Frayed Knot

Fuck the bunt - hit a homer instead!

Because there were so many factors working against him ... I voted that he's going to do it.

If any SNY-less out of towners are tuning in here to "watch" the results I'm sure MLBN will pick up the feed for the 9th

What was that old TV show - The Outer Limits maybe? - where it opened by saying that you are no longer in control of your TV set. Well Terry, you are no longer in control of this game

Cards cooperating with first-pitch swings.

Personally, with our pen and only a six run lead, I'm still worrying about winning the game. oe: OK, now it's eight. I'm a little more confident now.

Does Johan get his no-hitter bid and if not ... ?

Sporting the long pants tonight though as he walks the first ML hitter he faces.

The one game Baxter doesn't hit a double he saves one.

Let him start the 8th - then play it by ear from there.

That supporting the arm thing has 'separated shoulder' written all over it.

And now you can see why Pete Reiser had a short career ... and why he was given last rites at one point during it.

The potential no-no is already semi-tainted. And then there's the problem that they're not going to let Johan finish the thing even if ...

Rained out tonight in Washington before the game ever started Rain delayed in Philly during the 5th Rain starting to creep into NYC So don't give up the lead !!!!!

Late StL Transactions - all in the last day or two: - To the DL List: OF Skip Schumaker - From the DL List: OF Allen Craig - Sent down to AAA Memphis RH-RP Chuckie Fick & RH-RP Branson Dickson - Called up from AAA Memphis: LHP Sam Freeman & RHP Maikel Cleto Cleto was a hard-throwing but young/raw talent who was part of the NYM system until sent to Seattle in the ill-fated JJ Putz deal. Just turned 23 and had a few innings w/StL last year. Freeman has never pitched in the majors before but is left-handed so gets his shot at the Mets. It was either him or the left-handed peanut vendor from Section 325. Plus I think the Redbirds were probably embarrassed to have a guy named Chuckie Fick on their roster.

I think the Mets have the edge in the cap thing at this point ... Does Kansas City have a shot? ABs w/KC = 3,134 ABs w/NY = 3,133 Aside from that coincidence, he had predictably better 'young man' stats in KC, namely SBs and 3Bs (that last one is largely park related) while his 'older player' stats like walks and power were somewhat better with the Mets are people really still cheesed about the Wainwright K? Yes! And then there was the bad first year (first impression stick), the lack of outward emotion ("He doesn't care!!"), the injuries - both the ones that took him out of the lineup and the ones he played through (don't underestimate how pissed fans can get about injuries), that he's Hispanic (especially in the midst of Omar's "push" to remake the team as Los Mets, and that he was there for the '06 loss and the '07/08 collapses ("He's not a winner!"). oe: Oh yeah, and then there was the part about how hit got 20 hits w/10 HRs and a .400+ BA for the Astros in two post-season series and didn't duplicate that for the Mets (10 hits w/3 HRs, ~ .250) meaning, of course, that he proved he couldn't handle NYC.

Vic Sage wrote: it would've made more sense for Boston to draft him when Stony Brook players were still "Patriots". And when the Patriots were still, you know, in Boston.

May 31 vs Reading: 7 IP, 1 ER, 3 H, 0 BB, 8 K

Well the building and stuff was all on-going as the recession hit so there was nothing anyone was going to do about that. The problem was that all these teams w/new buildings -- including, at the same time, the Yanx, and, later on, the Giants & Jets with their PSL plans -- had worked some sort of super-pricing plan for the prime seats into their budgets and were (and, you could claim, still are) super-slow in backing off those plans as the recession first hit and then lingered.

If Berkman used steroids strictly for appearance purposes they didn't work. Dude has the chiseled build of a duffel bag. His primary nickname back in Houston was Puma, but I always preferred the other one that got hung on him occasionally: Fat Elvis

Tough week for injuries to stars: - Matt Kemp, just one day off the DL for a hammy strain, strained his hammy and is going right back on the list with an injury he calls worse than the earlier one - Troy Tulowitski has a strained groin (hopefully his own) and is being DL'd - Nick Markakis in Baltimore has a broken hamate bone in his hand and surgery is being investigated. Either way it doesn't sound like he's coming back soon.

Other important info: - this is a four-game "wrap-around" series with a Night - Day - Night - Day pattern and four different starting times: 7:10; 4:10; 8:05; 1:10 (EDT) - Cards lead the NL in runs scored/game and by a healthy margin: by 0.15/gm over the 2nd place Rox and by nearly half-a-run or more over everyone else including a full run/game over the Mets and 1.14/per over the the NL average - their offense leads the league also in HRs, BA, OBA, SLG and, naturally, OPS - their pitching is closer to lg avg, but we get some interesting match-ups to start things off Friday's game sees both teams throw their supposed aces in Santana and Wainwright Saturday pits the 8-1 Lance Lynn with 7-1 RA Dickey in a battle for ASG starter (well, maybe)

Perhaps a more scientific analysis will prove this to be less the case than I'm imagining, but these late-inning pen meltdowns--the ones that not only turn leads or ties into deficits but often small deficits into LARGE ones--have got to be the biggest factor in the RS/RA gap that our W/L record has, from very early in the season to the present, so far managed to overcome*. There have been a (relative) ton of these this year and I'm hard pressed to think of any that have gone the other way. It's like the pen has adopted the George Costanza method, the one where he doesn't merely want to get fired, he wants to go in such a way where years after he's gone people will remember the blaze of glory that he went out to as they say; "Now THAT guy got fired!" Our pen, they don't just let small leads slip away via walks and singles that result in one-run losses. When they blow leads, they BLOW leads and make sure that no comeback is even contemplated! * Their record currently sits at five games better than the Pythagorean projection as the NYM staff sports a 5.80 9th inning ERA and a 6.00 in extras - and even those numbers were looking better recently seeing as how, prior to last night, they were coming off a Johan CG shutout and three straight Frank-Frank outings where he gave up a total of one hit.

bmfc1 wrote: 2 outs, nobody on in the 7th and a piece of crap like Brian Schneider at bat... At that point they needed to get 7 more outs ... and it took 6 pitchers facing 18 batters to get them.

If this game never actually ends because the NYM staff is unable to get another out does that mean we can't be hung with the loss?