Frayed Knot

The thing about hitting for Castro is that if he would have gotten on you'd almost have to run for him anyway. I think Willie's been playing this one well tonight. I was wondering why Mainer PR-ing instead of Santana but saving Johan for the potential hitting slot was smarter.

Pen is Perfect thru Phive (with 8 Ks!!)

Logan Kensing sounds like he should be hanging with Brock Pemberton at the Omega frat trying to dig up dirt on the Deltas.

Two in a row for Castro

Considering that the first wave of voting usually favors only "name" players (they start the process so early it almost has to) the voters here are on the right path for the most part. Berkman & Soto deserve to be at or near the top as does Chipper over Wright. Maybe a few over-zealous Cubbie fans but that's no biggie. It's all especially good when seen in contrast to the AL voters and their picks for the BoYank-Star Team where it's all pin-stripers and beaneaters plus that Ichiro guy - about half of which (maybe less) actually deserve the top spot.

metirish wrote: Anyone want to take the Dodgers series? I'll put something together. * And on the eve of a Met-Dodger series, I just became Straw!!!

The Cleveland Native Americans pulled off a triple steal last night ... well, sort of. Bases loaded (duh!) when the ChiSox pitcher pulls the old 'fake-to-3rd/throw to 1st trick' ... and it works! Runner caught off 1st heads towards 2nd with Sox 1st sacker Konerko in pursuit. Naturally the other two runners break also so Kornerko turns his attention elsewhere but his throw home is off-line as the runner slides in safely. Could/Should have been an error if you ask me, but it wasn't. Meanwhile the runners from 1st & 2nd simply waltz into 2nd & 3rd and all three get credit for SBs. And speaking of odd plays, Buck Showalter on BB2N is talking about a triple play (in the minors) where the ball never touches the ground or a glove. * I couldn't imagine how this occured when they teased the piece a few minutes before explaining it -- See if you can* - Runners 1st & 2nd/0 outs - Manager Buck starts the runners, batter hits a pop-up - Umps call 'Infield Fly Rule'; batter is out (1), runners allowed to advance at their own risk - But runner from 1st isn't paying attention and continues past 2nd where he's called out (2) for passing the guy retreating to 2nd - So where does the pop-up come down? ... Off the helmet of the retreating runner who's called out for getting hit with a batted ball (3) Triple play and the defense never touched the ball once.

Yeah, the rotation after Pedro's return is pretty much up in the air at this point. In the meantime, lottsa good young pitching against us ahead (ummm, plus that Zito guy): - Olsen tonight looks like he's gotten his head back in order recently. - We seem to have a hex on Penny but that'll be Clayton Kershaw's 2nd ML start after laying waste to the minors and an impressive debut. - We'll miss Lincecum in SF (assuming this stays correct) but Cain & Sanchez can be tough - and then what was supposed to be the best pitching team in the West is the one place that suddenly looks hollow as both Peavy & Young are currently DL'd in SD

You implied otherwise: "[u:8fb6e44240]Duaner working himself out of the jam[/u:8fb6e44240] made his scoreless inning as valuable as Wagner's scoreless inning in my book"

Shouldn't get extra credit for working out of a jam that you yourself created. And if we, as fans, are going to five closers extra grief for blowing 9th inning leads we can't then give the equivelent of 'no big deal' when he does close one out - and perfectly no less.

He's actually talked about those scenes in the past. Says JLD was 4 or 5 months pregnant at the time and would go off-stage to barf every once in a while between takes. Guess it wasn't as good for her as it was for him.

Brews beat Braves on a Mike Cameron Sac Fly in the 9th 2007 Minor League Player of the Year Jay Bruce (OF - Reds) makes his ML debut tonight with 3-for-3 plus a couple of BBs & RBIs

Perfect 9th vs a lead-off double 8th

Santana - 4.0 Castro - 1.5 Tatis - 1.5 Castillo - 0.5 Wagner - 0.8 Wright - 0.5 Easley - 0.5 Sanchez - 0.4 Reyes - 0.3

Yanx & Os combine for 9 HRs thru 8 (actually, they hit them all in the first 5 innings) Tied 8-8 heading for the 9th in the rain in Bal'mer.

F. Martinez is currently: - DL'd - not exactly tearing up the league even when he was healthy - not on the 40-man and doesn't need to be for a while - and would still be the 2nd youngest player at his level if he were in A+ ball He's not ready, he's not close, and I wouldn't touch him at this point.

Yeah Wise hasn't been good, but tough to kill him based on just 7 IPs What's this latest injury?

- It's certainly getting close to jettison time for Delgado. Even if you don't want to get that rash, Evans as a platoon is OK although it's better to wait until he's not needed in the OF. IOW, wait for at least one of Pagan, Alou or Anderson to get back. - For all the bitching about Castillo, he's getting on base at a .360+ clip after a slow start a level where he's been almost absurdly consistent for his career. Plus, all the logical other choices for 2B are either old, injured, bad fielders, worse hitters, or some combination of all of the above (Anderson, Easley, Andy Handy). How 'bout hitting him leadoff and switching Reyes to #2? He's not only getting on better than Reyes but stealing better too and not getting picked off. Removes bunting temptations as well except for base hits. - Play Castro more. Not full time, but how 'bout twice a week. If he fails to stay healthy again well then try something else. We face a couple of LHPs this week.

The last 15 batters made outs and not one ball out of the infield in the final 3 innings

9 batters have faced the Marlin pen - 9 outs - 9 balls that haven't left the infield

I'm sure someone in the stat world must - although if it's Elias they probably won't tell you unless you pay them. My point is that between Pelfrey, Santana & Heilman a large part of their pitch counts this year seem to be tied up in balls fouled off and ABs extended. How the AB eventually ends doesn't even seem to matter, it just takes them so many pitches to get there too often. Maybe it's one of those 'bitch about your own team' thing since I'm not watching any other tem this closely, but I swear those 3 in particular seem to have a ridiculously tough time finishing off hitters.

Pelfrey's gotta hold some kind of record for almost getting out of an inning. If not him than Heilman does. Every run tonight is with 2 outs. 2 are unearned. Several have been driven in on broken bats and bloops plus the one that got past Beltran. It's like he gets to the brink but then can't put the final guy away.

My recollection of the whole captaincy stuff is that Hernandez never wanted it to begin with - or at least never cared one way or the other - thinking that trying to designate who should lead and/or follow with a meaningless title was pretty much a waste of time. 'Uhhh yeah ... this is, ummm, quite an honor ... I guess.' That he objected to Carter's subsequent whining was probably more annoyance at Gary's penchant for butting in when he wasn't getting all the ink than it was about having to share his newly minted 'C'. The "unconcious" line sounds like it was aimed at Carter's "unawareness, sensation, or cognition" at how what he does affects anyone other than Gary Carter. Keith preceded that comment with one about how he had tremendous respect for Carter the balplayer, but ...

][Manual's] nickname was "ghandi" noting a calm demeanor and approach He's also been known to quote Ghandi (ML King also) which is much of what leads to his 'nice guy/cerebral' image. Kind of like the baseball version of the Colts' Tony Dungy in that he isn't cut from the mold of the old fashioned macho-type coach. On the other hand he did lead the AL in ejections one year. What's funny is that you could take most of those quotes and substitute the name 'Willie' and think they came from Met boards this year: defending "his guys"; 'battling'; 'too laid back'; etc.. "Mismanaged the bullpen" is an almost universal complaint and is frequently code for, 'he brought in a guy I don't like'. Fans often want a manager to limit his choices to the same 2 or 3 top guys except during 12 run blowouts -- right up until the point they cite him for over-use if/when those guys falter. I think I remember that 'Cotts' game. He was real young and had had some good pen outings so they tried him starting and he got bombed to the tune of about a 10 spot within 2 innings. Losing to Lou's 114-win Seattle team in 2000 can't be the biggest sin in the history of managerial-com. Does anyone get along with Frank Thomas?

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Didn't Mazzilli do a terrible job managing in Baltimore? Depends on who you ask I suppose. Bal'mer was a bad team getting worse at the time he was there and certainly had a crazy owner and disfunctional front office. But I also remember rumblings about how Mazz also didn't cover himself with any kind of glory during his stint there -- lots of disenchantment among the players that had nothing to do with with the higher ups. I'm also REALLY leery about giving jobs to ex-Mets simply on the basis of their former player status. Too many Met fans (and I suppose this is true of most fans as well) have this near-romantic attraction to their former players - and particularly so with '86ers in the case of NYMs. One more phone call from fans screaming about how just the mere presence of Carter, Backman, Keith, Ray Knight, etc. in the dugout would change around the fortunes of the team by instilling a winning attitude and I'm going to strangle my radio. On that basis alone I'd prefer to see either Manuel or Oberkfell even though I have no strong opinion one way or the other on either of them.