Frayed Knot

Avi ...

Sure, it was a bad outcome, but at least it was boring and poorly played. - 13 combined hits, 10 of them singles, most of them soft. And even the doubles weren't well struck. - 13 combined walks ... nuff said. - The Yanx scored their runs on: an IF single/E6 (2); a shallow Sac Fly where Soto's throw home didn't even reach 1st base; a bases-loaded walk; an IF single; an infield GO - The Mets scored theirs on an infield single (1) and a stick-the-bat-out double (1) 2:58

Judge's two hits tonight have both threaded the needle twice between a close together SS & 3Bman ... but that's the kind of breaks you get when everything off your bat is 110mph+

Two of the hits were bad luck. The other Seven baserunners allowed, not so much. He retired eight of the 17 batters he faced.

Lately, even when Megill puts up a Zero, it's more like he's surviving the inning, not commanding them..

I prefer when there are three (or, at most, four) SS games rather than six. Especially because us playing them six times means some other opponent is getting to play against a patsy six times.

Yeah, I always got the idea that Bench was more anti-Rose than most of Pete's ex-teammates

The biggest surprise on the Yanx this year is CF Trent Grisham Drafted in the 15th round by the Brewers ten years ago, he spent four mostly full seasons with Sandy Eggo where his OPS+ was 95 but also declined every season from ages 23 to 26 (123, 106, 81, 84) until he was included with Juan Soto in the deal to the Yanx. His first season in the Bronx he slashed .190/.290/.385 in 200+ ABs for a 675 OPS or right around where he was hitting in SD. This season he's playing every day and has more or less doubled his OPS+ (177) from recent years. He's always drawn walks and had puncher's power but now he's hitting nearly .300 instead of .200 and, being a lefty in YSIII, 12 of his 14 XBHs have gone for HRs (plus 1 double & 1 triple). He's the Yanx 2025 version of Matt Carpenter (who announced his retirement just earlier this week) except younger, with a better batting average, and also brings a pretty good glove despite not being built like your typical CF (5' 10" / 221) which finally allowed the Yanx to take some mileage off of Judge's legs by moving him back to RF.

I generally don't like NYM off days, especially coming off a bad loss (as opposed to, y'know, a good loss). But I welcomed the dark day yesterday -- no Mets and very little of interest going on elsewhere (Braves beat the Nats again and are now over .500 for the first time this year) -- as I needed a breather in advance of this weekend. MLB has declared this to be 'Rivalry Weekend', so in addition to Mets/Yanx you have the usual suspects of ChiSox/ChiCubs, Dodgers/Angels, Padres/Mariners (cuz they're out of actual rivals), and even Philly/Pittsburgh who were in-state and in-league rivals for a century before they 'fixed' the divisions and made the cross-Pennsylvania games as rare as inter-league cross-country matchups. Not sure if Ohio State is playing Michigan this weekend or not. So we've got Braves/Red Sox (as there are about seven people still alive who remember the Braves in Boston), teh 'Beltway Series (even though there are two different beltways) of Nats/Orioles (both suck right now), Marlins/Rays, and Phils/Pirates to keep an eye on on.

It's 'Rivalry Weekend' in MLB so the first of two installments of the 'Subway Series' starts tonight at YSIII 7:05, WPIX / YES / MLBN Tylor Megill [3-3; 3.10; 1.25 ] vs LH Carlos Rodon [4-3; 3.29; 0.97] Yanx: 25 - 18, +81 Run Differential 1B/DH Ben Rice / Paul Goldschmidt 2B: lately it's been a couple rookies you've never heard of although D J Le Mahieu is just off the IL so probably more him than anyone SS: Anthony Volpe 3B: probably Oswald Peraza or LeMahieu LF: Cody Bellinger / Jasson Dominguez CF: Trent Grisham RF: Aaron Judge C: Austin Wells Not appearing in this series: 3B Oswaldo Cabrera - broken ankle RHP Marcus Stroman - knee inflammation RHP Luis Gil - lat strain 2B Jazz Chisholm - oblique strain DH Giancarlo Stanton - torn tendons in both elbows RHP Gerrit Cole - UCL surgery

I was at Straw's first game at Shea as a Dodger. Now obviously it was a long time ago but I don't remember too many boos and recall more being uncomfortable with so many fans seemingly rooting more for Straw to do something spectacular than they were for the Mets. I was also at Seaver's first game at Shea w/the Reds and had the same feeling. The Mets led the game 6-0 at one point but a Strawberry 2R HR started a comeback which saw the Dodgers score three in the 6th then two more in the 9th which, as fate would have it, brought up Darryl as the go-ahed run with two outs and a runner on where he proceeded to ... end the game with a weak ground out. Had he HR'd in that spot and sunk the Mets (pending the bottom 9th of course) approximately 150,000 of the 47,000 people in attendance that day would have claimed that they Knew he was going to do that. https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN199105070.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN199105070.shtml btw, the final four hitters for the Dodgers in that game were Gary Carter, Brett Butler, Juan Samuel, and Darryl Strawberry, three ex-Mets and a future Met. Carter, Butler, and Samuel all got hits. Yanqui fans are pissed at Soto because he had the audacity to Not re-up with their team, an act which they believe is impermissible under the laws of their universe. Especially among the man-children of the Bleacher Creatures, who mostly grew up in an era where the Yanx got nearly every player they sought*, for one who had already tasted the atmosphere in the Bronx to spurn a high offer and choose not just another team but THAT other team (I'm not even sure him going to Boston would be viewed as negatively right now) is worthy of nothing but hatred and derision for his betrayal. * 1997 was the year when Mark McGwire was dealt from Oakland to the Cardinals in what would wind up as a 58 HR season and then, despite speculation that he end up back on the west coast to be near his kid when he became a FA that winter, he wound up signing an extension with StL before the season was even finished. Yanqui fans were pissed. Not only did he sign elsewhere but he had the audacity to not even wait for the opportunity to speak with them. Never mind that they already had the four years younger Tino Martinez at 1B who was coming off the best season of his career (948 OPS w/44 HRs) so where would McGwire even play? 'Oh, reasoned some MFY fans at the time, 'he could be our DH vs lefties'. Yes that's what Mark McGwire was going to do. He was going to give up the opportunity of maximizing his probable last big contract of his career (he was 33) at a time when the possibility of breaking one of the most sacred baseball records of all time was on the horizon just so he could be a twice a week player all for the glory of wearing the pinstripes. THAT is the mentality we're dealing with here. Throwing batteries? There might be some car batteries being tossed from the RF seats at Soto!

Tough to swee] while scoring six runs over three games. Were fortunate to win as many as two.

The AL currently leads the NL in inter-league games 93 - 86 Not that that's a particularly big or meaningful gap, but the NL held a fairly sizable lead until just recently which means the AL must have had a dominant last two weeks or so. Checking on just games from the last three days I see that the AL has gone 10-3.

Well, at least one of the teams in this game can get hits with runners on base.

We may or may not score in this here first inning, but they're using up most of Basil Fawltey's arsenal early in the game.

I remember reading an article about outfield arms (I believe it was part of the S.I. baseball preview issue). And somewhere in it it talked about how there's good, there's great, and then there's Ellis Valentine.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: Lindor had the worst game I've seen from him in a long time. K'd on 3 pitches, 4 pitches, 3 pitches (all swinging) then finished with a GO. And that whole 9th inning error thing, so yeah.

1) Ray Lewis didn't kill a guy although was in the vicinity of those who did and hampered the investigation into the crime by hiding and/or withholding evidence. 2) That he is not only in the pro football HoF but was essentially lauded as the face of the league during the post-crime second half of his career should be seen as a stain on the league but isn't and won't be because football isn't held to very high standards by the league itself, by a large portion of its fan-base, or, most sadly, by those who are paid to cover it but instead choose to cheerlead for it. I'd prefer baseball to have some standards. Rose knew what he was doing, knew that it was against all rules and did it anyway all while lying about it for decades. And now, even in the era where sports gambling is considered legit and the leagues are happily taking advertising money from those legal outlets, if a manager did now what Pete did back then it would STILL be illegal and he'd be thrown out of the game and subject to the same restrictions. Line in the sand? Fuck Yeah!

The only problem with Baez in CF is that he can't tag anybody out there.

Frayed Knot wrote: Gary mentioned something about how this will not even come up for the next two+ years (Jan '28?). If accurate (and I'm not sure why that will be) it leaves a LOT of time for this problem to be discussed and analyzed. They are no longer the BBWAA's concern, and are being kicked over to the Classic Baseball Era Committee I guess I just always assumed that if Rose ever became re-eligible he would start out as a first year eligible guy until either he used up his ten year window, or failed to garner the 5% minimum, or got himself and his goofy haircut enshrined. Instead, probably acting on the idea that the majority of today's writers weren't active at the time Pete was, they're treating this as if the BBWAA missed their chance to have a say and so he skips directly to step two. So they've essentially gone from 'We can't let the writers decide this' to 'We can't let the writers decide this'.

I think they should consider Buc-ee Beaver too! [FIMG=250]https://freepresshouston.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Bucees1.jpg[/FIMG]

He had the pocket of his glove "tightened up" after that inning and then went right back out with the same one. The glove itself is kind of an odd choice as infielders tend to use solid pocket gloves, both to avoid what happened there but also so you don't snag a finger in one of the holes when reaching in for the ball causing a double clutch. The mesh-type pockets were most often used by outfielders so they can use them to shield the sun while peaking through the mesh for the ball.

Buck Owens is already in several, including the Country Music HoF and the Nashville Songwriters HoF

When the 'Ineligible List' was created, essentially for Pete, it was done with the intention of not allowing the BBWAA even the chance to vote on Pete's inclusion in Cooperstown. This, not surprisingly, upset the BBWAA as they saw themselves as being designated by Cooperstown to be the gate-keepers of the HoF but then being told that they weren't to be trusted as such in the case of Pete Rose. It was an exemption made only for him, but what many in the BBWAA wanted to do was to have Pete reinstated specifically so they could vote against him! So the bottom line is, that while this makes Pete (and J.J. and others) again eligible for the HoF, it is very far from putting them into the HoF. Gary mentioned something about how this will not even come up for the next two+ years (Jan '28?). If accurate (and I'm not sure why that will be) it leaves a LOT of time for this problem to be discussed and analyzed. Hopefully, unlike in politics, it'll be a discussion that deals with the merits of the case rather than just superficial nonsense.

Braves beat the Nats for the second night in a row. Phils rained out vs StL (two tomorrow) and the Marlins are leading the Cubs 4-2 in the 7th