Frayed Knot

Named by BA as the #2 prospect in the Appalachian League - behind only #1 overall 2008 draft pick Tim Beckham. Selected Flores comments during an on-line chat session about the Appy League: - "For me, [the top prospect for the Mets] is still Fernando Martinez. Flores is an intriguing talent, but let's see how he performs in full-season ball, dealing with the grind of playing a full season. - Expect Flores to follow the Fernando Martinez path, with an assignment to low Class A Savannah at age 17 to begin his first pro season. - Maybe the most impressive number put up by Flores was only 28 strikeouts in 245 AB's at his age ... his contact ability (coupled with impressive power) is what stood out to me. Plate discipline will have to be polished against more advanced pitchers, but Flores' pitch recognition is already quite good, as he he has has the hand-eye coordination and reflexes to put all types of pitches in play. - You can see by his month-by-month walk totals that Flores became more selective later in the season, and that the higher strikeout totals resulted from his working deeper counts. As word got around the league about his ability, Flores began to see a lot more offspeed pitches early in counts. But in a positive sign, he recognized the pattern and looked offspeed early in his at-bats. - Flores will be developed as a shortstop, at least early in his career. He led all Appy League shortstops in every cumulative defensive category � total chances, putouts, assists, double plays, etc. And his fielding percentage was above the league average ... what's interesting about his development at SS is that, according to the Mets, he played mostly third base and outfield in his native Venezuela, so that the organization had to instruct him in the finer points of shortstop play in extended spring � things like making plays in the hole and getting his feet behind him on throws ... [but] it's much more difficult for clubs to find strong hitters at short than it is at third base or on an outfield corner.

Reese headed for the Hawaii Winter League - sked to get underway Sept 28

Gwreck wrote: ="Frayed Knot"]Kind of like this year. Well, except for that the biggest lead either team has had this year since the all-star break is what, 3 games? Yeah, but the similarity is how quickly the leads disappeared. You hope that the cushion holds for 17 days and it's gone, or mostly gone, in just 5. This is the first day I didn't feel like doing this ... and it's a win, go figure. Game 151; Wednesday , Sept 19 - Mets @ Nationals Mets 8 - Nats 4 Mike Pelfrey (5 IP, 3R, 9H) vs Matt Chico (5.1 IP, 5R, 7H): Pelfrey isn't great, but he slogs through 5-plus innings and 12 baserunners to leave with a lead and is followed up by 4 innings of 1-run/3-hit ball from Sosa, Heilman and Wagner. Mets bats plug away in enough innings to keep the run total growing. 2nd inning: Alou single, Conine 2B, LoDuca SacFly 3rd inning: Reyes 2B, Wright 1B 5th inning: Reyes 1B, Castillo 3B, Wright SacFly 6th inning: Alou 2B, LoDuca SacFly until breaking out in the 7th for 3 runs - a Green single, an error, then RBI singles from Wright & Alou - to make it an 8-3 lead An unearned run (3 more errors today) off Wagner getting in some work in the 9th for your 8-4 final And the Phils lose too!! Cardinals get 11 hits but need to scratch out a run in the 10th to grab a 2-1 win. Lead = 2-1/2; N-HOP Pct drops from 47.8% to 42.9% as we now need 9 of the remaining 21 possibilities to go our way.

These two series become bigger and bigger particularly as the Phils continue to win and because NLEast destiny in no longer in our hands. We've been so focused on the two-team race that it's easy to miss what a freakin' mess this thing would be had the Brews & Astros not both gone on losing streaks comparable to ours. And the killer for them both last night was not only losing but doing so with Sabathia & Oswalt on the mound. That was CC's first loss as a Beermaker and Oswalt was carrying a lengthy scoreless innings streak into last night and promptly got lit up for 4 in the 1st. Tonight: - Ben Sheets (13-8, 2.97) vs Jason Marquis (10-8, 4.36) and - Brandon Backe (9-12, 5.44) vs Ricky Nolasco (14-7, 3.56)

]Mike Schmidt was right; the Phillies are a better team than the Mets. They rise to the occasion, the Mets shrink from it. At least until proven otherwise, that is the case. Tonight's matchup features LHP J.A. Happ for the Phils, just promoted to the rotation in place of the floundering Kyle Kendrick vs RHP Jair Jurrgens probably the Braves' best pitcher this season - or at least the healthiest.

Pelfrey - 4.7 Smith - 0.4 Wright - 0.1 Cancel - 0.1 Castro - 0.1 Schneider - 0.1 Shit, we didn't even draw one walk in this game!!

]Maybe we should all break out our lucky charms. Well the Lucky Charms didn't work. So today everyone has to break out their Quisp, Quake, Count Chocula or Frankenberry and see if they work.

]Are They Pressing? I don't want to say they're pressing, but I'll be bringing them all my dress shirts. Thank you, I'll be here all week.

Milledge playing deep finally pays off for them

More 2-out RBIs for them ... no 2-out RBIs for us.

A Ruiz HR makes it 4-3 Phils Manuel has moved Werth to #3 slot splitting up the lefties Utley & Howard. That probably should have been done a while ago.

Defense is fine. But we've got 1 baserunner after 13 batters, or, looked at another way, 2 runs through 13 innings.

We're got more than one out of town series to follow this week. Marlins get 4 in the first off Oswalt. Volstad pitching for Florida Brews @ Cubs yet to start Sabathia & Dempster

That was a tougher inning for Pelfrey than it should have been considering that no ball left the infield.

Nothing like pumping up the offense with a .250 hitting 2nd baseman (.220 in August) with 1 extra base hit and 4 walks. Of course I'm only knocking Argenis Reyes because I, like Gary Cohen, am in the tank for Luis Castillo. Marching orders from SNY and Omar ... you know how it is.

The Moyers wish to remind everyone that just because their kids have names like Timoney & Hutton that it doesn't mean they aren't just ordinary people.

[u:5eb8750dcb]Game 150; Tuesday , Sept 18 - Mets @ Nationals[/u:5eb8750dcb] Nats 9 - Mets 8 John Maine (4.1 IP, 8R, 8H) vs Joel Hanrahan (3 IP, 5R, 7H): - Mets bat around and score 4 times in the 1st - Maine gives up single runs in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th - But the Mets add single runs in the 3rd & 4th then two more in the 5th to take what looked like a comfortable 7-3 lead. - And then Maine blew up ... allowing 5 runs (big blow = Ronnie Belliard 3R HR) while only getting one out before Schoeneweis put a lid on more trouble by getting a GiDP (8-7 Nats) He gave up a solo HR to start the 6th (9-7) but that was the only run the pen allowed this day. - Problem was, of course, that Operation Offensive Shutdown was in full swing as the Mets went scoreless in innings 6, 7 & 8. In the 9th facing Chad Cordero three straight two-out hits brought in a run and put the tying & go-ahead runs on base ... just in time for a Ruben Gotay K to end the game Can't blame the pen for this one. Met bats get 16 hits and 3 walks off NINE Washington pitchers but it wasn't Maine's night. The Phils were in St. Louis for Game 2 of their series. They go to extras tied at 3. BOTH teams score in the 10th ... before the Phils score 3 in the 13th for the win. Lead = 1-1/2; N-HOP Pct rises from 44.0% to 47.8% And that right there shows the problem with the whole "7 in 17" thing, how quickly the lead disappeared to almost nothing with still 12 games left to play and became a situation where missing the playoffs was a distinct possibility. Kind of like this year.

One of several series we need to moniter over the next few days. Game 1 tonight matches Jamie Moyer against James Parr* * I've never heard of this guy but he's a 22 y/o, RHer 4th round pick from 2004 who's had 2 ML starts now going a total of 12 innings and has yet to give up a run. 12 IPs, 7 hits, 3 BBs, 10 Ks IOW, Jamie Moyer's kids are probably older.

"You are putting WAY too much stock in a piffy, innocuous statement written in frustration" Only because said statement was stupid, inaccurate, and played to the wrong audience. Other than that it was fine. "But because it was Castillio who has had a bad, injury riddled year, been given butt kisses all year by the SNY commentators Again, save that shit for those whose paranoia rivals the folks walking around with tinfoil hats believing tha 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' was a documentary. "and will be with this team for three more seasons" Or not.

Rincon - 0.2 Parnell - 0.3 Reyes - 1.0 Schneider - 1.0 Tatis - 0.5 Castillo - 1.0

]I was just stating the obvious in a factual statement. Right, the coincidence of him making the last out was why you brought this up in the first place. And it's why you just happened to throw in the stupid nickname and the contract to boot, as if any of this is even the slightest bit relevant in a game where he got on base twice more than Wright, Beltran & Delgado combined and the staff gave up 5 two-out runs.

NO, it was bashing the easy target (complete w/stupid nickname) because him being the culprit is the pre-arranged story-line and whether it's true or not is a non-issue. Go sell it somewhere else where there are eager buyers.

ChiSox lose and so does Mini-soda so no change there. Boston beats Tampa crushing Kazmir for 9 runs in 3 innings -- virtual 1st place tie.

btw, that's now 25 runs allowed to these chumps in 3 games.

Liner over SS towards LCF. Didn't make the wall or anything but Milledge had to go sideways a while for it and Castillo just legged it out by a decent margin.