Frayed Knot

The Mets should definitely dig up some stuff like this to play during Sunday's game (presumably Chipper's last) although I'm not sure how many 'Larry' songs there are. Maybe get some famous Larry's --Hagman, a Three Stooges impersonator, etc. to appear between innings. Have both Darryl Strawberry & Daryl Boston return for the day just to get a Larry with brother Darryl and other brother Daryl picture.

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And yet another 15-hop throw home from one of our OFers.

What's that now, the 3rd K-looking with runners on and less than 2 outs tonight? Turner just now, Murphy did it earlier, and maybe Wright did as well.

Repeat after me kiddies: "... and two men left on base"

The AA Eastern League agrees to move a team to Ottawa in time for the 2014 season. However they're not saying which team that will be, or even if they yet know themselves. FWIW the Binghamton ownership continues to deny both that they have been sold and that they are even for sale.

So let me get this straight: Dickey is not allowed to wear a shoelace thickness leather strap around his wrist but Maholm is out there chucking with a couple of lengths of chain salvaged from the Titanic anchor around his neck?

Well, Mitch Williams may not be your idea of a good announcer (I haven't heard enough to form an opinion) but I'll still take someone like him over the legion of all-purpose announcers who get shoe-horned into doing baseball because their network already has them on the payroll so they figure to use them somehow until football rolls around and they can go back to ignoring the sport. Like, say, Joe "Baseball bores me" Buck. One other thing about this week's games is that FOX must have already filled its quota of MFY games otherwise you figure they'd be all over the Yanx/Orioles tomorrow. Either that or they still have one or two left but are saving them for the Yanx/Rays next week or are already locked in to the closing Saturday with Yanx/Sawx even though that one is sure to be meaningless for one team and may turn out to be the same for the other.

And, IIRC, Prado made several good plays at SS and probably drove in a few as well. And then they traded for Janish the next day.

The one Braves' SS that we haven't seen yet this year* is Andrelton Simmons. He's some guy they found in Curacao who they brought up in June and he immediately took over playing every day while hitting .300 w/power and defense. But then just before the ASB he broke a finger (sliding head first) and has been DL'd since. Well he's been rehabbing and could be back this weekend just in time for our series. * They've had a different one almost each time we've faced them: Tyler Pastornicky (4 starts), Jack Wilson (3), Paul Janish (4), and even Martin Prado filling in (1)

That's what virtually everyone has been predicting for that team since soon after opening day. But instead they sort of just muddled along and took until mid-August to reach 10 games-over .500 and they've spent all of two days alone in 1st place the whole season in a not-exactly tough division. Doesn't mean a surge from them still won't happen, it's just sort of already considered overdue.

That's what was so weird about that lengthy (35 games?) hitting streak he put together last year. The 'swing hard in case you hit it' guy with a low BA and high walk pct (IOW: the classic 'TTO' player) is exactly the opposite type one would expect to put together a streak of even ten games.

Yanx and O's got their long weekend started last night so go into Friday tied and with a 1/2 game lead on Oakland and a 2.0 game lead on Tampa for WC spots. Tampa hosts Texas for a three-gamer Oakland had been 20-10 since August 1st largely on the strength of their pitching but just gave up 21 runs in getting swept by an Angels team trying to stay in the mix. That series included Oak pitcher Brandon McCarthy getting a fractured skull courtesy of a liner off his noggin. On the other side, the Angels are going to be without ace Jered Weaver for at least one start as a result of him taking a liner off his pitching shoulder. Texas leads West by 5.5 over Oakland and 8.0 over LAA Oakland now heads to Seattle In the Central, where neither team seems to want to pull away, the ChiSox and their slim 1-game lead host KC for the weekend while Detroit will post late scores from Anaheim. Those teams are currently sitting 2 & 3 games out of the 2nd WC spot so winning the division seems to be especially crucial.

Edgy DC wrote: It's harder to read names on latter-day cards. Well, it's a Braves New World out there. Uggla's career vs. the Mets: an Elsteriffic .223 / .304 / .397 // .701. Which represents a sizable cut below his career .252/.342/.469 // .811 line

Weiter, much better than Jeter!!

I think once you get out of the Memorial Day thru Labor Day part of the year the out-of-towners invasion calms down a bit, particularly for mid-week series. There'll probably be some more 'inter-locking NY' sightings over the weekend but still fewer than if it were a month ago.

And, once again, there's a tie back atop the AL East There was also a (more or less) full house tonight in Camden on account of it being the dedication of a Cal Ripken statue night. Sell-outs have been rare in recent years and, when they do have them (particularly in summer) it's often been more MFY fans than local ones.

Another good thing about this game (assuming Bal'mer hangs on) is that the Yanx rally was kind of lame (seeing eye singles + 3 walks) only to have the O's come back with the kind of stroke-of-lightening bombs that the Yanx usually do to others. Plus there's the part about how Captain Clutch made the first AND last out of that rally.

Mark Reynolds got off to a ridiculously slow start this year (2 HRs by the end of May) especially considering that if he's not hitting HRs then he's pretty much useless. Even now he "only" has 20 HRs - but 8 of them have come in the last 7 games and 6 have come vs the Yanquis. I still have no idea how good this team is but there's no denying that there's some wild shit going on in 'Charm City' this season.

Do I hear 10?

Ceetar wrote: Credit to Scratchbomb for this image apparently by the url. I believe he's writing a book or something about the '99/'00 Mets. Am I/we supposed to know who "Scratchbomb" is?

Edgy DC wrote: A big dodged bullet perhaps for years to come, has to be Julio Teheran. The team's top prospect (#5 overall in the last two Baseball America pre-season rankings) went 15-3 / 2.55 in AAA last year and looked ready to advance smoothly to the bigs at 21. He not only didn't make the team out of camp, but he regressed severely back in the International league (7-9 / 5.08) and got raked in his lone mid-season start with Atlanta. He's back now as a September callup. I wasn't quite expecting Strasberg, but definitely thinking another dominating starter was about to enter the division. Maybe a young Cole Hamels-level pitcher. What happened to this guy? Control problems was, I believe, the main culprit with him. t's a sharp wake-up call to thoughts of the Mets being 'stacked' in starting pitching. Both the Braves and Yankees (And probably others) were supposedly so stacked with starters with huge prospects simply needing a couple of months. There's an old saying* about how if you want two great pitchers the best way is to find six great pitching prospects IOW, don't count on Harvey AND Wheeler AND Mejia AND Familia all being great ... or even good for that matter. * there are several variations of that saying but they all advance the same idea

Seeing as how this will be the 5th series with these guys this year we should pretty much know the cast of characters by this point. And if the mere 7-5 edge the Braves hold so far seems closer than you thought, remember that it all started out with a three-game NYM sweep in April. Since then, not so good. That said, I�m not quite sure what to make of this team sometimes. They followed an 18-8 July with a 15-14 August, but even that pedestrian record disguises that they finished the month on a 4-9 skid, a stretch which all but killed their shot at winning the division because Washington has a 7 game lead and no one blows that kind of lead in September ... well, almost no one. And their offense (4th overall in the NL) is suddenly flat as they�ve scored [u:3r8k059z]two or fewer[/u:3r8k059z] runs in 7 of their last 9 games. That they�ve won 3 of those 7 (including back-to-back 1-0 wins v the Rox in which neither run scored was earned) is a tribute to their pitching as well as a tribute to the ineptness of Colorado who no one loses to in the 2nd half of 2012 ... well, almost no one. Atlanta currently sits on the #1 WC spot with a 3-1/2 game lead on WC#2 (Cards) and another 1.5 games on top of that ahead of the next hopeful pretender (Dodgers) The main change since we last saw them is that Fredi Gonzalez benched the erratic Dan Uggla last week [.178 BA in the 2nd half] which moves the all-purpose Martin (the devil wears) Prado to 2B which in turn starts a merry-go-round in LF consisting mainly of (RH) Reed �Lyndon� Johnson & (LH) Jose �George� Constanza Other Atlanta 2nd half slumpees include: - catcher Brian McCann (.623 OPS w/7 XBHs in 2nd half vs .731 w/23 in 1st) which only means that backup David Ross will be there to kill us in whichever game he starts plus in PH ABs off the bench.. - and CF Michael Bourne (.666 OPS w/11 XBHs vs 1st half of .817 w/30) who, while still good, is no longer a Top-5 MVP candidate this year (still ain�t signing cheap though). But elsewhere in Braves-land: - Chipper�s still Chipper even if not quite as often; - Freddie Freeman is where we hoped Ike would be by now even though FF is 2-1/2 years younger; - Jason Heyward is where none of our current OFs will ever be; - and SS Paul Janish is a great fielder even if he can�t hit which, considering that he was their 4th SS option this season, is something I�m sure they can live with. Friday - 7:10 EDT Niese vs Paul Maholm [6-6; 3.96; 1.16 in 6 starts] A deadline pick-up from the Cubs after Ryan Dempster nixed their deal, Maholm hasn�t been great but naturally has out-performed Dempster since that time and cost the Braves less to land. Saturday - 4:05 EDT National TV (for some of you anyway) on FOX Hefner vs Kris Medlen Medlen is one of those stories that seems to only happen to the Braves. With counted-upon young pitchers Beachy, Jurrgens, Vizcaino, Teheran, Minor, Delgado all hurt, dealt, and/or under-performing, up from the DL & the pen comes Kris (no he�s not married to a Kardashian ... at least not yet) Medlen. A 10th round pick in 2006 now 26 y/o, he showed decent stuff in 2009 & �10, then missed all of 2011 w/TJ surgery before starting this season in the bullpen where he was pretty good though hardly great. He then got bumped to the rotation in late July where he suddenly turned into a ridiculous 6-0 with 4 runs given up (3 earned) across 7 starts/49 IPs and a 50/5 K/BB ratio. Yes, 50-to-5 And if you go back to the last time he was in the rotation in 2010, the Braves have won the last 18 games in which he�s been the starter (he�s 12-0 with 6 NDs in those). Sunday - 1:10 EDT Young vs Tommy Hanson [12-8; 4.40; 1.48] Hanson was #3RoY in 2009 but has managed to get just a little bit worse each year since. Mets beat him on Opening Day (5 innings - 1 run), beat him again 11 days later (7 innings - 5 runs), and then he took a ND in a game during that disaster stretch right after the ASG in a game where he got smacked around (5 innings - 6 runs) but the Braves ultimately won late off Beato & Parnell. In all we�ve scored 12 runs against him (11 earned) over 17.1 IPs in those 3 starts. Bullpen: Nah, let�s not talk about that cuz, even though ours has been better lately, there�s still no comparison. Although since we�re on the subject, closer Kimbrel is coming off closing out two consecutive 1-0 games in about a 15-hour span (Wed night + Thurs aft), He actually allowed two base-runners in the process but no one reached 2nd and he got 6 of the 7 outs he needed via strike-out making most of of the hitters look stupid along the way. That�s now 94 Ks and 21 hits allowed in 51 innings for the season from a 5� 11� 3rd round draft pick out of some JuCo in Alabama. Or, looking at it another way, he�s struck-out more than half the batters he�s faced this season (94 of 186). Note: Not merely half the [u:3r8k059z]outs[/u:3r8k059z] via strike-out but half the batters who stepped in against him this season eventually left dragging their bat back to the dugout. But hey, don�t worry, he�s already 24 y/o and will only be under club control for another four seasons.

Funny what happens when all the regular FOX guys are pulled off the baseball beat and re-assigned to football 1) their previous habit of monopolizing the Saturday schedule by grabbing [u:1ifjfn8h]Six[/u:1ifjfn8h] Games of the Week comes down to a much more reasonable two AND 2) the announcers they're left with after having to scrape for replacements ... are ones who actually follow, like, and know baseball. Sounds like an improvement to me.

The Giants used eleven pitchers in an 11 inning game the other night. There were seven in-inning pitching changes and six of the pitchers threw ten or fewer pitches. They lost anyway. The DBacks used only six. The game last 4:19