Frayed Knot

I get a kick out of the fact that five games went extras today, including the Nats @ Braves which went 15. Nationals wind up book-ending their season losing their first 7 games and winning their last 7.

Figueroa - 5.5 Pagan - 3.0 Thole - 1.5

Tigers did their part, wrapping up a 5-3 win. Twins are up 8-2 in the 6th, Pavano still dealing ... and what are the odds you'd have given early in the season to any team pinning their playoff hopes in game #162 on Carl Pavano, on short rest no less? 2 HRs each so far for Delmon Young & Jason Kubel. oe: OK, now 8-4 and Pavano has been pulled. Twins pen needs to get 10 outs.

Wilton Lopez is a 25 y/o Nicaraguan RHP making his 8th appearance in the major leagues and his 2nd start. 0-1; 9.42 ERA; 14.1 IP; 26 Hits; 17 Runs (15 earned); 4 HRs; 6 BBs; 8 Ks; 2.233 WHiP His lone start was his last one in which he lasted 3.2 innings against the Phillies, giving up 5 runs on 6 hits and getting hung with the loss. He has given up at least one run in 7 of his 8 outings (1 scoreless inning vs the Cards) and the Astros have lost every game in which he has appeared. I had never heard of him prior to seeing his name in the above post.

Misch - 2.4 Stokes - 1.0 Green - 1.0 Rodriguez - 0.2 Tatis - 2.0 Murphy - 1.0 Thole - 1.1 AHernandez - 1.3

40 years ago today came the first games in that new-fangled League Championship Series thing Saturday, October 4 - Game 1 NLCS - Fulton County Stadium: Mets 9 - Braves 5 -- Tom Seaver vs Phil Neikro After a scoreless 1st, a Shamsky single is followed by a Boswell single. Then, after a Kranepool strike-out (Clendenon sitting ... Really?) Grote�s single plus a passed ball makes it 2-0 Mets. - Braves get one back in their half on a Rico Carty double, an error, and a Clete Boyer Sac Fly - In the 3rd Seaver gets hit up for three straight doubles - Millan, Tony Gonzalez & Aaron - and two more runs - In the 4th, Harrelson�s 2-RBI triple buts the Mets back up 4-3 - A leadoff HR from Tony Gozalez in the 5th ties things at 4 and one from Aaron in the 7th puts the Braves up by one - 8th inning: Garrett doubles, Jones singles him in, Shamsky singles, Jones steals 3rd, Boswell reaches on an error and another run scores. Kranepool and Grote follow with ground outs, but when the Braves IW Harrelson to get to Seaver�s spot Hodges puts in JC Martin to PH who promptly singles and, thanks to a CF error, all three runners score before Martin himself is thrown out at the plate. Mets lead 9-5 - Taylor pitches a 1-2-3 8th. He then gives up a single & double in the 9th but gets Orlando Cepeda to pop out and end the game. Game Time = 2:37 (good god, could you imagine how long a 14 run, 20 hits, 3 error, 7 walk post-season game would take in 2009? Yanx-Royals went 3:17 last week in a meaningless 4-3 game) * In the other LCS, Orioles beat the Twins 4-3 when Paul Blair's 2-out bunt single in the 12th inning brought home Mark Belanger. Twins reliever Ron Perranoski took the loss even though a ball never left the infield. Belanger had an infield single, got bunted over to 2nd, then went to 3rd on an infield ground-out before coming home on Blair's bunt. So much for big-inning Earl.

Cuddyer again - this time with a tie-breaking HR in the 8th. Dude's had a ton of big hits down the stretch. Twins got up 4-0 in this one against Greinke and then gave it all back before the Cuddyer HR put them back on top. Twins now 15-4 over their last 19.

Rockies get a 10K in 6 IP performance out of Usbaldo Jimenez and a 7th inning 2R HR from Troy Tulowitski to climb within one game of the Dodgers. Still need to sweep the remaining two in order to win the division and get the (theoretically) worse team in the first round out of Stl & Phil (Phils are one-game better right now) And not that it's pennant related, but Adam Wainwright was going for his 20th win last night and his Cards jumped out to a 6-0 lead. Still down 6-1 heading into the 7th, the Brewers scored 11 unanswered runs and won 12-6. So between that and the egg CC Sabathia laid last night in Tampa: 9 runs (5 earned) on 8 hits & 5 walks in 2.2 IP, there will be no 20-game winners in MLB this season. That's something like only the 3rd time that's happened.

- Tigers get thumped 8-0 by Peavy and the ChiSox - Twinkies jump out to a 10-0 lead and hang on to beat the Royals 10-7 Tiger lead is down to one game and they're pitching Alfredo Figaro (insert Barber of Seville jokes here) a 24 y/o Dominican rookie making his 5th ML appearance and just his 3rd start (the other two were in July). Freddie Garcia goes for Chicago. Twins are throwing Nick Blackburn and have to face Zack Greinke in an afternoon game, but if they can put up a 'W' prior to the Tiger game starting at night there's got to be some pretty nervous Tigers in Motown.

Maine - 4.1 Francour - 1.9 Wright - 1.0 Murphy 1.1 Santos - 0.7 Tatis - 0.7 Parnell - 0.3 Green - 0.2

For those betting I was done with this ongoing project consider yourself a loser Milestones/Recap of the 1969 season: Apr 8 -- Opening Day loss to expansion Montreal 11-10 as four Met pitchers combine to give up 12 hits in front of 3 errors. Same old Mets, right? Apr 25-27 -- Get swept at home in the first three games of a four-game series vs the Cubs Record drops to 6-11 May 21 -- Seaver shuts out Atlanta to get the team to .500 (18 - 18). Prior to this, the latest they had ever been at .500 was starting off 1967 at 4-4 May 23-25 -- In what would become a pattern, Mets get swept in Houston dropping them to 18-22 and into 4th place. May 28-June 10 -- An 11-game winning streak against the west-coast teams. The streak pulls the team above .500 for good and into 2nd place where, except for one day in August, they�d spend each day until taking over first in September. July 8-10 -- The first-ever important series in club history. On the 8th, Fergie Jenkins takes a one-hitter and 3-1 lead into the 9th when three doubles, an IW and a Kranepool single nets 3 runs and stuns the Cubs. Shea was electric and the young me in attendance that night didn�t think life could get any better. The next night Seaver Ks 11 and doesn�t lose his masterpiece until there was one out in the 9th. They�d lose game 3 of the series but it showed anyone paying attention that the team was for real. They�d beat the Cubs 2 of 3 the next week in Wrigley as well to climb within 4 games of 1st place. August 13 -- The 7 losses in 10 games doldrums culminates with a sweep in Houston which dropped them into 3rd place and 10 games out of 1st place. Aug 16-27 -- The west coast teams again bring a long winning streak. 12 wins in 13 games chops the 10 game deficit quickly down to 2.5 Sept 6-13 -- A 10 game winning streak in which the pitching allowed a total of 11 runs vaults them into 1st place to stay Sept 24 -- The NL East clincher - appropriately a shutout - comes in the middle game of a 9-game winning streak that takes them to the final game of the season

Leadoff triple followed by three straight Ks ... yeah, no way that's gonna come back to bite us.

There's been a Nick Evans sighting!! ... and he responds with a triple.

BA lists Flores as 10th best prospect in Sally league this year

"... but things the Wilpons have said post-2004 (eg about not eating contracts)" I don't remember specifics about not eating contracts - and they have eaten a few: Marlon Anderson, Julio Franco, Castro, and several mgrs come to mind just in the last year + a half. No real huge contracts there but there haven't been any big ones worth eating recently. Many called for Castillo's to be swallowed last winter (or on a night in May this year) but it's not like there was a sure-fire replacement waiting in the wings and not doing so turned out to be a good move as opposed to a reaction to a bad year (or bad night). Jerry's contract is for one more year and not for very much money in the grand scheme of things (750K?). I can't see Fred/Jeff laying down the law that Jerry can't be fired on account of the money owed unless Omar's only suggestion for a replacement is giving LaRussa 5 years @ $10-per. "Minaya's moves in the FA market this past off-season" Like taking on ~$18mil to fix a bad bullpen while still paying a unusable closer $15mil? Not spending to fill every fan's wish is not the same as being unreasonably restricted. Every business has a budget and it's tough to argue that they one they use is too low considering it's among the highest each year. "and stuff Phillips' has said throughout the course of the season (admittedly through his own agenda) makes me believe they do." IIRC, Phillips comments had to do mostly with the Duquette regime that followed his directly and the "wise old men" they brought in as advisors who clearly had the ability to go over and around the green GM, someone who not only never had the training wheels taken off his GM car but even had it written into his contract that he could be demoted at any time. That clearly WAS them interfering with a rookie they didn't trust but Omar wanted no part of the proposed 'co-GM' set-up at that time and came in without the layers between him and the owners and at least the promise that the baseball decisions would be his. " But even if they're not interfering directly in the decision making, as you point out they still control Omar's budget." As does any manager in any business. I don't see what's so unique about this. If they're saying to Omar 'you can spend this but not that' that's S.O.P. as far as I'm concerned. If they're somehow saying you can spend this amount but we're going to have a say in how/i] you spend it then I'd say they're interfering. An Omar, for example, who thinks the best moves are adding Manny & Elijah Dukes only to have the Wilpons reject them for pr reasons is not being allowed to improve his team the way he thinks best. But not being allowed to add Teixeira & Sabathia on top of F. Rodriguez and less than a year after adding Santana because it's way more than they have available (or think is wise) to spend then I don't see that as unreasonable restraint.

I don't know if the Wilpon's are interfering at rates greater than what other owner do (they seem to alternately be criticized both for doing too much and too little). Does that mean I think Omar has "full autonomy" for baseball decisions? ... to the extent that most GMs do, yes. Any mgr/dept head in any business is going to have to run decisions by upper mgmt and fit within general rules and budget guidelines. But I don't think Omar would have a managerial hire of his rejected unless Fred & Jeff strenuously objected for some reason and then you wonder if he'd stay under those circumstances. What I was getting at in the earlier post is that if Omar is whacking and hiring his third manager in a relatively short time essentially saying to his bosses; "don't wory, I'll get it right this time", it reflects at least as badly on him as it does on those he hired in which case the owners would be tempted to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, I think they're willing to write this year off as the mother of all bad-break scenarios with the provision that there'll be no such assumptions made again so the areas where we know the weak links are better be cleaned up and if anything like it happens again it won't be treated as a coincidence and it will be your replacement deciding on the next field manager, not you.

FINAL GAME (of reg season of course) Thursday, October 2 - Wrigley Field: Mets 3 - Cubs 5 -- Gary Gentry vs Bill Hands Cubs finally get the better of the Mets (after 5 straight losses) but it�s during a meaningless game in October. Gentry went just 4 innings despite allowing only 1 run. Cardwell got hit up for 4 runs over 2 innings - mostly due to Ernie Banks�s 3R HR - and took the loss. Boswell & Jones had two hits each and all three RBIs Game Time = 2:46 100 - 62; 8 games ahead Seasons have ended on Sundays for so long now it looks strange to have one close mid-week.

The NL playoff teams are set with the Rox win this afternoon, clinching at least a WC and eliminating the Braves. The only questions remaining are the West winner/Wild Card and the exact order of the first round. Rox go to LA for 3 games to close out the season. If Rox sweep they'll be the West winner and Dodgers the Wild card. Anything else and it's Dodgers = 1st; Rox = WC WC probably faces the Phils 1st round while StL gets the West winner

Redding - 3.4 Feliciano - 0.4 Beltran - 1.0 Francoeur - 1.2 Tatis - 1.7

Figueroa - 3.5 Green - 0.3 Feliciano - 0.2 Parnell - 0.5 Tatis - 1.4 Beltran - 0.8 Wright - 0.3

Twins smack around the Tigers in this afternoon's game and get a split of the 4-game series. But that still leaves them 2 full games back with three to go - so that obviously means they'll need to be two games better than the Tiggers this weekend (sweep while Detroit loses 2 of 3, or win 2 of 3 while Tigers earn a bagel) just to force a tie and a one-game play-in situation. Or they'll need to go 3-0 while Tigers go 0-3 to win it outright. Both teams will be at home: Twins host KC, Tigers get ChiSox. The funny part about a potential one game playoff is that it would in Minnesota (on the basis of in-season head-to-head) but Monday night at the Metrodome already has the Farve-O-Rama (Vikings host Packers) so, if it's needed, they couldn't have it until Tuesday.

Another Rox win coupled with a Braves loss and yet another Dodger loss (that's 4 straight and 5 of their last 6 all to Pitt & SD) makes the NL West race the last best chance for a fight to the finish, made even more possible by the fact that LA & Colorado finish the season with three games against each other. Rox hosting Milwaukee this after noon are 2.5 games behind LA. But they need a win today and then a sweep over the weekend to win the division. Losing today and sweeping to force a tie isn't really a tie at all because both teams are going to make the playoffs in that scenario and the Dodgers would win the division based on head-to-head. Braves are 4.0 out of the WC and have a 'tragic number' of one. Phils have a 2-game lead on StL for the "right" to face the WC team instead of the West winner in round one.