2005-2011) And now he�s hitting .343/.382/.490 in the major leagues!!!! (after .214/.284/.364 in spot duty w/the Twins) Nice pickup by the Jays, but I�m calling Bullshit if they try to claim that they knew what they were getting when they put in the waiver claim last winter.

27 y/o lefty-swinging Ryan Goins (rhymes with Coins) filled in at SS when Jose Reyes was on the shelf earlier in the year then took over the starting 2B job about three weeks ago after an injury to rookie starter Devon Travis so he's racked up mostly full time ABs this season while also appearing briefly at 3B and in LF/RF. With the bat, his line of .235/.270/.353 [12 XBH in 153 ABs] qualifies him as the weak link in this otherwise outrageous Toronto lineup.

Phils lost 3 consecutive one-run games in Pittsburgh this past weekend including twice by the score of 1-0 in extra innings (Friday in 13 innings, Sunday in 11) That's hard to do even if it were somehow intentional. Also, ex-Philly Antonio Bastardo was the winning pitcher for the Pirates both times. Saturday was a garden variety 4-3 loss which means the Phils scored just 3 runs over a 33 inning span. Talk about having a [u:81hpw1cg]Noffense[/u:81hpw1cg]!

The only odd thing I see in his stats is that his walk rate is about half what it was last year. But the BA is up a couple ticks and the slugging is up significantly [iSO 2014 = .067; ISO 2015 = .134] with more HRs (2 vs 1) and almost 2x as many XBHs already this season as in all last season in approx 40% the ABs

As per breaking news from the 'Mets Roster' thread, the Mets are apparently ready to call up 22 y/o Akeel Morris [u:27vvoxrg]from A+ Post St Lucie[/u:27vvoxrg] to bolster the bullpen. A 10th round draft pick in 2010 from St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, ya gotta like [u:27vvoxrg]44 Ks and 10 hits allowed in 31 IP[/u:27vvoxrg] although the 14 walks should give pause (or paws ... but not applause). Also had a 0.63 ERA over 57 IP in low-A Savannah last year. Was already on the 40 man roster which partially explains the seemingly out of LF move and should require the least amount of paperwork to promote.

It's progress and that's what you want to see from 19 year olds (20 y/o on Monday).

Mets Guy in Michigan wrote: I can't remember the last time a Met has jumped all the way from A ball to the majors. Did Gooden do that? Gooden pitched the entire year in A-ball in 1983 -- that was the infamous 15-4, 300 Ks in 191 IP season -- and then pitched in the playoffs that same year in AAA. By the following opening day he was with the big club having never experienced AA or AAA in the regular season.

[fimg=500:16wrk7fz]http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.10542299.1434313722!/httpImage/image.JPG_gen/derivatives/display_960/image.JPG[/fimg:16wrk7fz] Looks like somebody besides us is paying attention and counting up to a milestone. I wonder if the pics on that sign were arranged alphabetically, chronologically, or are just in random order.

I'm not going to claim now that I saw the comeback coming, but this game had a whiff to it from the very beginning that something out of the ordinary was not just possible but almost likely. If they hadn't answered for an inning or two after it became 8-3 then the interest level would have gone down, but that they came back with 2 in that same inning, which turned out to be the second straight 'crooked number' inning and the first of four straight, kept the optimism up. Nice also to see a lot of the fire power come from the young pups.

Best win of the year? Mebbe. Certainly the most unexpected. Could have been a sweep but for the (rare) bullpen failure on Saturday. But we skated past some danger in both Friday's game on today's so we can't get too greedy. And how 'bout a 10-8 game with 28 hits, 7 walks, and 16 Ks in under three hours? Barely under (2:59) but under. See, it can be done. Take that Yanx/O's who are approaching hour 3 still in the 7th inning of a 5-3 contest. And also Houston/ChiSox a couple days ago who somehow stretched a 4-1, 8-1/2 inning game into 3:12

Edgy MD wrote: Ron and Gary agree that we wasted Maybone there. Yeah, me too. That was a perfect spot for deGrom. If he gets on then you've got Granderson up already w/2 hits under his belt for the day and and a runner on. And if not then you haven't wasted 1/4 of your bench.

Edgy MD wrote: Ruben watched a first-pitch meatball go by. And Dilson watched a last-pitch meatball go by.

Yeah, we missed Travis. Shouldn't this Cuniff guy be playing for the Pirates ... and be managed by Terry?

What was that candy commercial slogan from a few years back: Not going anywhere for a while? Well this game isn't going to end anytime soon either. 2 run innings are nice, but it would also be nice if we'd force the pitcher to retire more than one batter in an inning. And it would be nice if Dillon could maybe miss a few bats every now and then.

Gee I hope we can win this series. Dillon Gee -- not a 6th starter but one who has been inserted into the "Spot Start" role -- faces off against Mike Foltynwicz [3-2, 4.72, 1.49] a 23 y/o who had 16 relief appearances last year w/Houston but has started 8 games for the Braves this season since his call up on on May 1st. A former 1st round draft pick of the Astros (19th overall in 2010), they dealt him to the Braves over the winter for Evan Gattis, who I believe is an actual cave man.

Was put on the DL with a sore right shoulder. My question is, WHY? He's still usable.

Are you just going to say this reflexively after each and every loss or are you going to toss in a cogent argument one of these days?

Neither. They simply claimed him on waivers. The problem is that this puts him back on the 40-man roster (they had to move Blevins to the 60 day DL in order to clear room). But now they've got to make room tomorrow for both Gee (off bereavement list) and Tejada (off paternity) so they'll probably have to expose him to waivers again in order to send him down. Muno is obviously going down and maybe one of the relievers too. But Ceciliani has done enough to stay so Kirk shouldn't be booking any cross-country flights just yet.

Just too many mistakes. We dodged them all Friday night and dodged most of them today. But sooner or later that stuff is going to bite you. - you know your infield is in trouble when Campbell is used as a defensive replacement. Yeah I know it was a double switch more than anything, but when EC is a defensive upgrade you've got a problem. And even if the glove isn't a problem, Muno clearly doesn't have the arm for that side of the infield (neither does Campbell really but he at least fakes it better). And when I see this revolving door at 3rd, I think back to all the bitching some Met fans did for years about Wright's defense, about how anxious some were to shove him across the diamond to 1st. No folks, he's what you WANT in a 3B. - I was shocked that Fredi G didn't bring Grilli back after his 8 pitch 1-2-3 10th inning. And two leadoff singles later it was looking like a huge mistake ... until Ceciliani made a huger one. - I can't believe Simmons was able to get on top of that nose-high fastball up the middle leading off the 11th.

As soon as I saw 'Batman' and 'Bachelorette' in the same sentence my first thought was: What embarrassing publicity stunt has Harvey agreed to now?

A couple of switcheroos for both managers today Jace Peterson - 2B Cameron Maybin - CF Freddie Freeman - 1B Nick Markakis - RF Kelly Johnson - LF AJ Pierzynski - C Chris Johnson - 3B Andrelton Simmons - SS Shelby Miller - P Curtis Granderson - RF Travis d'Arnaud - C Lucas Duda - 1B Michael Cuddyer - LF Wilmer Flores - SS Darrell Ceciliani - CF Dilson Herrera - 2B Danny Muno - 3B Jacob deGrom - P If Jim Johnson relieves in the game for the Braves today it'll be a three-Johnson day for them.

And just think, the Mets get Kirk back and are sitting on that pile of money they got from the Angels. I bet that was the plan all along!!

Markakis had himself a tough night even beyond normal 0-fer-5 standards 5th inning: bases loaded/2-outs, down by one after the Braves had already scored twice in the inning to cut the lead down to one. Result: soft come-backer to Colon 7th inning (A Torres): bases loaded/no-outs, down by two. Result: GiDP, scoring a run but effectively killing the inning even though not ending it (Uribe then did with a come-backer). 9th inning (Familia): bases loaded/one-out, tying run on 2nd/go-ahead on 1st. Result: Game ending GiDP Blevins, if available, certainly would have been in for that middle AB while the first and final ones would have been the same cast of characters. But, yeah, all it takes is one hit, even a single, in any one of those situations and it's a totally different game.

So did you ever think you'd see the days when you'd almost look forward to a game that comes down to a battle of the bullpens. Well, in NL East intra-division games anyway, the ammunition for those battles is decidedly in our favor and not just in a category or two but in all of the biggies [ERA, batting average against, OPS-against, WHiP] and by a substantial margin in most cases including, perhaps not coincidentally, fewest innings pitched. TEAMERABAAOPS-AWHIPIPMETS2.68.2146161.128161.33NATIONALS3.67.2536811.283184.0BRAVES4.65.2467371.376178.0MARLINS3.76.2576871.318201.0PHILLIES3.22.2547081.463190.0 Not bad for a collection that's gotten exactly ZERO innings so far from 4 of the 5 relievers who one hoped would be the most relied upon as the season started: Mejia, Parnell, Black, and, because he figured to be the top LHP out there, Edgin. We're also -- as noted several times last night -- LOOGY-less these days and probably will remain so for another month or so.

Triple Happiness Alert: Mets over Braves Nationals lose to Brewers Yanx & Pineda get swamped by O's And, btw, watching the Mets game while also trying to monitor the Nats & Yanx games PLUS US-v-Sweden isn't easy. I may have sprained by remote thumb.