Frayed Knot

Bring out the dancing bears. This game has had just about everything, but little of it good.

And yet another infield hit/shouldabeen an out (or two).

Seems like we've left a man on 3rd in just about every inning tonight. oe: 11 LOBs overall

When you get two straight at'em balls by Wright with runners on base on top of good catches by Soriano you start to think it's not your night. Still, things don't feel as bad as last night, we've hit in just about every inning and still have 3 cracks at it.

Certainly not a great outing by Gee (too many lead-off batters on) but he deserved at least a little better than he got. Several errors (never mind however many the official dude tallied up), plus Nieuwenhuis's bad break, plus a few bad break infield hits. He also deserved more runs behind him.

6 hits, 5 walks, and an error in just 5 innings should result in more than 3 runs

This is on the verge of getting ugly. LaHair has had a great year.

Zvon wrote: All I'm gonna say is it cudda been worse. Our guy stayed at 3rd when he shoulda ran; their guy ran when he shoulda stayed.

Rockin' Doc wrote: Rockin' Doc wrote: That'sore like it. Keep it going. Pile it on mext inning. Beers are flowing I see. New smartphone is smarter than it's owner. I guess when you're texting and messaging thru smartphones, it helps to be all thumbs!

Oh man, even I was waving Duda in!! Apparently he didn't see me either.

Valbuena. Doesn't that translate to 'Good Valley' (or something similar)?

Rockin' Doc wrote: That'sore like it. Keep it going. Pile it on mext inning. Beers are flowing I see.

^ Y'know, in all this time talking about this guy I don't think it ever occurred to me that he hits left-handed. For some reason I just assumed the opposite. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Anyway, John Sickels mentions RH in a column today -- New York Mets 2B prospect Reese Havens went 2-for-5 with a homer yesterday for Double-A Binghamton. His overall season line of .204/.337/.340 is disappointing, although he's shown signs of life lately and is hitting .314/.455/.514 in his last 10 games, with nine walks and nine strikeouts. Havens continues to show good plate discipline and more power than most middle infielders, but constant injuries have dimmed his star and he's now 25 years old. That said, the skills that made him a first round pick are still there despite his health issues, and if you are looking for a guy who could have a "come out of nowhere, hey we forgot about this guy but he's still good" surprise season in the next year or two, Havens is a good candidate. FK -- Take a look at the walk rates via his 'slash line' stats. Even in this, his worst season as a pro, they're still monsters, nearly double what would be ML averages for both his season as a whole and his recent 10-day span. 65-70 points between BA and OBA is about normal, Havens is at 133 for the season and 141 more recently. Those are league-leading kind of rates, slightly north of what Joey Votto is putting up this year for instance and much of his walks are at least semi-intentional. Havens career rate, while not this good is still over 100, something that would put him up among the league leaders in most years. His power is nice too. Now we just have to hope that his April & May this season were just a fluke. Well, that and that whole 'stay healthy' thing.

Nothing like throwing Rizzo into the fire by batting him 3rd on his first day up (although he did have 150 ABs last year w/Sandy Eggo)

Our weekly Jamie Moyer update (this journey is almost becoming fascinating): Dropped by the O's over the weekend at his request --translation: a promotion wasn't coming in the near future-- he's now hooked on with the Blue Jays for the same minor league and then we'll see deal. The difference here is that the Jays recently had like three pitchers go down with injuries in a very short span so this one may actually work out. Also dropped this week by Baltimore under similar circumstances: Miguel Tejada

Sportswriters fall for this story every time ARod tells it - and there probably are some bits of truth to it. But he also insisted that his favorite team was the Braves (Dale Murphy, TBS, etc) right around the time he was talking to them during his FA tour; curiously that talk stopped when they wouldn't give him the money or the no-trade deals he insisted on. And while he asserts that he would have signed for less money, that doesn't at all jive with hiring the agent whose whole raison d'etre in agenting it to go after the most money or that Boras freely admitted on the old M&MD show that he absolutely asked for the merchandising tents and all that other rumored stuff that were at least a factor in stopping negotiations; or that when the Mets backed out there was no apparent attempt to go back to them with a less monsterous offer; or that or that the deal he eventually took WAS the one for the most money even though it wasn't in one of the previously mentioned favorite places; or that that he's used escape clauses twice in attempts to up his deals; or that he's often said that he wanted to be the highest paid player in MLB and that it's something he's proud of. But the biggest crock in this whole thing is that he knows he's got a captive audience of both NYC-based and national writers, each of whom seem to trot this 'I really wanted to be a Met' story out as if they're breaking news despite being on its 25th or so iteration by now. At least Reggie was a charming bullshitter back when these same writers and/or their previous generation brethren were taking down his words as if they belonged on a stone tablet. ARod doesn't even have that going for him.

April: 8-14 May: 21-8 June: 5-17 Tough team to figure

Is that guy in the black windbreaker the real scout or just someone they got out of central casting to sit in as a scout for the photo op?

Swan Swan H wrote: And soon a Rizzo that's not Ratso, though after drawing ball four he might well say "I'm walking here." How great would that be! It would have everybody talkin'.

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It's gotten to where I simply expect strikeouts from Davis & Nieuwenhuis and am surprised otherwise.

At this rate I'd be shocked if we got up again tonight.

Terry had to take Rauch out there, I think he was up over 100 pitches for the night despite his no-hit stuff.

Two runs down or four runs ... it hardly matters tonight.

As soon as those pops were hit they didn't look good. I was about 65% sure that first one wasn't being caught and about 95% on the one to Duda Even when Rauch pitches well the results suck.