Frayed Knot

Niese - 1.4 Reyes - 1.0 Turner - 1.6 Beltran - 0.7 Tejada - 1.0 Bay - 0.7

Folks (and by that I mean writers mostly, but fans also) have to stop treating Fred's comment about JR not getting CC money as if it were some sort of iron-clad pledge rather than merely a prediction designed to display his baseball savvy to a visiting writer.

Ex-Cardinal (and Cub, and Rockie, and White Sock) Aaron (he can hit for) Miles has been handling most of the 2B duties this season (and occasionally 3B). Hitting for a good average (.324) but it's mostly a phantom average in that he almost never walks (.341 OBA - MUCH lower walk rate than Reyes) and hits for power in Luis Castillo territory (.054 IsoP) as 63 of his 72 hits this season are singles.

2011 IL series ends with the AL having a 131-121 edge

A four-gamer with the broke and broken last place Dodgers. 37-48; 5th place NL West; 323 Runs Scored (3rd worst in NL) / 356 Runs Against (right about league avg) Game 1 tonight 9:10 EDT Chris Capuano faces Rubby de la Rosa (heh, heh, he said Rubby) RdlR - a 22 y/o RHP - is making his 6th ML start and 9th appearance overall. 3-3; 4.41; 1.50 WHiP He's been hung with a loss in each of his last 3 starts although in the last one he gave up just 1 run over 7 innings to the Twins.

I was thinking when Terry sent Paulino in for Thole that that's a move Manual wouldn't have been so quick to make. Even though it's a classic lefty/righty swap that Jerry loved*, he would have tended to keep his reserve catcher in for the 19th inning which probably wouldn't have come on account of him being too wimpy to use his reserve catcher even in a last-ditch effort to tie the game. In summary, while it's hard to call it a great move, it's certainly not one we've gotten used to seeing around here. Liked that he left KRod in for a 2nd inning also. Again, with the pitcher leading off that kind of move should be a no-brainer, but of course Jerry never would have had him in in the first place on account of the Mets being behind and/or tied. * on edit - actually it wasn't even a classic R/L switch because it was against Mariano. It's well known that he's even tougher on LHBs but I suspect that would have been too much for Jerry to contemplate.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Supposedly-- as per Howie earlier, and a few other anonymous-sourced reports I've seen online-- he inspires LOTS of eye-rolling among his peers. HE as in who? Cuzzi, or the Mariner manager who wasn't paying attention? If it's Cuzzi it would be surprising only in that you rarely hear umps talk about each other even on the quiet.

Life matters again.

My question on these things always is -- how did the pitcher/catcher/fielders/opposing manager all not realize what was up? Especially since it's not like the call on the first pitch - the only called strike of the bunch which could possibly been confused with a called ball - was ambiguous or anything. The remaining pitches were either swinging strikes or foul strikes. Sounds like maybe the scoreboard messed up pitch #1 (you hear the announcers say 1-1 rather than 0-2 after the second pitch) and that everyone simply went along with it from there. Not that any of that absolves Cuzzi or anything ... but, geez, pay attention folks. It's only your livelihood.

And that's my main gripe with many of the "solutions" folks are coming up with when topics like "fixing" the schedule with or without realignment come up; virtually all of them involve more inter-league play while virtually everyone I talk to wants less if not none.

For the first 10 years or so of IL the records were virtually identical (slight edge to NL in fact). ASGs and the small samples of WS results are meaningless in this conversation. It's over the last 5-6 years that the AL has had an advantage - in some years over 60%. The problem is that some AL fans act as if the recent edge is part of some sort of lifelong trend rather than just a short-term blip.

The Reyes play: - probably was safe but it was a dumb chance even if he gets the call there. That's now three times in the last two games he's been erased after getting on. But the biggest PITA about the whole thing is that not only do the Yanx get an extra out despite screwing up but they get one because they screwed up. It's one thing when good things happen because you're playing heads up ball, but they seem to get it when playing heads-up-the-ass ball. I remember Piazza dashing home once on an overthrow and getting thrown out; then there was the whole 'Jeter flip' play which only happened because Shane Spencer missed two cut-off men. Other than that just too many mistakes - too many MFY leadoff men allowed on - no RiSP hits. What'd we have, like 13 baserunners but just one run? Yanx, as usual, bunched their hits. - can't let Ivan Freakin' Nova and the soft part of their pen hold us to one run. - Murphy's error - Boy, good thing Jeter wasn't there, huh? I guess since his replacement went 4-4 Derek would have had 7 hits in 4 ABs

I'm sure you'll get the LAD/LAA match-up tomorrow on FOX but the Sunday game will be national on TBS. Of course that'll be 10AM for you so I'm not sure if you'll be up yet ... or in yet.

Do these guys ever hit the fuckin' ball at someone?!?! Except for the DP that Tejada turned, everything they've hit found a hole.

All three games this weekend are going to be available through various channels to much of the country. FRIDAY -- MLBN SATURDAY - FOX SUNDAY - TBS

Edgy DC wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Chicago leading Chicago 4-4 in the 7th. How many beers, Ralph? That was intentional there Ace.

Today was Kendrick. Halladay is tomorrow's starter. The real culprit here is Toronto mgr John Farrell. Jon Rauch - who has closed both before and this season w/the Jays - pitches a 1-2-3 8th on 10 pitches but gets pulled anyway (AL rules, not a PH situation) for Frank Francisco because he has the title of closer even though he's having a much worse season than Roach. Francisco promptly starts the 9th inning: Walk, Double, 2-RBI Single, Fly Out, Single before being pulled for someone else who could actually get the next two outs. Geez, at least let Roach start the freakin' inning!! ChiSox score 4 in the 7th to win 6-4. Juan Pierre triples in the winning runs.

Jays give up the lead ... then get it back on a Bautista HR (25th) ... then give it up again in the 9th. 7-6 Phils -- Bastardo on to close as Madson, Contreras & Lidge are all on the DL. Chicago leading Chicago 4-4 in the 7th.

Since we never got a KTE (at least not yet) Nick Swisher RF -- Slow start, coming on lately. Not only not a real good OFer but he's going to find out that this RF is a helluva lot harder/bigger to cover than the RF in YSIII Curtis Granderson CF -- Fast start but slower June (21 HRs, had 17 at the end of May). Good defense and a definite triples threat in CitiField Mark Teixeira 1B -- Tied for ML lead in HRs Slappy 3B -- What else is there to say about this schmuck that hasn't already been said? Not a great season by his standards although obviously still dangerous. Robinson Cano 2B -- The MVP awarded him for this season during spring training isn't looking too good right now. Had a tough May, better now. Russell Martin C -- Got off to a hot start but showing his true colors since. We'll see Cervelli at least once this weekend. Andruw Jones LF -- Some power now & then but little else. Only 86 ABs for the year. Eduardo Nunez SS -- More power than Jeter, but less OBP (even now) and lots of errors in a short span. Ivan Nova P -- 'John New'. 15 starts; 7-4; 4.26 ERA; 1.45 WHiP. Held us to 3 runs - although 11 hits - over 6.2 IPs earlier in the year.

... and there was much rejoicing (Yaaaaaay) AL heads into today clinging to a 107-103 edge (and an 865-818 RS/RA advantage) Two games kicking off early - It's Canada Day (in Canada no less) so the Phils are at Toronto for an afternoon tilt, losing 4-3 at the moment thankyouverymuch (7th inning) Kendrick vs Romero Tomorrow Halladay makes his Toronto return. - The Windy City Classic makes a stop at Wrigley 2-1 Sox going into the 3rd Other "highlights" - Orioles @ Braves -- so while we got all three 1st-place AL teams (one of them twice) the Braves get mostly the dregs of the AL - Giants @ DEtroit - Cards in Tampa - Marlins @ Texas (Florida won their last two games to bring their June record "up" to 5-23) - Milwaukee @ Minnesota - Dodgers @ Angels - D'Backs @ Oakland - Padres @ Seattle - Indians @ Cincy - Red Sox @ Houston - KC @ Colorado Nationals host the Pirates in the lone NL series.

Yanx, btw, are doing fine (12-3) in Jeter's absence, just like they survived quite nicely as a team in the other time they went without his presence (they were 26-12 while he sat out with a busted up shoulder in 2003), and just as they were when they were essentially without his bat due to a month-long slump he had in April/May 2004 (Yanx were 17-13 while he was hitting .177). The only difference now is that people realize he's closer to the end than the beginning and so it's semi-OK to talk about it. It's like after CBS fired Jimmy the Greek for basically being an idiot and then the media, who had been covering him for years while passing him off as not just a tout but some kind of seer, suddenly "discovered" that the accuracy of his picks were about the same as if you based them on whether your dog went for the blue or yellow water dish first. They all knew (or certainly should have known) that he had no such mystic powers in the first place but to say so while he was still on the top of the top rated football lead-in show was considered in bad taste (although I don't know why) and, perhaps more importantly, would have limited access and contacts to that entire show so best to simply gloss over it. The Sunday NYTimes Magazine did a cover story on Jeter last week dealing with all these issues: declining production, facing icons, aging ballplayers, large contracts, etc., but had to do so without media access to Yanqui Stadium because the team refused to issue them credentials once they found out the topic of the story.

Carrasco - 0.5 Acosta - 0.1 Rodriguez - 0.1 Reyes - 0.9 Murphy - 2.2 Beltran - 1.4 Duda - 1.0 Thole - 1.0

Paulino - 2.0 Hairston - 2.0 Pagan - 2.0 Beltran - 1.0 Bay - 1.0 Murphy - 1.0 Reyes - 1.0

HahnSolo wrote: This is one of those 4 1/3 IP, 110 pitch outings for Pelf isn't it? No, because he won't last that long.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I wonder if Pope John Paul ever wore that Mets jersey? Every time he celebrated mass ... mass sucking that is.