Frayed Knot

Mini-KTE Since we last saw the Marlins (all of 8 days ago): - Christian Yelich is on the DL meaning that Ichiro has been pressed into everyday work. - other than that they've had a very stable lineup. Catcher with Salatalamacchi & Realmuto (mostly Realmuto) is the only place they platoon. But Stanton, Hecchavarria, and Gordon (RF, SS, 2B) have started every game with Ozuna, Morse, and Prado (CF, 1B, CF) starting virtually every one. - are winners of 5 straight including a 3-game smackdown of the Nats: 3-2, 8-0, 6-2 - we'll see the same starters in this series that we saw in the first three games last week: Cosart, Phelps, Latos. We smacked Cosart around (5 runs on 7 hits over 5.1). The other two didn't pitch that poorly but also didn't last too long. - been getting good pitching lately: 1, 1, 2, 0, 2 runs allowed over their last five games. We managed to not even see closer Pat Cishek in the earlier series while Familia got saves in 3 of the 4

Yes, any league MAY ELECT to use it. That means that by a vote of the league's clubs (approval by the owners) and, because it is a change in the rules of the game, consent of the players, a league may agree to start (or stop) using the rule But that's a far different scenario than Manfred sitting up on high saying: 'I decree that starting tomorrow ...'

Edgy MD wrote: And, as I try to discuss every time this issue comes around, is there really strong evidence that the DH works better for the players' interests? I think it works well for a small cadre of high profile players [Papi, Pujols, Fielder, etc. - either permanently or in their near future] and the union tends to hear their voices louder than others and often to the exclusion of others as we saw with the steroid issue which was ignored for years for fear of offending the upper crust. The union's quite silent also on tobacco use even on the heels of Tony Gwynn's death. But in the larger sense you're right. Even if the benefit thing ins't totally false argument it's at least one with a bunch of holes. The narrative usually goes that if there were no DH then baseball would have never known the likes of Edgar Martinez & David Ortiz. Sure we would have, they'd have been 1st basement; bad ones maybe, but of course they never had incentive to even try to get better so maybe not. And if their bad fielding DID diminish their overall careers then by definition it would have been to the benefit of the guy with the lesser offense but the more complete and balanced game. The DH does not now and never did CREATE a job, it merely alters the criteria for one of them.

Ceetar wrote: Considering I believe the only thing that has to happen (either for adding or removing) is simply the Commish to be all "Make it so" at the beginning of the season. He's a commissioner not a dictator and as such can neither make it happen unilaterally nor banish it. This is an owners + players decision. The best Manfred, or his successor, can do is try to steer the argument.

TransMonk wrote: HBO has been airing a two-part Sinatra doc lately. There is a shot of Mookie during the '86 victory parade in the middle of a "New York, New York" montage near the end of the film. Of course, there is also a shot of Jeter celebrating one of the Yanqui shampionships a few shots later. Right, because Sinatra dying just two years into Jeter's career meant they had so much in common. If we revise history enough maybe in a few years it'll start to become accepted fact that Frank sung that song in honor of Jeter.

Baseball players getting hurt while playing baseball is a lousy reason to insert rules that release them from playing certain aspects of baseball. In this particular case, Wainwright's injury sounds like the same one as Ryan Howard's from a couple years back as was acquired in essentially the same way. Yet while Howard's injury was treated as just part of the risk of playing, there's a call to arms to alter the rules so as to ensure that even the possibility of that ever happening again to Wainwright and to anyone else who plays his position is quickly removed. All that said, There's ZERO chance of it going away in the league it's already at. The Player's Union doesn't want to lose the job and the owners don't want existing contracts to older players to look worse than they already are. I fear the possibility of it becoming universal are much stronger than the reverse with a debate as to whether or not that makes it a better game never entering the discussion.

OK, sideshow's over. Back to the divisional grind tomorrow. Nice of them to schedule a 1,000 mile trip right after a night game, btw. And not just a night game but a later starting night game.

I'd REALLY like to see them get to Miller. This Yanqui closer tandem is like a pair of power forwards.

They could knock five minutes off of game times by adding just one simple rule: All close plays at 1st go against the Mets We've lost every challenge -- both ways -- so far so they can just skip the whole replay part.

No Ellsbury, no McCann, no Gregarious vs the lefty. Plus I guess McCann needs to sit the night game after the day game.

btw, Mark Teixeira is on pace this year for 72 HRs and 36 doubles, but just 27 singles.

Lefty Specialist wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: I'd love to see him get his ass kicked. Yes. It's a nationally televised game, and it'd be nice to come out of it with the whole nation murmuring, "Hey, those Mets are pretty good this year" around the water cooler tomorrow morning. Plus there's just the whole thing where Yanqui fans are resigned to the fact that CC is going to be mediocre at best (for like $80 more million) and that Tanaka's elbow ligament is down to the thickness of a linguine strand (for about the same $$) which could snap at any moment, so to have one of their few young hopes get his ass kicked (on national TV or otherwise) would just thrown another worry log onto their fire.

Yanx are hoping they've landed a diamond in the rough with Eovaldi who they got from the Marlins over the winter in exchange for Matin (the devil wears) Prado. He just turned 25, though is already in his 5th ML season, and is one of those guys who's always talked about as having great "stuff" even though his results over a four years w/LAD & MIA have yet to match the projections as he's as likely to pitch a turkey as he is a gem. So we'll see lots of mid-90s numbers and talk of "heavy sink", but his K numbers are nothing special (barely above 6 per/9 in this K-happy era) and, while his walk rates are decent, his hits allowed are consistently over 10/game including last year when he led the majors in hits allowed (223). The only thing he really excels at is keeping the ball in the park [<1 HR/9] so the Yanx prolly figure that their improved IF defense (now that they've gotten most of the old men off the field) will be a good match for him. I'd love to see him get his ass kicked.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Two key differences between Granderson in 2014 and Murphy in 2015: Granderson was in his first year as a Met, with a multi-year contract. Murphy is almost certainly in his last. The games this season look like they will have more pennant race pressure than last year's games did. Also, tons of options to replace Murphy [Herrera, Campbell, Tejada, Reynolds] vs relatively few if any for Granderson V.2014 I don't think Terry/Mets will bail on Murph as early as next week either, but it's getting increasingly difficult to make the argument that they shouldn't. Soupy has more than adequately filled in for Captain Dave and it would be a shame to see him just tossed aside whilst another infielder is sucking big-time (offensively, defensively, brainfensively) in front of our eyes.

Gwreck wrote: I would have pulled Harvey after 7 innings. No sense having him pitch extra when the game was generally decided. Then when he had the quick 8th, I figured that was enough too. (He wasn't protecting a shutout anyway). Factors likely going into Terry allowing him to stick around: - reasonably low pitch count - next week (Tuesday?) is when Montero is scheduled to make his ML start giving the entire rotation an extra day's rest - the week after that the Mets have two scheduled off-days (Monday 5/4 & Thursday 5/7) so more extra rest

April 25, 2015 Mets 8 - Yanx 2 -- Harvey out-duels CC, Mets out-HR MFY 3-1 Marlins 8 - Nats 0 - Washington shutout by Tom Koehler plus 2 relievers on 7 hits, all singles

... which is expected to be in a week or so, is there any way to justify playing Murphy over Campbell? At worst one could argue for them falling into a platoon. But, at this point, Muffy's track record and left-handedness are the only things on his side of the scale while the stuff piling up on the other side keeps, well, keeps piling up.

Rogers on the hook now. We expect ten more in a row ... pressure's on!

Pitch #102 comes in at 98 mph. Or maybe it was pitch #98 at 102, I'm getting confused.

Lefty Specialist wrote: Oh god, Gary, did you really have to bring up Jetes? Well, if he was playing today you know the score would be reversed.

Lefty Specialist wrote: Okay, Harvey getting into cruise mode with the lead. This is good. Yes, although like Terry said in the 'tween-innings FOX interview, they don't necessarily have enough yet.

Toto, we're not in Queens anymore.

Mets Guy in Michigan wrote: PLAW-BOMB!!!!!!! First big league homer! Be nice if he got the ball back, but I'm afraid some YLDB might have eaten it instead.

Don't the Yanx employ the DF when Sabathia pitches? Shirley he can't be expected to dover bases in addition to pitching!

8 - GRANDERSON 7 - MAYBERRY 3 - DUDA DH - CUDDYER 4 - MURPHY 5 - CAMPBELL 8 - LAGARES 6 - FLORES 2- PLAWECKI HARVEY 8 - ELLSBURY 7 - GARDNER DH - RODRIGUEZ 3 - TEIXEIRA 2 - McCANN 9 - YOUNG 5 - HEADLEY 4 - DREW 6 - GREGORIUS SABATHIA