Frayed Knot

Ceetar wrote: G: "Between speed and Moneyball, sir... give me speed every time." K: "I never saw Moneyball force any throwing errors, or make any pitchers nervous. Moneyball never won a championship, like we did under Whitey in '82." G: "Speed sure did make that ground ball hop over Sanchez' glove there, Keith." K: "Speed is EVERYTHING, Gar. Moneyball never caused a balk, or made a good knockwurst, or led a successful World War." G: "Sure didn't. 1-0 count to Wright here." As if 'Moneyball' ever dismissed speed as an asset. more the Stolen Base than speed. More the concept that speedy dudes with little power, bad OBAs, and low rates of stolen base success were valuable commodities to treasure and put at the top of the order.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: G: "Between speed and Moneyball, sir... give me speed every time." K: "I never saw Moneyball force any throwing errors, or make any pitchers nervous. Moneyball never won a championship, like we did under Whitey in '82." G: "Speed sure did make that ground ball hop over Sanchez' glove there, Keith." K: "Speed is EVERYTHING, Gar. Moneyball never caused a balk, or made a good knockwurst, or led a successful World War." G: "Sure didn't. 1-0 count to Wright here." As if 'Moneyball' ever dismissed speed as an asset.

It would be really Wise not to walk Dewayne with the big boys coming up. oe: or have him fly out deep to LF, I'm OK either way.

Edgy DC wrote: What's the point of invoking the infield fly rule on a foul pop? The ump's call there is: "Infield Fly if Fair". Without that you'd run into the possibility of the pop blowing fair and the IFR not called.

I think if you told me it would only be 6-3 Marlins by the end of this inning I might sign up for it.

I saw that Bonofacio dash coming the whole way ... why didn't they?

Your predictions not your hopes: The odds that Beltran is a Met on August 1st? I'll run this poll thru Tuesday

TransMonk wrote: LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: From $1 billion-plus sought to... ? I read somewhere (of course, can't find it now) that it is down to a measley $300 million. IOW, Essentially money thought to have been gained upon withdrawal as opposed to said money plus penalties.

It sucked, but it was a quick suck.

Basically it was an inning with just one semi-hard hit ball but Niese's biggest mistake was the walk to the pitcher. After that it was just weak grounders with errors tacked on. Now we just got to quit hitting dinky grounders off of Westbrook.

As mentioned in the KTE, teams managed by Tony LaRussa can get pretty annoying pretty easily. Wouldn't surprise me if they were taking that tack that if you can't beat 'em on the field then bug the shit out of them.

Niese's victims: Punto Jay Pujols Holliday Berkman Freese Molina Descalso Westbrook Ryan Theriot had his suspension reduced from two games to one and will serve it today - so the Cards roster is down a man

btw, Keith and Gary have made several references to drag bunts during the last few games as if there's some kind of inside joke between them. What they're doing (I'm sure) is tweaking Phil Mushnick who has been mocking them (mostly Keith) in his NYPost column recently for calling all bunts drag bunts even those that go down the 3B line in what have traditionally been considered push bunts. I think they're purposely overdoing it just to annoy Mushnick. I'm going to disagree with Mushnick here. I think a drag bunt can go to either side, with the batters intent to make it die halfway down the line. A push but I think of as a harder one where you try and put it between the pitchers mound and the firstbaseman. It's practially a lost art. Taveras was the specialist at it, but Backman could pull it off and Timo did also on occasion. Part of this is just me paraphrasing here as I don't think that Mushnick is specifically labeling all bunts towards 3B push bunts, only that they're not drag bunts - as in, you don't 'drag' something away from you. That's certainly the way I always thought of a drag bunt: a LHB taking one with him as he starts down the line. In any case, the only reason I even bring it up is because it's obvious Keith is aware that Mushnick is calling him out on the definition but rather than address it directly Keith is choosing to slyly tweak him about it and he's brought Gary along for the ride. Most announcers, etc claim to not read the columnists who cover their part of the industry but they always seem to know exactly what's being said about them in said columns. M&MD were famous for that; "I never read Mushnick ... but let me tell you were his Sunday column was totally off base!!!!"

Edgy DC wrote: I seem to remember the lineup shifting so much that day that there were three or four leftfielders. Well yeah, they kept running away from us. 11:10 for me. I guess I'll take a late lunch. Game today being carried on MLBN if you can get near a TV

starts at 12:20. 12:10, I believe, is the actual first-pitch time. Hmmm, noon start ... temps nearing the century mark ... sounds like this game is the spiritual descendent, even if not quite on the anniversary of, the original MoFo gathering in the picnic area now almost one decade in the rear view mirror. I believe that day remains the last time NYC actually went over the 100-degree mark (actual temp, not these silly inflated "heat indexes" the geeks on TV conjure up) as it was a balmy 104 in the shade that afternoon (and there weren't no shade).

Walkoff win for Colorado v Atlanta -- so the same deal as last night; gain a game on everyone in the East except Philly.

G, K & R are HR magnets.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: btw, Keith and Gary have made several references to drag bunts during the last few games as if there's some kind of inside joke between them. What they're doing (I'm sure) is tweaking Phil Mushnick who has been mocking them (mostly Keith) in his NYPost column recently for calling all bunts drag bunts even those that go down the 3B line in what have traditionally been considered push bunts. I think they're purposely overdoing it just to annoy Mushnick. I hadn't realized that but thought there was something odd in the way Keith said "That's a great drag bunt, eh Gar?" Yeah, Gary didn't respond tonight because he was busy with something else, but last night (or the one before) he made some kind of answer which indicated that he's in on the joke.

No bunts please!

btw, Keith and Gary have made several references to drag bunts during the last few games as if there's some kind of inside joke between them. What they're doing (I'm sure) is tweaking Phil Mushnick who has been mocking them (mostly Keith) in his NYPost column recently for calling all bunts drag bunts even those that go down the 3B line in what have traditionally been considered push bunts. I think they're purposely overdoing it just to annoy Mushnick.

Shit! These guys have one friggin hit this inning and they're on the verge of breaking the game open.

Cards bring in Lancelot Lynn to do the pitching. Not surprisingly he's kind of hairy.

Keith is such a man of the people.

I'm of the opinion that Shane Victorino [u:1ma6qcs9]IS[/u:1ma6qcs9] a hood ornament.

Gee - 3.8 Murphy - 1.5 Pagan - 1.2 Beltran - 1.7 Turner - 0.5 Paulino - 0.5 Reyes - 0.5 Isringhausen .05