Frayed Knot

I can't be the only one shocked when Dickey was allowed to lead off this inning. Not that we know a PH was going to get on or anything, but this inning would look even better if one had.

Let's just say that while the the overly-public relation-sy style of Carpenter is not something that us New Yorkers are used to and it's certainly not my idea of good announcing, I at least understand it from the position he's in and while he might sometimes shade things towards the Nats he isn't the type to stoop to telling his audience that white is black. Dibble, on the other hand, would flat-out state that umpires were intentionally screwing Washington out of calls because they favored the other team (quite possibly upon MLB orders) and when the slo-mo replay or strike-zone box would prove him wrong he'd pretend that it didn't. It would have been nice if Carpenter had felt secure enough to tell Dibble what an idiot he was instead of being a bit of an enabler, but at least he no longer has to. Santangelo seems pretty decent from what I've heard even if it's just from measuring him against a pretty low bar.

Centerfield wrote: Jason Bay's also the NL Player of the Week. Were there other contenders?

bmfc1 wrote: Great job FK. For Mets fans in DC, MLB's blackout rules means no GKR. Instead, we get Bob Carpenter who is a simpleton. You know how Gary Cohen and Howie Rose mostly speak at a high level and not down to us? Carpenter does the opposite. He treats his audience like it has never seen a baseball game before. (Although with the Nationals, there's a decent chance of that.). I think your final parenthetical thought is the key - that Carpenter probably feels as if he has a kind of double selling job to do. - First he has to sell the Nats to the baseball world. Because the team has been in or near last place virtually every year since their move from Le Ile de Mont Real, I think he sees part of his job description (whether self-assigned or via instructions from above) as making the audience feel that the Nats are just a couple of breaks away from competing with the big boys, particularly those in those much larger cities to the north of DC whose fans keep invading Nats park and often out-numbering the home folk. - And then secondly, he has to sell the sport of baseball in general to his city. In a market that not only was abandoned by MLB twice (and for more than three decades the second time) but also is so dominated by the Redskins, he probably thinks that if he doesn't talk about baseball, who else will? Well Boswell will, but certainly not the electronic media in town. He's not my favorite either, but I've certainly heard worse. He's also more palatable since Dibble was tossed overboard. HE was the real crime against humanity in that booth.

OK, so we played these guys 14 times already this year [8-6 in favor of Mets] including three just last week [two NYM wins sandwiched around Ryan Zimmerman's broken-bat 2RBI walk-off single off Parnell] so it's not like there's a lot we don't already know by this point in the year. As from last week's KTE, most of their hitters can bop it out of the park pretty good (although certainly that'll be tougher at our place) but suffer from low-OBA/High-K itis. IOW, many of their guys are the type that "can be pitched to". Now if only we had guys who could actually do that. Be nice also if we could actually retire any of their catchers. IIRC Flores & Ramos got about eleventeen hits each off Met pitchers in the last series. For all we know Pudge* will come off the bench and get a bunch himself now that he's back. Monday - 7:10 Ross Detwiler (L) vs (Recently Awesome) Dickey An exclusive and extensive CPF investigation has revealed that Ross Detwiler pretty much suxx. We bounced him around for 6 runs + 7 hits in 3 innings on Sept 2 including HRs from Wright & Evans in the first 7 batters he faced. This will be his 8th ML start of the year after 16 for Syracuse where he wasn't very good either. Tuesday - 7:10 CM Wang vs Dillon Gee (what happened to my good stuff) We faced Wang in his first start in over two years in late July where he was gone 4 innings and 6 runs later. He looked to be righting his ship for a couple starts in between then and now but lately has gone back to proving that, while with the Yanx, his success was mostly a product of newness and run support. Wednesday - 7:10 Brad (insert FMan joke here) Peacock vs Mike Pelfrey This will be Peacock's 2nd ML appearance and first start after an excellent year (23 starts; 2.39; 0.989 WHiP) of mostly starts in AA Harrisburg & AAA Syracuse . Thursday - 1:10 Tom Milone (L) vs Chris (I gave you one good game what the hell else you want from me?) Capuano Milone will be making only his 3rd ML start, and his 2nd one against us. We spotted him a 5-run lead in Washington then caught up to him in the 4th & 5th innings eventually tying the game before losing it late on the Zimmerman hit. In his only other start he gave up 3 runs in 5.2 IPs to Houston So we've got a three game lead on this troupe and will be facing four hurlers who spent all or most of this season in the minor leagues (while missing Jordan Zimmermannnn & Strasburg). IOW, no excuses for not hitting and the lack of clutchness can't possibly be worse than it was last night. * Pudge recently implied that he wants to play four more years. Yeah, I don't think that's happening big boy. He's 158 hits short of 3,000 so I suppose that's a target, but he also turns 40 in November and, after playing more or less full time since mid-way through the year when he turned 19 until his age 37 season, there's a lot of miles on that body (and who knows what IN it!). He's had just one ML AB since going on the DL in early July and there's only so much value one can have coaxing Strasburg through bullpen sessions and rehab starts. Maybe someone gives him a part-time shot next year but I'm thinking he may have already played his last game except for a token appreciation AB at home in the final week of the season.

Because it's one thing if chance and timing favors one team over another, it's quite another a season is pre-designed that way because they're aiming at interests other than conducting the fairest possible set-up.

"But why?" -- Because the purpose of a schedule should be to be as fair as equitable as possible so each team has a close to even shot at competing. It shouldn't be to play-up quirky or temporary rivalries, attendance up-ticks, celebrate round number anniversaries, or grab-bag type randomness.

"They certainly understood and respected." -- But we decided to threaten huge fines if they didn't follow along just in case.

OK, so it may not the THE dumbest idea floating out there ... but it's certainly in the class picture.

TransMonk wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: 3) I'm pretty sure they were once a regular rival but now we haven't played them in like three years or something. For what it's worth, I miss playing the Cubs more often. For a mid-western guy like me, that was a fun rivalry. I miss them too and I've rarely even been to the mid-west. That was really my point, that the Cubs went from being a long-time staple of the NYM-fan's diet to almost an after-thought, to a team that we here in the east see are mote likely to see against the Cards via a FOX Saturday game (assuming there's no Yanx/Sawx that weekend of course) than we are against our own boys on SNY. I remember thinking during the year when one "home" game from each team was spent in Japan that the Mets had, in just a short time, gone from three trips to Wrigley each season to a mere two games that year (and only three or maybe four in most others). But, hey, we did get a series against Oakland this year instead. I think it'd be cool if teams could request series. Have 4-5 wild series in the schedule, this way if say the Mets and Cubs wanted to play another set of games, they could request it. I'll take 'Ideas that have no shot in hell' for $400 Alex.

Q: Where Dale? A: Dale Thayer (pointing to bullpen)

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: It'll be Igarashi sooner than later. Sooner.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: But, this is the Piazza moment for David Wright! His third tonight. Sooner or later ...

WOW. This is surprising!! (walking Duda to get to Sugarpants).

One good thing about this game lasting so late is that it's absolutely pissing ESPN off. They so desperately want to get to football hi-lights that it's killing them.

Nickeas at night gets the sac down.

Whoa, Capuano* running for Thole?!?!? Not sure I'da gone that route. oe: * although I suppose it's better than having him pitch

Hey, did you guys know that SPORTSCENTER IS COMING UP NEXT!!!!! ?

Wright just got a retroactive sacrifice.

We caught a break there.

Rubey Rubey Rubey, Rubey will you be mine

What's with the Cubs and French names? ... LaHair, LeMathieu, and a couple of years ago Fontenot and Theriot. Are they still trying to honor Louis Joliet or something?

Heads-up play by Pagan ... that brings his total for the season up to one.

ESPN booth talking about the sympathy for NYC and how that affected rooting interests in the 2001 WS Bobby: "I was rooting for them" [the Yanx] Orel: "So was I" FK: "I wasn't"

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I haven't given up hope on an MFY choke yet. ARod is back on the shelf for what seems like an unidentified period. And both Cervelli and Martin are dinged up to the point where they actually let Jorge don his gear yesterday. Today however they called up their 2nd minor leaguer of the week (Kevin Romine) so that they'd have neither Jorge nor their recent all-hit/no-glove call-up catcher Jesus Montero back there. Of course it might help a bit if teams didn't almost seem to go out of their way to fuck up while playing the Yanx. Angels up today 5-4 when Teixeira lifts what looks to be a game-tying Sac Fly ... except that their gold-glove-ish CF Peter Boujous has the damn thing clank off his glove while standing flat-footed under it so two runs score and Teixeira winds up on 3rd. They kept him from scoring but they're heading for the 8th down one.