Frayed Knot

I'm not sure if this surgery has been common enough for there to be kind of reliable before & after track record. That Wheeler's odometer will likely click over to 36 (late May) before he throws an MLB game again isn't a factor in his favor. He's signed through 2027 and either stated or strongly hinted earlier this year that he'd walk away when this contract is done.

fwiw, the Mets have said that they felt that McLean needed work on facing LHBs and wanted to see progress there before bringing him up. Just because he's had two fine games in August doesn't mean that also would have been the case if brought up in May or June. Wright had less than one season's worth of ABs (just over 400) in AA & AAA combined prior to his ML debut. Reyes had just under 500 at those same levels, all of them as a teenager, when he was called up. Neither situation suggests that their ML debuts were unreasonably delayed.

from mlb.com: Zack Wheeler was diagnosed with venous thoracic outlet syndrome and the recommendation is to undergo thoracic outlet decompression surgery in the coming weeks. Details of the surgery are forthcoming. The timeline of recovery from the surgery is generally 6-8 months. None of that sounds like fun. Six months puts him to early March at best. Eight and you're into May. * didn't see this at the tail end of another thread

The Cards @ Rays played yesterday and will again tomorrow but are off today. I have no idea why. Phils won. Reds are on the short end of an 8-0 score in the 7th in Arizona

Vientos just may be catching fire.

Something not really game related but just a point about the Braves in general. They've been praised for their locking up young players to pre-arb and therefore team friendly contracts [Albies, Acuna, Riley, Harris] and rightfully so for the most part. But is the worm starting to turn? - The team has options on Albies for each of the next two seasons, but he's produced just one 100+ OPS+ in the last four seasons and is in the midst of the worst season of his career [OPS+ = 78]. At this point it's not clear if his option will even be picked up. - Austin Riley [signed thru 2033 has just been shut down for the season and has seen his OPS/OPS+ heading south for four straight years [140, 130, 115, 105]. He also has been available for about 2/3 of the games in '24-'25 [212 of 324] following three straight Top-10 MVPs. The adage of the 'Best ability is often avail-ability' comes into play here. - Michael Harris was RoY despite spending about a half hour in both AA & AAA. But his OPS/OPS+ has gone down in each of his four season [133, 116, 99, 93] and he's had to put on a furious run lately just to get his current number to 93. He's signed thru 2032 although the club has '31 & '32 options. Is he going to be a net plus moving forward? - and while Acuna is obviously elite, elite doesn't help you if it's not on the field. This is his 8th season and 2019 & 2023 are his only full seasons. So in 2020 - '22 plus '24-'25 he's played a shade over half the time (53%). Signed thru 2028 with team options in '27 & '28

And look at Holmes threatening to go seven!

Frayed Knot wrote: Five runs, two swings. And with both more or less winding up in the same place. Quickest. Time. Ever. for a post to become obsolete.

Five runs, two swings. And with both more or less winding up in the same place.

Taylor sure doesn't look rusty despite sitting for like 75 straight games prior to this weekend.

That evidence was definitive? Really?

Edgy MD wrote: I had to go intervene in a neighbor fightTM, so I missed how they got out of that first-and-third situation. Marte's arm, you say? FO: 7 - 2

Red Sox 12 - Yanx 1 That's three straight NYY losses in this series (outscored 19-5) and eight straight to the BoSox overall. They'll finish the 4-game set on SNB Yanx had come into the series hot and the Sox not but the script got flipped. Rough NYY debut for Paul Blackburn. He actually tossed 2-1/3 scoreless after coming in to a 5-1 game w/2 out in the 6th, but then the roof fell on him in the 9th as he got hung out to dry facing 11 hitters and giving up the final 7 runs.

FDSSO = Fan Duel Sports South,, the regional network which carries Braves games. Fan Duel is merely the current naming rights holder.. Prior to this year it was Ballys, prior to that those regional networks were under the FOX brand.

=ashie62 post_id=202029 time=1755914439 user_id=90]Big win

Frayed Knot wrote: I'm starting to think that we may pull this one out. Starting to waver.

Red Sox 1 - Yankees 0 is your final as Aroldis Chapman closes out the game for Boston (I didn't know he was on that team). Sox pass the Yanx in the standings (now up by a 1/2 game for the top WC slot) and have won 7 of 8 in the season series. Seattle is 1.0 G behind the Yanx pending their result later tonight.

Cool! That was 3-0 Nats, then it was 4-3 Phils.

I'm starting to think that we may pull this one out.

The Yanx/Sawx game (currently 0-0 in the 5th) was interrupted for a few minutes by a squirrel running around the infield. Not sure if the Sox were charged with a mound visit or not but the critter went right up to the pitcher to see if there was any grub underneath the dirt.

What's our record this year in game where we hold a 7-1 lead? Is it above .500?

The Braves picked up Joey Wentz off waivers from the Twins a bit over a month ago when all their starters were on the IL. It's his fourth team in a four year ML career [DET, PIT, MIN, ATL] and his third in 2025 alone. It's also his second time in the Braves org as they originally drafted him [1st Round/40th overall in 2016] but dealt him away as a minor leaguer. He has a career 5.35 ERA across 110 ML games so naturally in seven games/six starts with Atlanta he's at 2.60 with a sub-1.00 WHIP

So I won't be able to watch tonight's disaster unfold. Howie on the radio, Yanx/Sawx on the TV (muted)

I watched that game for a while but couldn't hang until the end. Who but the Sawx & Yanx could manage a 3:25 9-inning game in the time clock era. The Sox didn't exactly cover themselves in glory either. At one point their runner on 3rd walks over to the coaches box to discuss something and gets picked off.

The main league that went with names (mostly founders and other long time execs) as division/conference titles was the NHL but they eventually abandoned that. They also got away from the small division model and went with four eight-team divisions so Manfred has a model to copy from if he can see beyond the 8x4 model. The NHL's Eastern Conference is divided into the 'Atlantic' and 'Metropolitan' divisions, the West consists of the 'MidWest' and 'Pacific'.