Frayed Knot

While the BoSox were clinching a spot last night the Rays were winning a pair from Bal'mer so that pretty much ends any specualtion about an ALEast race. Rays are 3 up and each has 5 to play and, with Tampa holding the tie-breaker for season series, their magic number is down to 2. Twins beat the ChiSox in the first of their head-to-head series, chopping the Chicago lead down to 1.5. 6 games left for Chicago, 5 for Minny. 7 favorable (for Twins) outcomes in those 11 games forces a one-game playoff as the loser has no shot at the WC. More than that Minnesota is in, few and the White Sox are. Angels with a 2-game lead on Tampa for overall best record but Rays win the tie-breaker (6-3) there too.

Santana - 5.0 Reyes - 2.7 Wright - 1.5 Murphy - 0.3 Church - 0.3 Ayala - 0.2

I suppose they could argue that the timing isn't their fault as they've not announced anything and say they won't until the off-season. What it does show is that they're still unable to control the constant leaks out of the front office. If these guys would run the Washington Post we would have known who 'Deep Throat' was 'round about 1974.

07 Yanx - ARod, Abreu, Posada

"E"-Day comes for the Yanx just minutes before winning their 10th in 11 games. I was wondering if there was a news blackout on YES but apparently they did mention it before the game was over. First time in a completed season since the first year of Bill Clinton's 1st administration.

We failed to 'Grand-Slam Proof' the game in the 8th.

And THAT is why Argenis isn't starting.

1996 was such a weird year. 227 hits from Lance including 61 XBHs; 31 2Bs + 21 3Bs + 9 HRs 77 XBHs from Gilkey including 44 2Bs 64 XBHs from Hundley including 41 HRs and they still managed to suck.

Also Florida losing and Houston losing

Weird that they've had only 1 200+ hit year in their history but it was a whopping 227

I'd amore some runs too.

If you're going to squeeze you had the right bunter and the right runner for it. I wasn't thinking about it at the time but I like the idea in retrospect.

btw, it was Hampton starting tonight for the Braves, not Jo-Jo. I was passing along bad information.

Buster Olney sez: "Sources say" Omar Minaya will receive a four-year extension to continue as general manager of the New York Mets. The deal is all but done, but it is not known when the extension will be formally announced.

Jo-Jo Reyes - who hasn't won in many many weeks and is 0-2 vs the Phils this season vs Cole Hamels - who's only loss in his last 7 starts was the one to us, and is 4-0 vs the Braves this season Ugh Pirates @ Brewers Milwaukee is 9-1 for the season series, including 6-0 in an 8-day span in late August. Pitt = Jeff Karstens - part of the Xavier Nady deal from the Yanx - has lost his last 6 starts after almost tossing a no-no soon after the trade. He also lost to Milw on 8/31 vs Milw = Dave Bush - 9-10 overall, 2-1 vs Pitt. We smacked him for 6 runs over 5 IP on 9/3

Nah, you couldn't get a white sheet to fit over that 'fro.

[u:a46fe38775]Game 157; Tuesday , Sept 25 - Nationals @ Mets[/u:a46fe38775] Nats 10 - Mets 9 Glavine (5 IP, 6 R, 9 H) vs Jason Bergmann (5.2 IP, 3R, 7H): For a change, they score early and we score late ... but what doesn't change is that we still lose. - Two Washington HRs (3R & Solo) in the 1st inning and we're in a 4-0 hole before coming to bat. - Reyes goes deep in the 1st (4-1), Sean Green comes through with an RBI single in the 2nd (4-2) but then Glavine gives back single runs in the 3rd & 4th (6-2) - Gotay's PH 2B brings it back to 3 runs but the pen allows runs in the 7th (2), 8th (1) and 9th (1) - 3 of them on RBIs by Brian Schneider - so that any reasonable 9th inning comeback is out of the question (10-3) - But this is the Mets who don't know how to be reasonable. So after a Reyes 3R HR and an Alou 3-RBI double it's a 10-9 game and there's still only 1 out and a pinch-runner on 2nd. Delgado & LoDuca promptly go down in order and we lose 10-9. In Philadelphia the Braves knock out 13 hits and come from behind to beat the Phils 10-6 Lead stays at 2 games even; Magic number drops to 5 N-HOP goes to 4 of 10 (40%).

Same reason he rarely lasted more than a year or two with any team, he couldn't get along with anyone. I don't remember if the fist-fight he had with one of his pitchers was the last straw or just one of several. I was at a dinner one time when sportswriter Dick Young did a tribute to Billy by singing; 'God Don't Make Little Green Apples and I Can't Manage Minneapolis in the Summertime'

Here's an interesting theoretical choice: Sunday we're one game up on Milwaukee - aka, clinched at least a tie * Do you start Santana against Florida as planned thereby reducing him to one game in Round 1? OR * Skip him and fugure that the 25% chance (we lose + Brews win) of forcing yourself into a one-game playoff won't come up? If it does you throw him in the play-in game, if not he's available twice in NLDS

Sanchez - 0.5 Heilman - 0.4 Reyes - 1.0 Murphy 0.8 Wright - 2.0 Delgado - 1.0 Beltran - 0.8 Church - 0.5

Where does the short rest info come from? Manual was saying as late as yesterday that he wasn't going to go that route. Plus, even if he were so inclined, why make that decision now before knowing what the situation will be?

If they could have grabbed some chip-away runs when they had all those runners on then Wright's blast and these couple of hits would mean a lot more.

Runners on 1st & 2nd w/0 outs 4 seperate times in a ten-inning span = 0 runs

Niese & Parnell playing out the 'Backup Quarterback Syndrome'

Seven more days, all we got to do is survive -- B. Dylan