Frayed Knot

Niese - 3.2 Familia - 1.0 Mejia - 0.5 Campbell - 2.2 Murphy - 1.5 Tejada - 0.3 Duda - 0.3 Nieuwenhuis - 1.0

deGrom was one pitch from getting out of it in the 1st. Of course we would have found another way to lose it had he done so, but at least it would have been more interesting. Instead, there hasn't been a hint since then that the Mets have been in this game.

I guess the fact that he never lands again on the soul of his foot and therefore doesn't push off a second time is the reason it qualifies as legal.

Decent hitter, not a lot of power, good runner, not great at an one position but good enough all around so I could fill in anywhere and not hurt the team. But mostly, until I fried my shoulder sometime in the late '90s, I had a freakin' gun. With FK in the OF you ran at your peril.

Their infield has made 4 or 5 plays this series that ours couldn't and wouldn't make.

Young makes the first out ... saves him the trouble of running into one later.

I LOVED fall 'Snowflake League' softball. Played in a league for 15 years or so that started just after Labor Day and went thru November ... and sometimes rainouts and makeups would take us into December and, at least once or twice, into January (OK the conditions for some of those games weren't too fun). But normally it was 9 AM DH's, over usually before noon, cookout and beers in the parking lot afterward, fall asleep in front of football games on TV the rest of the afternoon. My feeling was that as long as it was at least 40 degrees with some sun and at least a reasonably calm wind that the weather wasn't even a factor.

I just like how Gary (and many others) talk about the "unintended consequences" of replay rule. How did none of them see this coming?

I played softball for the better part of 30 years (although only occasionally on company teams) stopping only because life circumstances changed not because I no longer wanted to or felt I couldn't. I played in leagues that started as early in the year as March and in others than ran over the end of the year into January. Sometimes the teams/leagues were fairly serious, sometimes less-so; usually mens teams though occasionally co-ed as well. I miss it.

That's two hard liners down the RF line this inning that were just foul. And then both guys struck out on the next pitch

Frayed Knot wrote: The bigger question is: I wonder when was the last time they were at sub-.500 in the 2nd half of a season? They've had some bad starts before even in some of their dominant years (the year Zimmer had to fill in for Torre comes to mind) but eventually righted the ship before too long meaning that we may have to go back to the early '90s to find them under the midpoint past July 1st The only report I've read so far says that this is the latest in the season they've been under .500 during the Girardi era - but I'm sure it goes back much further than that.

One of us should have kept a running tally of base runners erased this year. Seems to me that the rate we've thrown away hard-fought base runners has been unusually high, and by unusually I mean absurdly.

d'Kong76 wrote: There are 'reports' that Alex Rodriguez was given permission by MLB to take steroids. That claim is supposedly put forth in an upcoming book: BLOOD SPORT: Alex Rodriguez, Biogenesis, and the Quest to End Baseball's Steroid Era -- Tim Elfrink & Gus Garcia-Roberts, due out next week. Don't know if these authors are pro (paid by?) one side or the other or if they claim to be objective reporters.

Do the Mets even have a 'strike fast' move in their bag?

Tonight the Braves have probably their best guy going after winning the first two in this series despite getting some pretty sucky outings from their starters that NYM bats weren't able to take advantage of (or not enough anyway).

Yanx lose again this afternoon. That's [u:36eb77se]Five straight[/u:36eb77se] after this sweep courtesy of the suddenly hot (7 wins in last 8) Rays and following losses in the last two games of the weekend to Boston. And what this does is drop them below .500 (about time since they've got a nearly 40 RS/RA deficit this year) for the first time this season since being 5-6 The bigger question is: I wonder when was the last time they were at sub-.500 in the 2nd half of a season? They've had some bad starts before even in some of their dominant years (the year Zimmer had to fill in for Torre comes to mind) but eventually righted the ship before too long meaning that we may have to go back to the early '90s to find them under the midpoint past July 1st I'm sure one of the writers will be on this by tomorrow - and if I get the time and inclination I just may look it up myself because, yeah, if I can dig up that kind of shit I'm just the type of guy who'll get down and roll around in it for a while.

- The Yanx/Rays 2-1 game last night ran 3 hours 13 minutes. Did they honor Jeter between every pitch? I don't know what the hell they were doing, but none of the reasons why a 2-1 game with a two-team total of 13 hits and 6 walks would take 3:13 are good for MLB as a whole. Hell, our POS game was "only" 4 minutes longer but at least that had the excuse of featuring 9 runs scored (essentially leagur average) and had both starters hitting the 100 pitch mark in the 5th inning. And the fact that the Yanx/Rays game was, by 22 minutes, the shorter of the two 2-1 games played Tuesday night is an even worse sign.

- After blowing a two-run lead in the 9th and with the winning run on 2nd, the DBacks logically walked Andrew McCutcheon intentionally to get to Ike Davis. Ike knocked the 2nd pitch into RF for the game-winning RBI - The Yanx/Rays 2-1 game last night ran 3 hours 13 minutes. The Cubs 2-1 win at Fenway somehow took them 3:35 to complete

Niese - 2.3 Torres - 0.3 Granderson - 1.3 Murphy - 1.5 Duda - 1.4 Wright - 1.0 Recker - 1.2 Tejada - 1.0

I think I remember a couple seasons ago when these ratios were even worse (i.e.. scoring more often early, giving up even more late) but that doesn't make this year's version any easier to swallow RUNS SCORED: Innings 1-3 -- 118 (37%) Innings 4-6 -- 115 (36%) Innings 7-9 -- 86 (27%) That gap can be somewhat misleading in that winning home games often means you don't bat in the 9th therefore less chances for scoring yard, yadda, but of course we don't WIN that often at home so I suspect there are only a handful of times when we didn't bat in the 9th. MLB-wide averages for Runs Scored are at 33.8%, 36.3%, 29.9% Our RUNS ALLOWED seem to be more in line with league norms: Innings 1-3 -- 100 (31.5%) Innings 4-6 -- 120 (37.9%) Innings 7-9 -- 97 (30.6%) And yes, for those of you doing the math above, we are ten games under .500 despite out-scoring our opponents during regulation innings by two runs. The negative only comes along when you throw In extra innings: 8 for/14 against on edit: And the fact that the Yanx just now fell to .500 (thanks to their 4th straight loss) DESPITE BEING AT -34 IN RS/RA doesn't make this stuff any easier to take

Now 10 below .500 for the first time all season despite being just 4 runs below .500 so to speak (RS/RA) Maintaining a pace like this should be really, really tough to do but we're managing to do it on a regular basis this year.

Gee whatta shock, chase the starter early then go 1-for-16 against four different pen guys (including two who I think were peanut vendors this time last week) with like 8 Ks mixed in.

I don't think any of the other 9 CFs we've tried out there this year get to that one.

At least one good thing out of Dice-K's performance tonight ... it answers the question about who gets bumped when Gee is ready to go.

So now we know what goes on during those infield mound conferences; it's d'Arnaud saying; 'Hey Murphy, you go long'