Frayed Knot

Tiggers blew a 7-game lead with 26 to go. Not quite as bad as Mets '07, but it's getting there. Of course the Detroiters didn't help their case by blowing several separate leads in the play-in game.

I didn't like the prospect of seeing the Tigers go to Yanqui stadium with Verlander not available until game 3 and closer Rodney fried for who knows how long.

Keppel wins it as Gomez scores the winning run. Met Power!!

WOW!! Dude looked like he got a bad jump off of 3B

Is Gene Larkin available to pinch-hit?

Obviously more than a bit of luck involved there but Cuddyer's been getting HUGE hits for the Twinkies for weeks now.

Inge saves game (maybe) with his glove and then puts the Tigers up w/a 2-out 2B Good player Inge ... stupid tattoos.

Did the ESPN crowd leave the stadium yet or are they still at their on-location desks talking about Favre?

There's no reason for the Mets to publicly pre-announce a specific budget number, particularly so early in the going. They have suggested that payroll next year should be right around where it was this season - something that's been in almost complete opposition to published reports, some of which speculated about $40 million cuts. As far as the future goes it's as ridiculous to talk about future years being cast in stone now as it was to look at the '06 season as merely the first stepping stone to an unbroken string of success. It's easy now to dismiss 2009 as a disaster from day one although SI's pre-season prediction of a NYM WS championship or BP's projection of 93 wins suggests it wasn't always so obvious.

So if Minaya can hang on another six seasons averaging 85 wins/year during that time (maintaining that .527 pct) while snagging one WS title in the process does he get to be as celebrated as Cashen? Ridiculously speculative I know, but somehow I doubt it.

I'm leaning toward the Dodgers at this moment, although what frequently winds up happening is that I find myself pulling for one side at some point in the series without any conscious moment of when or even why I decided to do so. Sometimes it even changes within a series even if only to root for a longer, more interesting one. I only have one Must-Not-Win entry in this post-season. Other than that I just hope to enjoy things and won't otherwise get myself worked up over specific results.

Monday, October 6 - Game 3 NLCS - Shea Stadium: Mets 7 - Braves 4 -- Gary Gentry vs Pat Jarvis Wow, look at that. They actually managed to schedule an LCS without the benefit of multiple �travel days� (or any travel days for that matter). Amazing how the post-season can be completed before November if one really puts their mind to it rather than allowing the TV networks to dictate start times. - Gentry gets hit up for a 2R HR in the 1st ... Aaron again, this one hit the flagpole in straight-away CF. My father was there that day and he swears the ball was still rising when it hit. - Gentry then retired the side in the 2nd on just one walk, but when the first two hitters in the 3rd reached base Hodges reached for his bullpen. Actually, the story the way I remember it is that he yanked Gentry not before the next hitter but in mid-AB (although this is not clear via the BB-Ref account so any other info is welcome). Rico Carty was the hitter after Gonzalez & Aaron had started the inning 1B - 2B and when Carty hit a screaming liner towards downtown Flushing somewhere only foul by a few feet, Hodges was walking up the dugout steps before the ball had landed. Rumor had it that Carty had to ask one of his teammates what this new guy Ryan threw. Not sure the word �fastball� was enough to prepare him for what he was about to face as he wound up striking out. After intentionally walking Cepeda to load the bases, Ryan retired the next two hitters and stranded all runners. - So with a 2-run deficit which certainly looked like it was going to be much worse, Agee hit a solo HR in the bottom of the inning to cut the Braves lead in half - In the 4th Boswell�s 2R HR put the Mets up 3-2 - Cepeda answered back with a 2R HR of his own in the 5th to put the Braves back up 4-3. But before the bottom half of that inning was over, Garrett tossed in a 2R HR and then Boswell�s RBI single jacked the Met lead up to 6-4 - Ryan finished out the game, getting credit for 7 full innings while giving up 2 runs on 3 hits, walking 2 and striking out 7, limiting the Braves to just two 8th inning singles after Cepeda�s 5th inning HR. Game Time = 2:24 No drama in the AL this day. Orioles pound out 18 hits against 7 Minnesota pitchers while Palmer goes all the way in an 11-2 rout to complete the Baltimore sweep.

* Lefty # Switch-hitter

Thought I'd take a look at some no-ffensive stats Our problem in 2008 is that the offense relied on a kind of Big-Four/Little-Four scenario, one where All-Star quality bats at four positions (3B, SS, CF, 1B) tried to cover up for the deficiencies at the other four (2B, C, LF, RF) The problem this year was that while those other four improved, we just didn't get the either the quality (Wright) or the quantity (Beltran, Reyes & Delgado) we got last year. Player -- RC '08 -- RC '09 Wright -- 135 --- 96 Reyes -- 122 --- 23 Beltran -- 121 --- 66 Delgado -- 108 -- 20 That's a huge freakin' hit. Obviously other than Wright, the drops were all due to severely reduced playing time and the replacements couldn't anywhere near make up for the drop. With Wright his playing time was nearly the same but his RC/G dropped from 7.7/per down to 6.4 On the plus side, there was Castillo who went from 36 RC to 70, or a RC/G of 3.9 to 4.9 Tatis produced about the same overall: 49 in 2008 vs 48 in 2009, but that was spread over more playing time: 6.6/G vs 4.8/G Murphy also upped his RC from 24 to 66 but it took him about 4x the playing time to get there and so his per/game fell from 6.6 to 4.4 The Francoeur/Church deal worked out in our favor (at least so far): Church last year 5.1/G and this year 4.2/G made way for Francoeur at 6.1/G

My rooting interests in this year's post-season involves two things: 1) getting some good games & exciting series 2) the usual Other than those I really have little care about the route taken to achieve those.

2010 Draft 1. Nationals 2. Pirates 3. Orioles 4. Royals 5. Indians 6. Diamondbacks 7. Mets 8. Astros 9. Padres 10. Athletics 11. Blue Jays 12. Reds 13. White Sox 14. Brewers 15. Rangers (for failure to sign Matt Purke) 16. Cubs 17. Rays 18. Mariners 19. Tigers/Twins loser 20. Braves 21. Tigers/Twins winner 22. Rangers 23. Marlins 24. Giants 25. Cardinals 26. Rockies 27. Phillies 28. Dodgers 29. Red Sox 30. Angels 31. Rays (for failure to sign LeVon Washington) 32. Yankees

Sunday, October 5 - Game 2 NLCS - Fulton County Stadium: Mets 11 - Braves 6 -- Jerry Koosman vs Ron Reed Met bats, which were carried by their pitchers over the last month of the season, pound out runs early and often against Braves pitchers, including one in the 1st, three in the 2nd, two in the 3rd, two more in the 4th, and one in the 5th 1st - Kranpool singles in Agee w/2 outs although Grote fails to add more when he Ks with the bases-loaded 2nd - Agee HRs after Koosman walks. Shamsky's single knocks in Jones who had doubled (and knocks out starter Reed). 3rd - Harrelson doubles in Grote. Garrett later singles in Harrelson 4th - Shamsky leads off with a single and Boswell HRs 5th - Garrett doubles and Jones singles him in At this point Cepeda�s 4th inning solo HR is the only Atlanta run, so Koosman takes a 9-1 lead into the bottom 5th and even retires the first two batters ... but never finishes the inning A Single - Walk - 3R HR (Aaron) - Walk - Double - and 2-RBI Single (Boyer) later and Ron Taylor has to come in and get the final out in a suddenly tighter 9-6 game. But Jones�s 2R HR in the 7th off Cecil Upshaw - the Braves 5th pitcher of the day - makes it a 5-run lead Taylor goes 1-1/3 and gets the win while McGraw pitches one-hit ball over the 7th, 8th, and 9th 13 hits on the day for Met bats, including 3 each for Jones & Shamsky; two each for Agee & Garrett Game Time = 3:10 Orioles again win in extras via some non-Earl-like small-ball. In the bottom of the 11th inning, a Boog Powell walk is followed by a Brooks Robinson bunt (way to get that speedster over), an IW to Davey Johnson, then, after a Mark Belanger pop-up, the Twins replace starter Dave Boswell with the Game 1 loser Ron Perranoski. Earl Weaver counters with pinch-hitter Curt Motton (Who?!?) who singles in the winning run. Dave McNally goes all 11 innings for the win.

OK, I've changed my mind. I'm pulling for the Twins now. Even though they're 14-35 against the Yanx in the regular season since 2003, and even though they played like shit in two post-season series this decade going 2-6 overall, and even though they're missing both Morneau and Crede, and even though Francisco Liriano has never returned to the form he showed briefly as a youngster. But they're hot and the Tigers are not, and the Tigers had to burn Verlander today and still aren't assured of being in it. I also don't trust Cabrera to come though (he's still a lazy shit), or Magglio (too old).