Frayed Knot

Willets Point wrote: Everyone who's gone to bed and/or "not interested in watching" is missing a good game. An AL-stlye, long-ass game, but a good one nonetheless. Hey, tell that to those "Fenway Faithful" who were piling out of the exits two innings back. TIE GAME !!!!

Not so fast sez Papi (3R HR) and JD Drew (2R HR). 7-6 Rays in the 8th.

He was RoY in '62 but had a relatively short career after that. He was the son of a big league player and I seem to remember some talk that his kid was on the road to maybe becoming the first third-generation player. The kid never did make it all the way - and the Boones, Bells, and Hairstons eventually broke that ground.

Delgado as trade-bait is going to be an interesting topic. Most of the rest of the team is either; - untouchable (or virtually so): Reyes, Wright, Beltran, Santana - or not likely to bring you much: everyone else Delgado is like the king of the in-between guys, not off-limits but somewhat valuable: Church, Pelfrey, Maine might fit in there too but those guys are going to be harder to replace. The only cold water I'll throw on the Teixeira idea (ei both before and after the x) is that I'm reluctant to hand out mega-contracts ($$ and length) to 1st basemen just because it's the easiest place to find a decent caretaker either within the system (Carp?, Murphy?, Evans?) or via a cheap-ish outsider. Good player, I'm just not sure that's the first place I want to spend my allowance.

1960's Yank Tom Tresh, 71

AG/DC wrote: Complete no-trade clause for Delgado. No he doesn't. That's how he got here in the first place.

]I suspect a poll here would show that most of us have moved on and can watch the kid pitch without cursing him or the Mets. But Rogers says we can't so it's case closed.

And now they, and by extension us, get to sit around for an entire week waiting for the WS.

Right, because saying you're over the trade and trying to justify it are the same thing.

Dodgers, with the exception of Manny, couldn't be playing a worse series. Errors, critcal GiDPs, bad pitching, questionable managing, ...

There's no incentive to avoid Olympic years anymore. (not sure there ever was really)

Josh Thole - catcher and 1st base Also featured in Adam Rubin's blog: Josh Thole became a Florida State League All-Star in 2008, hitting .300 in 111 games with St. Lucie to burst onto the scene as perhaps the Mets� top catching prospect, rivaling Francisco Pena and Dock Doyle. Thole, a 13th-round pick out of high school in Breese, Ill. Q: You had moved up every year in the minors since joining the Mets, but this had to be considered a breakout year. A: �No question about it. It was a great opportunity. Actually, the opportunity arose at the end of April. I just kind worked myself in there and became an everyday guy. Everything just kind of fell my way. We were struggling a little bit as a team and trying to shake things around. I kind of went from there.� Q: You had been primarily a first baseman with the Mets before �08, no? A: �This last year was the first tine that I did a lot of catching. I think I caught about 70 games. That�s the most I�ve ever caught. I was drafted as a catcher. Then when I got to the Mets I caught a little bit - in the Gulf Coast, Kingsport and then Savannah just a handful of games. I mainly played first base. Getting back into the catching, it�s a lot different here than what I had to go through in high school. It�s kind of like starting from scratch. I kind of redid everything, from the stance to throwing to second base to blocking. Everything has just been a whole big change for me. Bobby Nadal, our catching coordinator, really has been putting in a lot of time with me.� Q: The Marlins scout called you right before the 12th round in �05 and you agreed on the contractual terms. You had an understanding they would draft you that round, but then it didn�t happen and the Mets took you before they picked again? A: �We thought we had a deal done. Then it slipped right through. I didn�t know what was going to happen from there. The (Marlins) scout that called me just said it was out of his control.� Q: You grew up taking batting practice in a barn belong to a friend, Jason Rakers? A: �Through high school, that�s what I did. I�m from southern Illinois, so it�s all country. His dad had a little loft where he put a batting cage up. My dad went up there five, six times a week with me and did our work. It was a hayloft. The barn was on the bottom and the hayloft was on the second level.� Q: Breese is close to St. Louis, but rural? A: �About 40 minutes across the river. All farmland. We actually lived in the city. We weren�t all farmers. It�s rural, but they have some nice subdivisions.�

Keep in mind that game 2 went 11 innings and this could easily be a two games each series right now. The other Tampa wins have been blowouts but so was the game before the Sox started their coemback vs the Yanx. You're never as good as you look when you're winning and never ... blah blah. Having said all that, the BoSox offense is suddenly looking old and/or injured.

Don't throw dirt on them too quickly, they were down 3 games to 1 last year also. 11-2 Rays heading to the 8th.

The rout is on and the defending champs are in deep doo-doo.

]St. Joe not distinguishing himself last night And is taking a beating for it in the LA papers.

They weren't at all. But, you know what they say; "once a Yankee always a Yankee" -- M. Kay

And the thing that ticked off the BP article was Yanqui fan dissatisfaction with their 3B coach Bobby Meachum. Meachum was fired today.

All this got me a bit curious about bench strength and perception thereof. And maybe PH-ing alone isn't teh best measure of it, but it's a quick 'n easy way to get a handle on it. NYM - PH: 234 ABs, 53 Hits, 6 2Bs, 1 3B, 4 HR, .226/..303/.312 Per/team Avg of rest of NL: 235 ABs, 54 Hits, 10 2Bs, 1 3B, 5 HR, .229/..308/.348 In short, we were a little light in the power dept but otherwise about average.

Networks using small samples and pretending they paint large pictures is par for the course. [u:2181a86d96]Game 4 - 8:00[/u:2181a86d96] Game 4 is always a biggie in these series. At the end the series is either dead even or practically over. And it's Boston who needs to get back into things and are depending on the erratic flutterball of Tim Wakefield to do it. That usually means no Varitek too although these days his bat isn't bringing much anyway. Andy Sonnenstine (13-9, 4.38) for the Rays.

An attitude which reminds me a bit of fans who act as if whoever the manager calls on as the first pinch-hitter of the game has somehow been designated as teacher's pet. Is the best reliever the first one called on?

According to the folks at Baseball Prospectus (and not withstanding our complaints about coaching) the [u:6fff99ab7b]Mets had the fewest[/u:6fff99ab7b] runners thrown out at home all season. They also have us at creating the most runs via baserunning in MLB, a stat which is a combination of runs above expected on not only steals but also extra bases taken on grounders, flies, and hits. None of this means there weren't some dopey decisions made at times, but this just may be one of those times where we're assuming we have it worse simply from seeing our mistakes first hand.

[u:9e2beb147f]Game 4 - 8:20[/u:9e2beb147f] Lowe (on short rest) is in early trouble facing Blanton for the Phils

3R HRs from Upton and Baldelli are about to put the Rays up a game.

I'd like to think that it was a common-sense decision made with weather (NE vs SoCal) and time zones (EDT v PDT) in mind, but more likely it was a pre-arranged deal where the higher paying network (FOX in this case w/the NL series) gets the prime time slot while TBS gets banished to the afternoon.