Frayed Knot

I mentioned both of the ones by Torres: one deep to RF that moved Cedeno over to 3rd and his semi-well hit FO to CF for the 2nd AB of the game. Other than that he K'd and grounded out. Most of the ones we hit to Zimmerman were more tricky plays than they were spectacular ones, and part of the reason they weren't harder than they could have been is that most weren't hit very hard. It's a lot easier to look good when being required to snare a bunch of 3 or 4-hoppers five feet to either side than if would be if the shots had a bit more sting to them. NYM bats, in effect, helped to make him look good on plays that were, to varying degrees, only somewhat tough. Plus Zim himself also plays a role in making semi-routine plays look harder than they are by intentionally playing everything off to the side so as to set-up his 'side-arm-and-on-the-run' throw. Since his shoulder woes started a year or two back it seems like that's the only way he's comfortable throwing (not just last night, I've been seeing that from him for a while now). He threw straight overhand like twice last night and looked really awkward both times. Not that he's not still a good defensive player, but his current "style" hams it up a bit too and I've seen him botch a few this season directly due to the way he now chooses to (is required to?) play balls.

That a guy like Acosta is so easily disposable (neither expensive nor long-term - or, for that matter, particularly good) and yet Beato still couldn't crack [u:3qndpwcr]THIS[/u:3qndpwcr] bullpen ahead of him says to me that somebody in charge didn't like him. Doesn't mean it was personal necessarily, maybe they just didn't like what or how he was throwing in Buffalo (even though the numbers were fairly mediocre) and/or didn't see any hint of improvement since he essentially started going downhill in the middle of 2011. This still all seems rather odd to me but I think it's clear that mgmt doesn't see his departure as much of a loss.

D-Day is marching closer and closer to April.

7:05 PM - available via various ways depending on where you live and what TV-delivery system you use with good old-fashion "Free" TV apparently the hardest one to get for some. Irony can be so ironic sometimes. We have a rare situation here where we actually have a pitching match-up where our pitcher is younger, has a better record, AND has lower ERA & WHiP numbers. OK the stats are just barely better but, hey, I'll take it. Niese [25 y/o; 9-6; 3.67; 1.175] vs Edwin Jackson [28 y/o*; 7-7; 3.74; 1.212] Now all we need is a few hitters who don't consider bloop doubles to be their ultimate offensive contribution. * Why did I think he was older than that? Probably because his ML debut was on his 20th birthday (he beat Randy Johnson), is now in his 10th ML season, and has spent those years being part of 7 different organizations already - actually 8 considering that he was a paper Blue Jay for part of one day last year.

Looking back over the play by play recap I see One hard-hit out by the Mets last night, Torres's drive to RF that almost got over Werth's head although even that looked a bit better than it actually was only because Werth had been playing him so shallow. And there were two others that probably qualify as semi-hard hit: Torres to CF in the 1st, plus the final out of the game from Tejada. The remainder consist of Five strike-outs (including 2 as the tying run in the 9th), One infield pop-out, One outfield fly, and Sixteen infield grounders - one of which was a DP and ELEVEN that BB-Ref specifically refers to as "weak".

Hairston - 2.3 Tejada - 0.8 Wright - 1.0 Murphy - 1.0 Shoppach - 1.5 Acosta - 0.6 RRamirez - 0.3

they still had Parnell and Rauch actually, might have been okay. Right, because neither one of them has melted down in key situations, or had a "what is HE still doing on the roster?" remark thrown at him. And our 1-6 extra-inning record sure inspires confidence. The larger point being that when this team is down by 2 heading into the 9th in a road game they essentially need at least 4 runs before winning even reaches a 50/50 proposition. ARGH! Two questions: on the single that preceded the Harper bomb, it looked like Wright and Tejada expected the other to get it so neither made an effort. Is that how it looked on TV? It was a clean single, simply a perfectly placed grounder. It also turned out to be the only hit the Nats got that wasn't scorched somewhere. For the rest of the game most of their outs were harder hit than our extra-base hits with the exception of Shoppach's HR. Why did Shorty let Shoppach bat in the 9th rather than Thole or Baxter? I know that Shoppach hit one out earlier but his splits show that he is Nickeas-like against righties. It was the 9th inning so there was some urgency involved. I thought it was time to use Baxter. He could have although you're trying for a 2R poke there so your odds are probably better with Shopvac there even with the R-on-R deal -- we are talking 65 careers HRs vs 8 combined for Thole + Baxter.

The outcome of that top 9th inning was almost irrelevant. In games on the road, the Mets would have needed to score at least four to even have a shot at winning.

And another lead-off runner ruined by [say it with me folks] failure to get the fucking ball out of the infield for the rest of the fucking inning. Zimmerman's played a nice 3rd base over there tonight, but Met bats are making him look even better because nothing to him has been hit all that hard. He has plenty of time to react and make the play because the damn ball has hopped three times before it gets to him. It's like we're batting with rolled-up newspapers.

And a nice Shoppach HR - is followed by a weak ground ball sandwiched by two 3-pitch Ks. Once again when we need to tack on some extra runs they fail to even get the ball out of the infield.

Zvon wrote: ooo, 3 doubles for Hairball. Yeah, but they're not doing enough with them. A lead off double gets followed by a pair of soft grounders which gets in the run but also kills any chance of a big inning. It's like this offense is satisfied just to make contact. Even the four doubles they've hit have all been more well-placed than scorched.

Zvon wrote: WTF? Do our pitchers have targets on them for harrassment? They make Santana put tape on his glove? This one made sense. Dickey's leather bracelet made none. Johan already has 5 more outs in this start than he got in his last one.

Harvey - 4.9 Rauch - 0.2 Davis - 1.8 Bay - 1.3 Shoppach - 0.2 Wright - 0.4 Tejada - 0.6 Baxter - 0.4

Frayed Knot wrote: Just about everyone else in that lineup is hot though. Expanding on this point a bit, in the early part of the season this team was simply out-pitching everyone and winning mostly close, low-scoring games. But by now they've worked their way up to 6th in RS/G (just ahead of the Mets in 7th) which doesn't sound all that impressive except when compared to where they came from. Put another way, their Runs Scored per/Game stats for the season look like this: April = 3.36 May = 4.21 June = 4.46 July = 5.08 Aug = 5.31 So, with the exception of catcher where they've struggled since the season-ending injury to Wilson Ramos, the much-hyped Harper is about the only one NOT hitting for them these days. Even Jayson Werth is off the DL and hitting better than at anytime since his Philly days.

to a group headed by SD business man Ron Fowler but also includes former Dodger owner Peter O'Malley (plus several offspring) and golfer Phil Mickelson MLB approved the sale yesterday. In a related story, both MFS & JCL have declared the Pads to be their new least favorite NL team.

Yeah, calling what Harper is going through right now a "slump" is being kind to him. He's sitting at .171/.257/[u:1ot8l10a].244[/u:1ot8l10a] since the ASB with 17 of his 21 hits being singles - something that seems almost impossible with that swing. SS Ian Desmond has been DL'd and I believe still will be all weekend. Just about everyone else in that lineup is hot though.

in an age when people are shifting more, power (and not just his despite the little league park) is down, how is this even possible? I dunno, hence my [crossout]obsession[/crossout] ... er, interest in this topic. I don't think it's shifts with Jeter; he's always been an all-fields hitter and swinging bunts or 'tweeners' just can't be defended. Plus I don't see the infield hits he's getting as having any particular pattern to them other than good fortune (or lax official scorers).

Edgy DC wrote: Dumb question, but can't one switch off the cable and get the game through the airwaves, or is that not possible anymore? Possible? - Probably. Easy? - No. Not only do most people no longer have a rooftop antenna but then there are problems with newer TVs not having their own built-in antennas, not being compatible with older outside antennas, requiring more signal than a set-top antenna can provide, and yadda, yadda.

Ceetar wrote: I was briefly toying with it the other day. Fangraphs only seemed to have data for infield hits back to 2002, but it's Ichiro 1, Jeter 2. Jeter and Tejada both at 110 OPS+. Jeter has .30 more OPS, mostly in slugging. (actually .33 more) That's adjusted for league and park, and doesn't seem right. That Jeter & Ichiro have the most infield hits over the last whatever years isn't surprising seeing as how they both, I'm sure, have among the most total hits over that time. What struck me recently (first by eye, then confirmed by data) is that both the pct and the number of IF for Jeter has gone up in recent years to where it's nearly the highest in his career now at age 38. Some of that could likely be explained by his decreasing power (fewer XBHs means the smaller hits are now a bigger pct of the whole) but the number of IF hits* is going up too and, unlike a speedy, slappy-hitting LHB such as Ichiro, Jeter's IF hits seem to mostly come off of full swings matched with 'you couldn't have placed there any better' good fortune (plus a friendly scoring decision here and there) which you think would just be the result of random chance. And yet it continues. * he's on pace to wind up with nearly twice as many IF hits during his age 36-38 seasons as he had during his 26-28 years

So we're, what, in a 50/50 situation here winning or losing wise?

I like that Ike hit better than his HR. Can't remember his last solid hit to LCF

Get this out Parnell or I'm going to start to get nervous. Thank you Bobby

Swan Swan H wrote: Bay needs to bat against guys named Homer more often. Hell, I'd settle for him hitting against Fritz Double on a regular basis.

That's a base hit. Oh wait, that's Shoppach, not Jeter? OK, error then.

Well, that takes the pressure off of Terry