Frayed Knot

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Tejada's lifetime OBP is .327. That's crap in my book, although, yeah, so was yesterday's collection of position starters. NL league-wide OBP last year was .312 Is .310 so far this season

So, Braves. Being up by a score of 9-1 after two innings over a reeling division rival with your ace (Teheran) on the mound is probably not the best time to blow a game. Final: Nats 13 - Braves 12 Deciding blow was a Dan Uggla 3R 1-out/9th inning HR off closer Jason (been near-perfect up to this point) Grilli

Biggest sin of last night was Carlyle giving up halfway to home whilst Recker was hustling his ass off to retrieve Carlyle's WP. If Buddy doesn't practically stop on his way to home only to gear up again too late then he's at the plate waiting for the on time and accurate throw and we probably get the out on Ozuna.

ATorres - 0.6 Montero - 2.5 Lagares - 2.2 Murphy - 1.7 Granderson - 0.5 Nieuwenhuis - 0.5 Recker - 0.5

Goeddel - 0.5 ATorres - 0.5 Murphy - 2.0 Lagares - 1.5 Granderson - 1.5 Cuddyer - 1.0

Harvey - 5.0 Duda - 1.1 Campbell - 1.0 Plawecki - 1.2 Lagares - 1.7

In what's looking like a complete turn-around from a couple years back when they were scoring all their runs early in games but rarely late*, this year's club has been basically putting the offense on hold the first time through the order. Runs Scored by innings: 1st - 3rd = 24 4th - 6th = 48 7th - 9th = 23 That 7th thru 9th number is a bit misleading in that when you win every game at home you rarely wind up batting in inning #9 (never so far in our case, in fact Murph's HR the other night were our only three 9th inning runs of the year) so our 1st thru 3rd innings are by far our worst and the gap between them and innings 4-6 (4 thru 7 really) are stark. And while it's fun to win close games and all, I wouldn't mind seeing them jump out to big leads every once in a while either. It's also not like they're being shut down by top-notch pitchers every night. Eric Stults -- scoreless & hitless thru 3 Aaron Harang - scoreless on 1 hit thru 3 Jared Cosart - scoreless thru 4 David Phelps - scoreless thru 4 Tom Koehler - bombed him in the 4th but only after going hitless thru 3 Trevor Cahill - one hit thru 4 until they got to him in the 5th Stults again - 1 run on 4 hits thru 6, won the game off the Atl pen Coast again - 2 hits thru 8 Phelps again - scoreless thru 5 on some harmless 2-out singles Not really sure there's a specific solution to this problem (aside from, y'know, hitting better) but ours is certainly not a good enough offense for each player to give away his first AB with the idea that it'll just come along later. They've ridden some nice timely hitting in the middle innings and a pretty good bullpen to this hot start -- keep in mind that we WON most of those games listed above -- but it's not like you can count on that happening every night. Walks and some sloppiness certainly had a big hand in last night's loss but so did going down meekly over the first half of the game to a spot starter. This all also doesn't bode well for when we start hitting some GOOD starters. The Nats may suck so far but we're still going to hit some combo of Strasberg/Zimmermann/Fister/Scherzer this weekend [scherzer? I barely know her!] * 2008 (further back than I thought): Inn 1-3 = 342 runs scored; inn 4-6 = 253; inn 7-9 = 191

Man this game is dragging, at this rate it might take 2:15 or so before it's over!

* Murphy's shot -- that was about six rows deep over a 392 sign. I wasn't sure it was gone off the bat but I knew it had at least tied up the game. He certainly put a charge into that one. * on Gee -- folks tend to forget that he had a 28-start/176-inning stretch (from his NYY game in May 2013 thru his injury of '14) where he rung up a cumulative 2.76 ERA and 1.11 WHiP. Not saying we should expect this as the norm but he's certainly capable of lengthy stretches of goodness. * Cishek was certainly pitching away from Duda. He can be a good pitcher but it's tough to rely on a LH-closer who's so vulnerable (and/or 'fraidy-scared) to LHBs * Lagares would have caught Ozuna's shot had it been the exact same as Lagares's shot which Ozuna couldn't reach * it wasn't on the bunt/DP play, but Realmuto definitely used his mask on one play to (briefly) stop a rolling ball. That's definitely not kosher although I don't know exactly how the rule reads. * while I wouldn't want super-quick games to be the norm, last night's was nice as a change given the lengthening trend of recent years. Nothing wrong also with games that run 3+ hours, it's just that low-walk/low-hit games should be quick because everything else is, virtually by definition, dead time.

Was Nixon ever photographed NOT in a suit?

According to the descriptions and accounts (but not the pictures) of that game at BB-Ref, Lopes stole 2nd before scoring on Russell's single, so it's the notation between 1st & 2nd that's wrong (or at least unclear) rather than the one between 3rd and home.

Edgy MD wrote: Ceetar wrote: I think this rule was previously a power of the league president, but I'd have to look at an archive for that. If so, where is the rule stating how that's handled now? club presidents? sometimes it's just Manfred decided these things,because they're usually trivial. In 1973, the rule change was voted on by club presidents, who approved it, 8-4. So, no. Keith Olbermann told a story on his show yesterday about the NL putting adoption of the DH to a vote (around 1980). Philly GM Bill Giles was owner Ruly Carpenter's agent at the meeting and he had instructions to vote FOR it. But when the resolution stated that adoption of the rule, even if approved, wasn't going to begin for another two seasons Giles wasn't sure what to do and was unable to reach his owner who was out on his boat fishing in the Delaware Bay that day. So Philly wound up abstaining in the vote and that one non-vote was the margin which kept the resolution from passing. The NL has never brought it to a vote since. Makes me kind of nostalgic for the days when people were routinely unreachable. Actually a lot of things make me nostalgic for those days.

MFS62 wrote: If the rosters stay at 25, why would the elimination of that rule eliminate jobs? Those hitters would be replaced by other players. So why would the union object? Because they're the highly paid "stars"? Tough. That, of course, is exactly the reason they'd object. I think that argument's a bit overblown in that the days of each team having one designated (and usually old, slow, expensive) guy to be the everyday DH are at least partially gone. Many teams rotate several guys in and out of that position either on a strict platoon or they'll DH guys who also play the field several times per week. But then think about how much more reluctant teams will be to sign 30-ish y/o hitters to lengthy deals [ARod, Pujols, Fielder, Miggy Cabrera, Cano, etc.] knowing they have the fallback position to make them either partial or full-time DH's in the back half of those deals, and how the union sees those contracts as the kind of rising tide deals that lift all the other boats. That's why, as Grimm said above, the only way you could possibly get rid of it would be to set a deadline maybe 10 years in advance so that every team has fair warning and it won't blow up any current contracts.

How to finish a game in under two hours Below are batters/pitch chart for each side last night: first chart is for the top half of the innings (Cosart and then Cishek in the 9th) and then the second one if for the bottom halves (Gee, then 1 pitch from Torres, then the 9th inning from Familia). Not until bottom 8 & top 9 were there more than 4 batters in any half-inning. The only 2 baserunner inning prior to those (top 6th) also had the game's only GiDP between those two runners. [table:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]Inn[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]Batters[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]Pitches[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]Hits[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]Walks[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]Ks[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]1st[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]4[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]12[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]1[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]2nd[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]4[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]11[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]1[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]3rd[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]4[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]15[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]1[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]4th[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]3[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]16[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]1[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]5th[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]3[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]10[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]1[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]6th[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]4[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]14[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]2[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]7th[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]3[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]7[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]8th[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]3[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]8[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]9th[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]7[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]28[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]3[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]1[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]2[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][/table:beg0dx1k] Check out those middle innings for Gee: 6 pitches thrown in the 4th, followed by by 10, 5, and 7. 28 pitches is less than ONE inning's work in some cases and would be considered reasonably efficient for two full innings. [table:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]Inn[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]Batters[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]Pitches[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]Hits[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]Walks[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]Ks[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]1st[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]3[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]8[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]2nd[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]4[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]8[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]1[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]3rd[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]4[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]15[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]1[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]4th[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]4[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]6[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]1[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]5th[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]3[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]10[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]2[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]6th[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]3[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]5[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]7th[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]3[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]7[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]8th[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]6[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]12[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]3[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]1[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][tr:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]9th[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]3[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]15[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]0[/td:beg0dx1k][td:beg0dx1k]1[/td:beg0dx1k][/tr:beg0dx1k][/table:beg0dx1k]

Gee - 4.0 Murphy - 4.0 Lagares - 1.0 Familia - 0.6 CTorres - 0.4

Couple of oddities: - Game Time = 1:58 - Winning Pitcher = Carlos Torres who threw ONE pitch

Daniel Murphy: Beer hog.

Would have liked to get that extra run in, but oh well. Now we need a quick bottom 9 and we wind up both with the 'W' and keep inside the two hour barrier.

Sunday night's blooper aside, Campbell is a really good baserunner.

Dear Frayed, Fuck You. Sincerely, Danny

These low-scoring tie games get more nerve-racking as they go on when you're on the road. Once you don't score in the top half the one half-inning advantage the home team has on you grows in proportion. 6 ABs vs 7 isn't as bad a disadvantage as having just 1 more AB to their 2 (as it is right now in the 8th). oe: but now two quick outs helps things a bit

This game could be over before 9PM at this rate. Of course it could also still be 0-0 at that point so it could go 16 innings and still be done by 10.

Lefty Specialist wrote: Hell, why not have 9 DH's? Have an offensive team and a defensive team. Lots of crappy-hitting shortstops and catchers, too. That's where the simplistic 'Who would you rather see ...' argument falls apart. Sure, I'd rather see Papi hit than a BoSox pitcher. But I'd also rather see Papi hit over their .195-hitting catcher Ryan Hannigan. And I'd rather see someone else run the bases other than Papi so maybe a Designated Runner is in order. And I'd rather see Rey Ordonez field (even now) than either Flores or Murphy ... and there's no end to where that argument goes if carried to its logical conclusion.

This IS the rule to the game. -- What is? And where is that declared how that's going to be handled and who can and cannot block it? -- I have no idea what you mean by this. MLB has the power to alter rules with the consent of players and umpires depending on who is affected. In 1973 the AL decided to create the DH rule and did so via a vote by their clubs (by 2/3 majority I believe). The NL never did any such thing. I think this rule was previously a power of the league president, but I'd have to look at an archive for that. If so, where is the rule stating how that's handled now? club presidents? sometimes it's just Manfred decided these things,because they're usually trivial. -- NONE OF THESE THINGS can be decided by just one person, whether by the league presidents, or Bud Selig, or Rob Manfred, or Manfred Mann. And I have no idea what is being referred to as "trivial"

Frayed Knot wrote: Catcher with Salatalamacchi & Realmuto (mostly Realmuto) is the only place they platoon. Whoops, check that, Marlins DFA Saltalamachhia just one year-plus after signing him to a 3-year contract. Owed $7 mil for 2015 + $8 mil for 2016