Frayed Knot

Quickie Phils KTE for our home opening series: 3-3 so far. Lost 2 of 3 vs Boston, took 2 of 3 vs Washington (but, hey, doesn't everyone?) Haven't scored much [16 RS in 6 games] but kept every game, with the exception of their opening day 8-0 blowout loss, close. Went Xtra innings with Nats twice (1-1) Their presumed usual lineup (copied from above) Ben Revere, cf Freddy Galvis, ss Chase Utley, 2b Ryan Howard, 1b Domonic Brown, rf Darin Ruf, lf Carlos Ruiz, c Cody Asche, 3b will be missing Dom Brown to the DL. Replacements so far have included the 'younger than you think yet older then their time' duo of Grady Sizemore & Jeff Francouer along with something named Odubel Herrera (a rookie 23 y/o Venezuelan) who sometimes bumps Ben Revere over to LF so figure on him having a decent glove if nothing else (3/14 at bat so far). Also Andres Blanco (Andy White?) has been switching with Asche at 3rd. Blanco is apparently an eight-year veteran including part of last year with Philly although I have no idea that he even existed so your guess is as good as mine. On the pitching side we'll miss both Hamels (pitched Sunday) and Cliff Lee (on the 2,548 day DL), drawing instead: - brief Met Aaron Harang on Monday afternoon - 2014 Philly David Buchanan on Tuesday night vs Harvey - and journeyman (7th team in 10 years) Jerome Williams vs Niese on Wednesday night And, yes, Jonathan Papelbon is still around (and presumably still an asshole) despite hourly rumors that he's going to be traded everywhere from Boston to Queens to the Taliban.

Ya gotta just treat Sterling as entertainment. If you're going to get hung up on things like wanting score updates, or actual (and accurate) descriptions of where the hit just landed or where the runners wound up then, yeah, you're going to want to pull your hair out. But if you think of him and Suzyn as akin to the voices of slightly out of place puppets or something -- like maybe the baseball version of those two old guys on the Muppets -- then a radio game of the Yanx can be a real kick.

Here's a way to drive some viewers away from tonight's Sunday Night telecast: Karl Ravech said that the announcers would discuss the "Yankees Mount Rushmore." That -- Picking the Franchise's "Top Four" in history -- is actually an MLB-wide thing they're doing for all 30 teams throughout the year so ESPN is going to be flogging that every week - even on those rare occasions when the Yanx aren't on Sunday Night Baseball. And speaking of Sunday Night Baseball -- or at least the hour-long BB2N show before the game -- remember when it was the place to go for the day's highlights from all the Sunday day games that just ended (or maybe were ending on the west coast)? Now that show seems to be about 50 minutes of promos for the game coming up and/or the crew talking to each other with just a few highlights from selected games only jammed into the remaining time.

Muffy deserves at least some props for Sunday's game -- Braves IW Tejada and bring in a LHP just to pitch to him and he delivers the tying run. The brutha deserves a sip or two!!

Edgy MD wrote: [fimg=200]http://www.danspapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/2.CuddySD.jpg[/fimg] (Sag Harbor, NY) Gotta be Keith's new hangout, no?

ATorres - 0.4 Gilmartin - 1.1 Duda - 2.1 Lagares - 0.4

Frayed Knot wrote: I don't care what MdD does for the rest of this season, [crossout]that inning[/crossout] those three outs make [crossout]s[/crossout] the Blevins trade already worth it. And, say what you will about managers over-playing L/R (and I agree that they do at times), but Fredi having those three LHBs lined up in a row [Markakis, Freeman, Pierzynski] plays right into the hands of a good LOOGY Now I realize the Braves were stacking the lineup today vs Bartolo, but even one RHB mixed in among those three hitters there at least changes the thinking for Terry and maybe the outcome.

Nice going Jeurys. Friends don't let friends suffer sweeps.

I don't care what MdD does for the rest of this season, that inning makes the Blevins trade already worth it.

Ceetar wrote: think the Mets get 86, or 99 wins this season? It's a secret ... and one that's out of your control.

metirish wrote: WOW, Gary and Ron reporting that Mejia is also banned from the post season should the Mets make it That doesn't make sense to me. The penalties are what they are, they're dictated by the CBA and I don't see where it would apply to any post-season play which would occur a full half-season after the time has run out. The Giants, three years ago, chose not to put Melky Cabrera on their active roster for the playoffs but that was their choice, not a league dictate. IOW, not being selected is not the same thing as being banned.

Could have been a better inning ... on the other hand it's tough to complain about getting ONLY three runs when you amass all of one hit.

In a related note, Jenrry was caught trying to hide his stash inside an 8-track cartridge.

Ashie62 wrote: The drug was Stanozolol, same one that got Palmeiro. If accurate that's like going old-school steroids. You might as well try to carry a big-ol' Colt .45 in your carry-on luggage through an airport as the odds of getting away with it are about the same.

The biggest problem here is that, by leaving Ian Desmond back in Washington, we don't have our best offensive weapon of the season with us this series.

See you in August dummy! (maybe) oe: Not looking good for those who voted for Jenrry and the 'Over' in the saves category. Actually there were two Mejia questions: Will he lead the team in saves (18 of 24 said YES) and Over/Under on 19.5 Saves (15 chose OVER)

Small consolation about last night's sloppy game is that the Yanx have lost twice since the end of our rain-delayed contest and looked at least as bad doing so. - First on Friday night, despite starting two hours before ours and despite scoring at home in each of the 9th, 16th & 18th innings, they lost to Boston in the 19th in a game which ended about 2 in the morning (just under 7 hours in the cold). OK I didn't watch much of this one (which is good because every time I did tune in the Yanx were tying the game up again). But considering they never once held a lead and tied it up three times in their potential last AB (a 9th inning/2-out HR by Headley, a 16th inn HR by Teixeira, and an 18th inning RBI 2B by Beltran) I would have hated to see them win it. 17 pitchers were used in the game and I hadn't heard of at least half of them. Lots of turnover on those two staffs over the winter. Sox 6 - Yanx 5 - and then Saturday afternoon (a start time just 11 hours after the end of Friday's game) they looked even worse in the field than we did vs Atlanta. Part of that was due to a make-shift lineup after the long game, but ARod looks lost on 1B (one error plus at least two other questionable plays) where he was making his first ever ML start, And, like us, there were only 3 official errors but a slew of other mis-plays, throws not made, and stuff hitting off gloves which went for hits, etc. Sox 8 Yanx 4 (and it was only that close thnx to a late 3R HR by Chris Young) All of which makes the Yanx 1-4 so far this season and their only win was when they rallied for 3 runs in the 8th vs Toronto, and that's supposing one can call: an infield pop-up double -- a short single -- HBP -- Wild Pitch -- IW -- HBP -- and then a 2-RBI infield single off the pitcher's glove a "rally". So other than the fact that their pitching, hitting, and defense all looking shaky, they look pretty good.

I think Terrry (Sandy?) is determined to ride Flores long enough in order to see what they have there rather than pull him in Game 4 on the basis that they think there might be trouble. The disturbing part is that all the drama turned out to be on the throws where he had seemed reasonably sound previously. Doesn't help, of course, that he's also not hitting (small sample size alerts all around).

deGrom - 3.0 Montero - 1.0 Murphy - 1.0 d'Arnaud - 1.5 Duda - 0.25 Wright - 0.25 Lagares - 0.25 Flores - 0.25

Gwreck wrote: Gary called it a "shocking mental error" by David. Could probably say the same thing about Lagares's dive too. You hate to suggest that he curb his aggressiveness but he really never got all that close to that ball and by diving wound up turning it into a double. And how did Wright not get an error charged on that earlier play? And then of course there's Wilmer's night.

Now we just need a 2-run comeback off of Kimbrel ... oh wait!!

Montego threw real well that whole inning - not just on the ABs that turned out well. He deserved better right up to that last pitch. Bad defense all night, even where there weren't errors.

Nice to break the HR-drought and am grateful for them tying up the game ... but innings with 5 hits including 2 HRs plus a walk should yield more than 3 runs. Muffy's GiDP was certainly ill-timed.

Granderson's walked five times now this season and has scored after three of them. And four of those walks came on full counts and I know at least two, and maybe three, of them started with him down 0-2 Not that I don't want him to start hitting one of these days, but it's a decent sign and I'll take what we can get here.

That's Chris Johnson in the Braves lineup, as opposed to Kelly -- which makes sense vs Niese seeing as how Kelly hits LH