Frayed Knot

Edgy MD wrote: Tonight, Chris Sale's turn to take a perfect game into the seventh. Finishes with a CG 1-hit, 0 BB, shut-out The Rox at least broke their streak and scored a bunch of runs in StL today. Actually won the game and everything.

Written & directed by David Chase (The Sopranos) New Jersey teen from the early 1960s sees Rock & Roll as his salvation. Occasional hi-jinx ensue

Starting with the home half of the 6th inning: - Five of the last 17 Met batters (none of them pitchers) put the ball into play: two were hits, two flied out, and Duda's carom shot. - Three drew walks (one semi-intentional) - and the other NINE of the 17 K'd Each slot in the batting order batted twice in that sequence except for the 9-spot (once): - Seven of the nine slots K'd at least once with the clean-up slot (Ike) and 8th slot (Lagares & Valdespin) K-ing twice - only 3rd (Wright) and 7th (Baxter) didn't strike out - both pinch-hitters K'd (Turner & Valdespin) And all that was just a four inning stretch. Ain't gonna win ball games that way. And now we get to go on the road and face a tough pitching staff!

Ashie62 wrote: The Pirates look fantastic... No they don't.

Only appropriate that it ends that way. They put three balls in play over the final two innings: the Murph 2B, the Baxter FO, and the ball-off-the-base trick. Everything else was a walk or a K

In the 9th it'll be Buck - Baxter - Lagares - then either Valdespin or Byrd Those first two guys have been our best hitter and runner of late ... just in the opposite way from what one would expect

If that doesn't hit the base then Sanchez hugging the line most likely gloves it ... so we sort of got lucky then unlucky in rapid succession. As usual of late though, we got the outs in the wrong order.

I'm resigned to rooting for WPs/PBs or balks as a way to score.

Once Ike got to 0-2 there was really very little hope for that AB

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Today's the day Ike breaks out. Need this pre-game prediction to come true RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!!

Zvon wrote: Turner better be a decoy. I want a Harvey win. No way. With the go-ahead run on bae late in the game a PH there is a no-brainer. The idea is to win the game, not to get a particular person a win in the game.

Last full time through the lineup and exactly TWO balls were put into play: Wright's FO and Baxter's bloop. If it weren't for the wild pitch in the middle there they wouldn't have scored at all. Tejada - BB Murph - K Wright - FO Davis - K Duda - K Buck - BB + wild pitch Baxter - 1B + SB + SB Lagares - K Turner (PH'ing) - K You know you're in trouble when you're relying on John Buck's base-running skills to build runs.

Zvon wrote: So we've got Duda's HR and those two long drives by Murph & Wright. Other than that I can't remember the last time they even got a ball out of the infield. Wright almost got one. Its hard to drop one in on those speedy outfielders the Pirates have. They come out of nowhere and make the catch. But they only catch flys once. Our outfielders catch em twice. When you only hit three balls out of the infield all game it's tough to claim that you're getting robbed or hitting into bad luck with 'at-em' balls. And again in this inning: leadoff walk who then never advances an inch and two more Ks are hung up on the board. What's this team going to do later this week when we go to StL and have to face real pitchers? Right now they're getting shutdown by no-names, guys just off the DL making their 1st start in nine months, and other assorted mediocrities.

Pirates have used more pitchers than the Mets have hits.

So we've got Duda's HR and those two long drives by Murph & Wright. Other than that I can't remember the last time they even got a ball out of the infield.

It's a problem when these fact-based movies, which often go out of their way to claim authenticity in some of the smallest details, seem to brush off or otherwise seem unconcerned by incorrect facts in some of the larger themes. LINCOLN had several of these. Speilberg and others connected with the film went out of their way via interviews around the release to talk about their attention to authenticity: from the books that were on the White House shelves (which no film viewer could see anyway); to the ticking sound of Licnoln's actual watch; to Day-Lewis's accurate mimicry of the supposed pitch of Lincoln's voice. Yet when a current Connecticut politician pointed out that the role call scene switched the votes of two Connecticut reps, writer Tony Kushner (among others) dismissed the complaints as nit-picking nonsense that had nothing to do with the point of the film. But get the correct ticking sound did?

Mets as a team has struck out 278 times so far this [crossout:maec3vfw]season[/crossout:maec3vfw] afternoon. Fixed it for you.

In trying to describe this offense there's got to be a word below 'incompetent'

vtmet wrote: Scioscia has a 10 year contract? Who gives a manager a 10 year contract? Not to mention for a total of $50 million dollars. I'm of mixed mind over Scioscia. On the one hand he obviously has a good and lengthy track record out there and for a while at least led the one team that could beat Torre's Yanquis on a regular basis. On the other (with the caveat that I obviously don't see his teams every day) I was never enamored of how his teams played; they always seemed to me to make a ton of outs on the bases as he employed a kind of old-school style of managing where he was regularly willing to give up outs for bases. I'm afraid I'd find him very frustrating to deal with if he were managing my team even if he turned out to be the greatest clubhouse manager on earth. And even that last part is reportedly part of the problem now as Pujols & Hamilton are being perceived as afforded extra slack due to their status/salaries which maybe isn't sitting well with others.

Starting with some pitching lines from Friday night: - Jon Lester for Boston: CG, 1 Hit, 0 BBs, 5 Ks, 28 batters faced, 118 pitches Lone baserunner was a Mazier Izturis 2-out double in the 6th - Shelby Miller for StL: CG, 1 Hit, 0 BBs, [u:1wpzbt0v]13 Ks[/u:1wpzbt0v], 28 batters faced, 113 pitches Lone Rox baserunner was Eric Young Jr leading off the game with a single We'll probably face Miller on Thursday - and then there's Alex Cobb for the Rays: 4-2/3 IP; 3 Runs, 5 Hits, 2 BBs, 9 base-runners allowed; [u:1wpzbt0v]13 Ks[/u:1wpzbt0v] (note that he only recorded 14 outs) pulled with 2 outs in the 5th down 3-2 with already 117 pitches thrown The inning-by-inning break down is even cool 1st: K (on 9 pitches), HR (5), K (5), HR (8), GO (6) - so it takes him 33 pitches just to get through the 1st inning. Hell, if you're going to give up quick runs by issuing two solo HRs at least do yourself a favor and not take 13 pitches to do it. 2nd: K; K; IF-1B; HBP; K (19 pitches total) 3rd: K but batter reaches on passed ball; K but runner steals on full count; runner steals 3rd on 1st pitch; K; runner balked home on 1st pitch; K. So not only is that four Ks in the inning but even though you've long heard that in baseball there are plenty of ways to get on base without a hit, how often to you see/hear about scoring a run without a single batter even putting a ball into play? Cobb is now down 3-0 despite 9 Ks through 3 innings and has thrown 77 pitches 4th: K, GO; 1B; SB; BB; IF-1B; K w/bases loaded despite just one ball leaving the infield (34 pitches) 5th: K, K, BB ... pulled at 117 pitches down 3-2 Rays scored four times in the 7th to win the game. Cobb gets a ND

Zvon wrote: All in all, pretty bad game. Yeah, although going into this series you could see in advance that this was the game where the pitching matchup least favored us so it's tough to get too fired up over it even if our leadoff runners being LOB'd all over the place was frustrating. On Marcum in general: he's had good stretches in his career when healthy so it's too soon to shit-can him after just three starts. On the other hand he'll need to get his act together in the near future so as to not make Hefner the automatic man out when the eventual promotion of Wheeler comes around and that competition/pressure can be a good thing. Also, even though Gary & Ron seem to dismiss it out of hand last night, I don't see why Marcum couldn't fill the role of long-man/6th starter. You're paying him $4mil no matter what role he fills so if Hefner, Gee, and Wheeler/whoever earn the shots at being starters 3, 4 & 5 then go that route. I'd hate to think that mgmt made promises to him that he'd always start as long as he's on the roster to the point where Terry wouldn't have the option to put him out to pen.

Fman99 wrote: Hot chick dodges raindrops on way to expensive car. She's an umbrella slut.

Gary & Ronnie were talking about all the 'M' names on the Pirate team - something like 10 guys of the current 25 man roster. Wonder if this former Yanx pitcher is available for bullpen coach duty or something. Seems like he'd be a natural on this team. You might even say he'd be a double natural.

And yet another leadoff hit wasted!

Ceetar wrote: So does Wright get an error on that play? I figure he does since the batter technically reached 1st safely. I would think so right? Error and..pickoff? just..out? Error and out trying to stretch essentially.