Frayed Knot

I told Lunchbucket I'd meet him in that plaza outside the Eutaw St gate in the 12:00-12:30 range I'll be the skinny-ish 6-footer with the shaggy blond hair wearing black shorts and a pink - that's right I said pink, gotta problem with that? - t-shirt. LB says he'll be in his Mets road gray 'Springer 70' shirt. Seats are in sect 74 near the LF corner.

Takahashi - 3.6 Feliciano - 0.6 Rodriguez - 0.8 Reyes - 2.2 Francoeur - 1.5 Tejeda - 0.8 Pagan - 0.5

Dickey - 4.2 Rodriguez - 0.3 Reyes - 1.3 Carter - 1.9 Wright - 1.8 Pagan - 0.5

The area just outside the Eutaw Street (pronounced: Utah) entrance is an open plaza where there's room to mill around and/or meet folks prior to going into the stadium. It's at the corner of Eutaw & Camden which is behind the OF side of the stadium and right about where the Camden Station light-rail stop is. There's a couple of mini-landmarks out on the plaza including a small statue of somebody (I forget who) and also stone markers - maybe 3 - 4 ft high - representing retired Orioles numbers. Or one can enter the stadium grounds through the Eutaw Street gate at which point Eutaw Street becomes a long pedestrian walkway that runs from approx straight-away CF towards the RF corner between the back of the OF seats/standing area and the large warehouse-looking thing you see on TV that's beyond the RF seats and is occasionally reachable by a strong LH stroke. The long building actually is an old RR warehouse (hence the name: Camden Yards) that the O's converted into their offices and what-not. On the ground floor there's a series of bars, eats & souvenir shops that are open to the public, and even a small museum dedicated to the fact that it was supposedly at this location where George Herman Ruth Sr. lived above the bar he ran and raised George Jr. until the tyke became too incorrigible and had to be shipped off to reform school. Boog's Bar-B-Que is out there too and big ol' Boog himself is often manning the grill and just being Boog.

Braves scored a run in the 9th to beat Minny Other than that, Nats, Marlins & Phils all lost.

Nothing is sillier than announcers quoting a guy's stats in interleague play and thinking it's meaningful.

and he has 2 XBHs to Castillo's 3 despit the AB differential of 6-1 I'll try to contain my excitement. Look, if he takes this opportunity and runs with it nobody will be happier than me. But he's 20 y/o, has never been considered a 'can't miss' type of prospect, and is only up now because of an injury. Let him play everyday in the minors and hope he can take a job - either Castillo's or Cora's - next spring. and btw, just tonight he's both screwed up a running play and K'd on a ball that bounced about a foot in front of the plate

It was BAD station to station baseball. We only scored because they screwed up last.

Just about everyone in the park screwed up this half-inning - Jerry shouldn't have had Reyes bunting - Tejeda should have scored on Pagan's single - Wright hits into a perfect DP ball on the first pitch - but then Lugo screws up the relay and the Mets score anyway Just when you think there's nothing left to screw up, there's always Julio Lugo in reserve

I saw one inning of the Yanx/Astros today and that was enough. Down 2-1, Jeter walks to lead off I think it was the 3rd inning. Trying to steal he's going to be out by several feet except Keppinger whiffs on the perfect throw lets it go bouncing into CF while Jeets trots to 3rd. Swisher lofted soft single over 2B to tie the game was foretold by every baseball fan on the planet. Teixeira then walks on 4 pitches before Cano bounces a perfect DP ball to SS except the pitcher lunges and deflects it into no man's land and the bags are full with no one out, a run already in, and not one ball hit hard enough to break a sheet of paper. The only thing surprising about Posada's Grand Slam that followed is that it went at least 365 feet to RCF instead of the 314-1/2 ft RF corner special I was anticipating. 5 runs, still no one out, and only one ball in the inning hit with something stronger than a wet newspaper.

AL "won" Friday night tilts 8 games to 6

Friday night Phils lost, Nats lost, and Braves lost. Only the Marlins won although the Rays turned a 14-3 laugher into a much scarier 14-9 w/several on base before losing. Today in Boston, Phils jumped out to a 2-0 lead before some guy named Dan Nava (LF) hit a grand-slam in his first MLB AB for the home team. Now 8-2 Red Sox w/Boston still batting in the 3rd against Blanton. Phils got their pen raked over last night so Blanton might be taking his lumps for a while here. Nava came up with the bases loaded a second time but struck out.

I don't have a problem with that move. He's been playing a good 3B lately but Tatis has had fewer ABs than anyone who's been on the team the whole season and you need to keep guys like that in use if you expect them to be the best RH bat off the bench. Matusz is a highly touted prospect for the O's and, although he's had a tough time getting going so far, this is still the worst pitching match-up for us of the three games.

And they hide their faces And they hide their eyes 'Cause the city's dyin' And they don't know why Oh Baltimore Man it's hard just to live Oh, Baltimore Man, it's hard just to life, just to live

Niese - 6.0 Reyes - 1.9 Davis - 1.0 Carter - 0.5 Francoeur - 0.4 Barajas - 0.2

Hey, the O's actually beat the Yanx tonight as Jake Arrieta held them to 4 hits over 6 in his ML debut and then pen held them hitless through the end. Not bad considering it's only their 2nd Baltimore win against the Skanks in the last 87 games (I may be a little off on that one but it's close).

Florida has tacked on a 2nd run v Philly - lead 2-0 with Nunez replacing Josh Johnson for bottom 9th

Let Niese pitch the ninth! Let Niese pitch the ninth! Let Niese pitch the ninth!

Jerry letting Niese go longer than Black did with Mat Latex 1-hitter thru 7