Frayed Knot

DeJesus helps quell a potential Yanqui rally in Tampa tonight with a crash-into-the-wall catch in the 7th inning. That's a nice way to get in good with your new teammates (not to mention Met fans).

SF Giants place Matt Cain on the DL (line drive off arm) and in his place called up from AAA Fresno - RHP Yusmeiro Petit

Not sure how the DiceK experiment ends, but it starts with a 9.00 ERA

So Greg Burke gets promoted after a month in the minors, throws five pitches (one hit out of the park), then gets demoted again (quite possibly to resurface in 10 days time).

MdD gets an honorable mention in this week's Ba 'Hot Sheet' Matt den Dekker, cf, Mets. A wrist injury sidelined the 26-year-old den Dekker for first three months of Triple-A Las Vegas� season, but he�s enjoyed the thin mountain air this August, going 12-for-27 (.444) with a pair of homers and a triple this week to push his OPS to .970 for the month. The Mets face a 40-man roster decision on the 2010 fifth-rounder this offseason, so den Dekker may receive a September callup if he remains healthy and productive.

Edgy MD wrote: Not beating up on the guy, but my concern with him is that he doesn't bring much on defense. His defense may well be sub-par at SS (all 70 innings of it) but, again, that's why he's not the starter there. And considering the duo who have been our starters, it's kind of nit-picky to complain about how the back-up is somewhat limited. Anywhere else I don't have a problem with his glove, especially for a guy who starts about 1 game out of 6.

A bit tough here on Turner, no, especially seeing as how his role is that of a utility guy where he's currently hitting at above league averages for both BA & OBA and has covered five different positions this season including being the only backup SS?. I mean, sure, a home run every now and then would be great (although 9 doubles & a triple among his 39 hits isn't nothing) but backup infielders who hit for both average and power are so rare they have a special name; they're called 'Starters'.

Satin - 1.5 Murphy - 0.5 Lagares - 0.5 Turner - 0.5 Niese - 3.5 Germen - 0.5 Hawkins - 0.5

Wheeler - 3.2 Rice - 0.3 Germen - 0.5 Haskins - 0.6 Young - 1.3 Byrd - 1.5 Davis - 1.8 Murphy - 0.8

Eh, there was nobody who didn't know Matsuzaka's history prior to him landing on this side of the Pacific. In fact there were some stories talking about how his history was going to be a good thing and some of his routines were going to teach a few things to American pitching coaches. I believe there was a Verducci story along those lines right around the time of his arrival.

The traded for and then released David DeJesus winds up getting picked up by the Rays, who also picked up recently discarded Philly Delmon Young The Phillies completed the circle by picking up former Nat (the one discarded to make room for DeJesus) Roger Bernadina Strange trade indeed.

Whoa! Can't say that I saw that one coming. On the other hand: with two starters going down essentially at the same time; the two young'uns due to hit a wall and/or an innings limit in the next few weeks; a desire not to burn any 40-man roster options before they're needed; and a possible audition for a 5th/6th starter for next year, it's not a totally crazy move. On the down side: If you thought Met games have been taking too long before this ... Matsuzaka has been known to turn each pitch into a mini-opera.

HahnSolo wrote: ... but he hit the ball a mile past the RF fence. So we're talking, what, 340 ft, 350?

Yanx now 11-1 vs Toronto this season, with another one this afternoon and a few more next week. I flicked by last night's game in just a few spots and kept tuning in right before disasters were hitting. - first time was just as Ichoro was getting his 4,000th. OK, no problem there, I have nothing against Ichiro and only the most idiotic of YLDBs aren't going to know that 95% of these came elsewhere. At the time it was 1-0 Jays - that was it until the 8th when I flicked back about a half-second before Soriano was hitting a tie-breaking 2R HR in the 8th off Dickey-face who had apparently pitched well right up to that point (it was 2-2). Since the trade Soriano has been hitting HRs at a rate that would net over 60 in a full (600 AB) season. His rate with the Cubs was less than half that. - so I figure that's it for that game so I turned it off again only to check back in during top 9 just as some idiot from Toronto is getting picked off of 2nd after doubling against Mariano!! You're down two runs jerk-off (Rajai Davis) where exactly were you going? Naturally the 3rd out quickly followed. The Yanx recent run of scoring has brought their RS/RA ratio back to dead even - and they are an annoying 9 games over .500 despite that mediocrity. I felt like the ultimate jinx last night. I watched a total of no more than two minutes of the game but was witness to just about all the bad stuff. The only good thing I really missed in between was Josh Thole's 1st HR of the year and apparently a decent outing by RA, y'know, except for the parts that I saw.

Gee - 4.0 Young - 0.8 Murphy - 0.8 Byrd - 0.9 Flores - 0.8 Brown - 0.7 Quintanilla - 0.8 Lagares - 0.8

Assists as CenterFielder Scanning the list quickly - most of those single-season records seem to be from a long time ago. The post-WWII mark looks to be Willie at 22 in '55 Post-expansion era is Andruw/Unser's 20 in '68/'98 Lagares is unlikely to reach that 20 mark, but he is throwing out runners at a greater rate than Jones did as he's more than halfway there in less than half the innings: Jones 1,372 innings played, all in CF Lagares: 603 innings played, all in CF

Heyward: Broken jaw - 4 to 6 weeks.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: What was the beef that got Terry and Murph tossed? Step 1 -- Comebacker off Rice's glove by Freeman, scrambled for it and threw to 1B for the 3rd out ... but was called safe on a close play Step 2 -- Burke in the game to pitch to the RH Johnson gives up HR on 1st pitch Step 3 -- Murphy barking at 1B ump got tossed before Johnson had even reached 2nd Step 4 -- Terry, bitching about Murphy's ejection, was looking to get tossed and finally succeeded.

Braves 1st run: 2-out/nobody on ... then the HBP and two straight two-out hits Braves runs 2-4: 2-out/nobody on: Three straight two-out hits

THROW THE CHALLENGE FLAG!!!!

The Braves just keep rotating these pen guys who never seem to give up baserunners. So even when they have two guys go down at the beginning of the season (O'Flaherty & Venters) a couple more just pop up in their place Their five most commonly used guys this year are: Kinbrel -- 0.93 WHiP Anthony Vavaro -- 1.19 Luis Avilan -- 0.86 David Carpenter -- 1.03 Jordan Walden -- 1.06 Walden & Carpenter are new this season, and really only Kimbrel was a main cog in their pen prior to this year. And today, with the Mets having three straight RHBs coming up, Fredi has no qualms going to his Lefty with the game on the line - and he gets away with it.

Now Niese is walking the call-up PHer to get to Schaefer. Not sure I like this even though it brings up lefty/lefty.

WOW!!! A two-strike squeeze play goes sour for 'lanta. Could be a HUGE break if Niese can take care of the PH. Gets Wood out of the game too.

Braves are going to get pissed at us if we keep picking off their players like this. First EY takes out Hudson, now Niese and Heyward.

Harvey - 3.0 Brown - 1.5 Byrd - 1.5 Turner - 1.0 Quintanilla - 0.5