Frayed Knot

We Three Kings

]I'm not a mechanical physicist, but I'm guessing that getting movement on a 12" diameter ball over 45 feet is a lot different from getting the equivelant movement on a 9" ball over 60 feet You're no geometrist either. ]Whenever I think of a sidearmer or submarinber, I think of Elias Sosa first. Who is your 1st association? Ted Abernathy

Just a reminder that we shouldn't fall too far behind in our Scheafer voting just because Grimm isn't here to keep on our butts about it and set deadlines. Voting has been pretty light on the games since last weekend so if you're a regular or even occasional participant don't let those games fade from your memory.

Beltran - 1.0 Castro - 1.5 Feliciano - 0.6 Martinez - 4.2 Reyes - 2.0 Stokes - 0.4 Wright - 0.3

Beltran - 1.8 AReyes - 0.6 Santana - 5.5 Schneider - 2.1

Beltran - 1.0 Evans - 1.0 Maine - 3.2 Reyes - 1.0 Schoeneweis - 0.3 Smith - 0.3 Wright - 1.0

Ayala - 0.7 Beltran - 0.4 Castro - 0.6 Delgado - 1.7 Easley - 1.1 Evans - 0.8 Heilman - 0.7 Perez - 3.2 Tatis - 0.8

Wagner's little speech - and particularly the line about "everybody in there" (implying the rest of the pen) is as good as I am if not better - was more sticking up for the rest of the pen than anything else. Having to hear how much they suck all the time can't be easy even if no one wants to hear them complain about it. Wags is just the only one who's going to say something like that and not worry about how it sounds. His best line overall was when he said; "the only reason I'm the closer is that I sucked at starting"

Gee, two runs early and then a string of zeros afterward. I think I've seen this movie before.

metirish wrote: The booth talking about the old days and Keith saying that Rusty wouldn't go over the 59th Street Bridge to go back to the City because he was afraid of heights. I knew Rusty didn't like to fly and I've known of people who don't like bridges, but the 59th Street seems pretty low and "unscary" even for bridge-o-phobes. Now the Triborough on the other hand ...

Keith calls that cheap roller a "swinging bunt". I call it a "Jeter"

AG/DC wrote: Casey Kotchman? The self-employed guy in town who claims to be able to fix anything from your car, to your VCR, to your clogged sink.

Larry Jones was a no-nonsense career military officer who now is in charge of secret service protection for a got-no-shot presidential candidate during the primary season.

Martin Prado: Clothing Designer

"When you give up runs in bunches, your ERA will look worse than your overall peripherals would imply" Which is clearly what's happening here. Our pen's baserunners allowed is almost exactly average but the pct of those runners who score is way outta whack to the point where it's cost them around 20 runs allowed and maybe 3 or 4 wins above what they "deserve". The question then becomes, is this just shit luck that'll, if not turn around, at least swing somewhat back towards normal, or is this some sort of trait inherant with this group? Of course it always SEEMS LIKE your guys are the masters of giving up hits/runs at the worse possible moment - a statement which not only implies that there's a good time to give up runs late in the game by is probably uttered by fans of all 30 teams. But there seem to be two forces at work here: - the first baserunner almost inevitably seems to lead to more baserunners and therefore more runs - and that the first reliever seems to set the tone so that if he gives up runners he's likely to be followed by who's going to toss more gasoline on the fire allowing the first guy's runners to score plus maybe a few of his own. There seems to rarely be any compromise between 'perfect' and 'prefectly awful'

Bobby Cox's lament As I walked down the streets of Atlanta I found the field where the Braves like to play There sat Bobby Cox all slumped down in his dugout his face was the shade of the red Georgia clay I could see by his uni that he was a lifer He waved me on over as I slowly walked by and said, "come sit beside me and hear my sad story, my team is in shambles and I'm fixin' to cry" "Where once in the East we used to be dom'nant, a dozen straight titles we salted away. Octobers were ours as a matter of birthright But soon it will be our elimination day" "It took four aging starters to put nails in my coffin six sore-armed relievers to blow every save. Find that guy with the tom-tom and chief Nokahoma and tell them to follow my corpse to the grave" They'll beat that drum slowly, and play the fife lowly The fans chop their arms as the hearse moves along "Take me down to the outfield and lay a pennant o'er me I once ruled the land but it's now all gone wrong" I could see by his scorecard that he still had Chipper He plays next to Yunel and named his kid Shea Was hitting .400 'til his body betrayed him and now each day's paper calls him 'day-to-day' We look over to first base and don't see Teixeira dealt away for Kotchman who played in LA And then Kelly Johnson who feasts on Met pitching but he's not hitting now and his first name sounds gay Where once in the outfield they used to have Andruw, he slammed every pitch and he caught every hit But now it's just Kotsay and Francouer and Blanco a bunch of old has-beens who've all turned to shit" On the mound we'll see Jo-Jo and Jurrgens and Hampton as Smoltz and Tom Glavine rest their old bones and drool and Tim Hudson ponders his future in baseball while Mike Hampton's driving his kids to their school So let's beat the Braves slowly and lay them down lowly Pin their backs to the ground as the ref counts to three Reign o'er the East division and build up our cushion drop them down the standings 'til they look up at D.C. OK yeah, so I posted a version of that ditty about a month ago. But, seeing as how I originally conjured it up to be used in a goofy KTE, I'm inflicting on y'all again. And if you don't know what song is being parodied here well then I can't help you. For a summary in non-musical form, we're 2-7 against these guys this year (2-1 here, 0-6 in their place) although we haven't seen them since May. 5 of those 9 games were either Smoltz or Hudson starts and both of them are out for the year. Jurrjens is the only starter we're facing this week who we've seen this season. He beat us in Atlanta on May 21, going 7 innings gving up 2 runs (1 earned) on 5 hits & 2 BBs as he faced Mike Pelfrey (4 IP, 6 ER, 8 hits, 3 BBs) before we traded him in for version 2.0 All games 7:00PM * Tuesday - Jo-Jo Reyes (he is a man who thinks he is a pitcher) 3-3; 5.33 ERA in 15 starts * Wednesday - Jair Jurrgens: 11-8; 3.15 - the 22 y/o from Curacao, Netherlands Antilles has been their best pitcher this year * Thursday - Mike Hampton: Missed nearly 3 complete years. Has 5 starts since coming back and is 2-1 w/a 6.92 ERA over 26 innings We counter with Perez, Pelfrey & Pedro Offense: Catcher McCann and Chipper (when he's healthy) have been their best players this year. Kelly Johnson and Yunel Escobar (2B & SS) have calmed down from their early season hot streaks. Jeff Francouer's (RF) plate discipline isn't getting any better 3 seasons into his career. Casey Kotchmann (1B) has done little to make them forget the Teixeira eira, and Ruben Gotay has done little off the bench to make Omar regret cutting him loose. Bullpen: They've got a bunch of guys out there, several of whom I've even heard of.

In checking into how bad they're stinking and why, one finds that the numbers across the board aren't all that bad ... until you get to the pesky one about runs given up. - the Met pen is NOT being called upon to cover more innings than other pens. NYM starters have thrown 66% of all innings pitched compared to a 65% NL average - the WHiP of the NYM pen is actually better than NL avg: 1.36 vs 1.38; their BA/OBA/SLG-against is virtually identical: .252/.331/.394 vs .252/.331/.398; Ks & BBs are also essentially the same; HRs are the only thing a bit higher but even there not dramatically so: 1 every 8.8 IPs vs 1 in 9.3 or about 3 more than expected and yet, somehow, this all adds up to the 2nd worst ERA in the league (and barely so) or about 19 more earned runs given up above what would normally be expected given their overall average-ness. And none of that includes whatever inherited runner pain they've inflicted on the starters (don't have those figures but I suspect it's not a pretty sight). So just in case you were starting to believe that Met penners are conspiring to bunch all their hits and walks so as to maximize the number of runs given up, you're not becoming paranoid, it's actually the case. Normally 20 extra runs given up over a length of time would translate into about two extra losses. But since we're talking strictly about late-game runs here it's probably worse than that ... four extra losses?, five?

And played the field

Pitcher's spot was in the #2 hole, J-Rey was going to PH if A-Rey got on.

This bullpen needs a 12-run cushion with 2 outs to go in order to secure a win.

]I missed who the fans voted for , anyone see ? It was Murphy by a landslide -- thus proving the short-memory theory. - Jefferies start was clearly more impressive although one could argue that that team was already winning. - Timo's splash was a much smaller sample but its timing was key. - Murphy's has been nice but not nearly as good or as long as Jeffereies and it's not like it's turned the fortunes of the team around.

PiazzaFan411 wrote: So what was the call on the whole Maine-Reyes thing. Maine out on Fielder's Choice and Reyes counted as a tag? The DP throw sailed wide, but Reyes was judged to have made a move towards 2nd and was tagged out before getting back to 1st by the catcher backing up the play.

No doubt that the IW can't be great for the ego - but it's not like failure to hit a Walk-off GS can be considered failure there. Byrd actually seems to have found his way in Texas since last season(stadium probably helps) years after being first a hot-shot prospect, and then disappointing MLer, in the Phils system. And just last week he spent an entire series smacking clutch hits all over the place against the Yanx, including a game-winning GS.

So the Rays are in Texas tonight leading 7-2 headed for the 9th. - But closer Percival is out and quickly the bags are loaded with one out, - An FC brings in one run (7-3) while get out #2, then a BB re-loads them and brings the tying run to the plate in the form of Josh Hamilton. - So TB mgr Joe Maddon intentionally walks in a run to get around facing Hamilton bringing up Marlon Byrd as the winning run ... and Byrd strikes out. Cool!

K - K - BB - K and the Phils win 2-1