Frayed Knot

WE caught a YUGE break there.

Brewers have one solid contact this entire game ... and if they end this inning without double digits in runs I'll be surprised.

Senga had a shutout going with a low pitch count (53) thru four innings ... and then he doesn't even come close to getting thru the 5th.

No way this is going to come back and bite us either.

You knew as soon as Senga dropped that ball that the runner was going to score. You didn't necessarily know it was going to be on the very next pitch ... but you knew it was coming in one form or another.

A. J. Ewing is a guy 'on the rise' in the NYM system according to the prospect gurus at mlb.com Another small-ish (5' 11" / 160) offensive guy, he was a 4th round draft pick in 2003 out of an Ohio HS between Cincinnati & Dayton. Listed as a 2B/OF, he is said to have "plus speed" and is starting to look like a "potential plus defender" in CF. He's also cut down on the K-rate in his 2nd year of pro ball which had been split in 2025 between low-A & high-A where his .312/.413/.436 slash line shows a very good walk rate though with below average power. Turns 21 on Sunday

Anthony DiComo (mlb.com) discusses Sproat, McLean, Tong https://www.mlb.com/news/mets-prospects-mclean-sproat-tong-climbing-ranks

Vientos put up an 837 OPS (136 OPS+) at age 24 across 454 PAs last year. He's 200 points below that now (641/83) but the odds of his '24 season being an unrepeatable one-off are small. Maybe his 'true' self winds up somewhere in between, but the guy was out-HR'ing Alonso last year on a per/AB basis. That can't have been a mirage. Soto is 80 OPS points behind his career mark and 120 behind last season. Lindor is ~60 & 100 down in the same two categories.

Moving Lindor to 1B is a colossally dumb idea.

From New Jersey, played softball (catcher) for Hofstra, and then high level amateur softball. Also umpired college softball before turning to baseball. When she started in minor league ball in 2016 she was just the 7th female to do so. Article didn't mention how many are currently in the system. 48 y/o

After losing 2 of 3 to the Rangers, the Yanx will get a visit from the other Texas team this weekend so their path doesn't get any easier. The Phillies head to Arlington for a set with the Rangers so their game times will pretty much synch up with ours. The Braves are hosts to the Marlins for a five game series (THU, FRI, SAT x 2, SUN) which I mention for a couple of reasons (currently 6-5 MIA in the 7th)* - this is where the female ump will debut (starting Friday or Saturday I think) and will work the plate in the Sunday tilt - and when was the last time the Braves & Marlins played when the Marlins had a Nine Game Lead over Atlanta? The Braves, who started the season 0-7, have spent two days this year over .500: they were 23-22 on May 16 and 24-23 two days later. They're now 47-66 after going 9-21 since July 1st, although with a 'Pythagorean' score that suggests they should be some 7 games better. From May 7th thru June 8th they went 10-19 which included a stunning 13 losses by one run (and three more by just two). So they're both bad AND unfortunate! A minus 30 RS/RA doesn't normally result in being 19 games under .500 Other series of note: Cubs (tho now 4 G behind MIL) @ Cards; division leaders Jays @ Dodgers * Braves win 8-6

Yup. Instead of the OPS w/Runners coming up to match the overall OPS the overall OPS has slid towards the other. When I looked at this in late June the Mets were 6th in OPS but 14th in RS. Now, six weeks later, the gap between those has closed but both are lower. Soto, who was the worst offender at the time with an OPS a stunning 500 pts lower w/runners on, is now just a mere 350-400 pts lower: Empty = 1034; Men on = 650; RiSP = 690 so I suppose that can be considered some progress even though his season OPS has dropped 100 pts since then. Today's lone run came via his 26th HR, 20 of them are solo so 26 HRs nets just 32 RBIs. The other six had one runner on so his next 3R or GS as a NYM will be his first.

Problems in dealing with 'Third Time thru the lineup' data: - small sample size: Lots of pitchers go through the lineup once and twice but fewer even start to go through a third time and if you're limiting yourself to only complete third trips thru than that reduces your sample size even further - as mentioned above: those partial third time thru trips are likely to involve only the theoretical better hitters so hitting [bAA, OPS, etc] numbers would likely skew higher In addition to teams looking at data (shaky as it might be) to make their decisions, pitching staffs are much more bullpen heavy than they used to be, both in terms of size (five has morphed into eight which becomes more like 15 as shuttle services are factored in) but also in quality. There are so many high octane arms out there who are (ideally) only going to throw 10-20 pitches in a game that it makes the gap between a starter, even a good one, with north of 75 pitches under his belt and a [6th, 7th, 8th inning] reliever is not what it once was, particularly in this era when starters are usually all-out, all the time. Back in the day the only bullpen pitcher who might be considered an improvement over a top half of the rotation starter was your end of the game "fireman" (before they called them closers). Managers might pull 4th & 5th starters in favor of someone from the pen ('they all used to go 9' is a gross exaggeration) but few out there were going to be better than Seaver or Kooz on their 3rd/4th lap around thee scorecard. Many bull penners back then were often either hopeful future starters still on their way up or aging starters on their way out. And many were simply failed starters on board to fill mop-up, long relief, or spot stars rolls. Now teams can run a conga line of dudes with nasty stuff out there starting in the 6th or 7th that it gives the manager reasons for a quick hook. Not that I'm advocating for it as a knee-jerk reaction as certainly the particulars of the pitcher and of the game need to be considered. A starter might be given the chance at the 7th/3rd-time-thru but it usually comes with a short leash which often means 'until someone gets on'. If and when that happens to the first few hitters it further negatively skews the 3rd-time data which in turn can be used to justify both a switch in that game plus the wisdom of an early switch as a matter of course as you start to breed a 'better too early than too late' kid of mindset.

No official announcements that I've heard about, but it just occurred to me that Anthony Rizzo isn't playing anywhere this season, major league or minor, after 14 ML seasons and 18 years after being drafted in the 6th round by the Red Sox. The Yanx bought out his option last winter at which point he became a FA. He turns 36 on Friday.

=ashie62 post_id=200517 time=1754509090 user_id=90] Tough times, 1st inning booth was making fun of the Skanks possibly being out of WC3 tonight

I suppose that depends on how interested you are in him. It's quite comprehensive, or 'long' if you prefer that term, dealing with everything from childhood to the present. It does get a little repetitive at times, as in, What's Billy depressed about now? [father abandonment, bad record deals, life on the road, failed marriage(s), bad reviews, dishonest financial manager/brother-in-law, etc.]. But it's not a total inside job. The film makers appear to be free to discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly. All four wives chime in, as does his adult daughter, some ex-bandmates (even the one whose wife he stole and the one that sued him), plus thoughts from Bruce, Sting, Jackson Browne, and others in the industry. So I probably wouldn't recommend trying to pull it off in one sitting, if you're interested in the subject you'll probably find it worthwhile.

And so we settle for partial embarrassment: No-hit for 12 consecutive innings, sweep, 9 runs scored in the whole series, losses in 8 of last 9. Y'know, the usual.

Tying run on deck.

We're down to rooting for avoiding total embarrassment. Partial embarrassment would be OK, just try and stay away from total, mmmKay?

Thanks to all the new betting options, I was able to get down a bet that the Met will be no-hit. So I placed that bet for today's game and for all three games in Milwaukee as well. I expect to clean up!

Edgy MD wrote: Gotta pinch-hit for Mullins and/or Torrens here, right? With one of the hot guys, right? The Phils just lost. So there's that.

The team can't insult FMan like this!!

Through 11 NYM batters today, Luis Torrens' FO to CF stands as their only ball hit out of the IF. Add that to the final 15 batters from last night and it's 24 straight PAs with no hits, 3 BBs, and two balls leaving the IF

Frayed Knot wrote: Insurmountable deficit? Now it is.

Insurmountable deficit?