Frayed Knot

Be interesting to see how willing Barry is to take a BIG paycut. The Giants had no other bidders to compete with this past year and still gave him some $16mil. With that sugar daddy now out of the picture and the lure of the HR record acting as a value-added incentive gone as well he might have to get "insulted" with an offer 1/3 the size of what he's been used to. Oakland is the first choice mentioned by a lot of people but they already have a power-hitting, walk-getting, no-gloving, machine; his name is Jack Cust and he'll barely cost the cost-conscious A's minimum wage.

Seems to me that while games are frequently (read: almost every day) delayed by rain in Florida that they're rarely rained out or rain shortened. That may be totally incorrect but that's my impression and I'm sticking to it. IOW, I expect they'll wait forever before calling this one unless some named storm has suddenly appeared in southeast Florida.

Anderson - 2.5 Wright - 2.0 Alou - 1.5 Smith - 0.5 Mota - 0.5 Beltran - 0.5 Heilman - 0.5

No walk-offs or cliff-hangers yesterday aside from those two fucking NL East games Brewers lose to drop 1-1/2 behind Chicago Padres won again - now just 1/2 game behind idle Arizona The barely alive Rockies (5 GB) completed the 4-game sweep of LA putting them on the edge of official elimination (7 GB) WC: Padres Phils -2-1/2 Rockies -4-1/2 Braves -5-1/2 Dodgers -6-1/2

Edgy DC wrote: Putting pressure on the pen, and on Willie to go to deeper into it. Of course, which is why I mostly reject the notion that if only Willie were using the pen in some sort of different order or combinations that these games would be turning out differently. Sometime, somewhere, and at some point somebody has got to start getting some outs.

The starters have been AT LEAST as bad if not worse Sunday: 4.2 IP; 5 R (2 ER), 6 H, 6 BB (Perez) Monday: 3.1 IP; 4 R, 6 H, 1 BB (Lawrence) Tuesday: 4.1 IP; 8 R, 11 H, 2 BB (Maine) Wednesday: 5 IP, 3 R, 9 H, 3 BB (Pelfrey) Thursday: 5 IP, 4 R, 11 H, 1 BB (Glavine) Total: 22.1 IP, 24 R (21 ER), 43 H, 13 BB ERA = 8.45; WHiP = 2.51

what the hell set him off? Last thing I saw was an ordinary flyout to end the inning at which point I headed for the kitchen. Bottom line is that we're going to be without both him an Marlon for a game or two each at some point over the next 10 games.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: How can they bring Sosa back for the 10th? Are you ever going to suggest an alternate pitcher or just continually say; Not Him ... Not Him ... Not Him to each reliever brought in? Or maybe Willie should put out the signal for 'Guy who's on our dream roster' instead.

<<<<------- * And on a night with a shakey pen I become Armando Benitez Maybe Feliciano should get out the lefties he's brought in to face and he wouldn't find himself yanked so quickly.

metsguyinmichigan wrote: What's the point of expanding the rosters and having all these fresh arms if Willie is going to keep trotting these same guys out there night after night? Who do you want to see??? Collazo? Humber?

I suppose this would be a good time to ask those fans if the sight of Billy Wagner still makes them nervous.

He's Grrrrrrrrrrrr-Anderson

I hereby nominate Marlon Anderson for the position of GOD!

Gregg is going to bounce one of these pitches all the way to the backstop.

Edgy DC wrote: Thought he was out. Nope. Not officially or actually. Greenie walks - sacks drunk for Jose!

Don't bunt, just pull the freakin' ball. You might just get a hit by accident.

Aside from the fact that the AL will be pretty boring this year -- (although imagine a two-division, pre-WC Cleve/Bost/NYY fight to the death for the right to face the Angels) -- there's not much better than the final weeks of the baseball regular season: * The East we all know about obviously with the Mets breaking the losing streak and the Phils losing in an extra-inning walk-off hit * In the Central the Cubs won Wednesday via an 8th inning run while the Brewers lost via a walk-off 10th inning hit in Houston after tying it on a 2R top-9th HR from Bill Hall Cubs lead by 1 game (tied in the loss column) and are off today, Brewers head to Atlanta * In the West, the Padres won their 6th straight via a walk-off HR from Scott Hairston. That kept them on pace with the DBacks who held off the Giants 6-4. Padres trail by 1 game (tied in the loss column) and host the Pirates for one more this afternoon. Arizona has split their last 8 and is off today. The Rockies are most likely out of it but they won their 3rd straight against he Dodgers on an 8th inning Brad Hawpe HR. Those two will play one more afternoon game today. WC: Padres Phillies -2-1/2 Rockies -4-1/2 Dodgers -5-1/2 Braves -5-1/2

duan: jose reyes = very good player FK: Yes he is, particularly at his age/position duan: jose reyes 2006 eqa .288 : jose reyes 2007 eqa .285 FK: Yeah, but much of the purpose in starting this thread was to point out how his outrageous April skews the overall to a large degree duan: jose reyes not the mets biggest problem by any means FK: Overall no, but over the last few weeks he's at least in the class picture duan: jose reyes is not equal first coming of the messiah FK: Or even the second. Just a bit discouraging to see a step back at this point.

Pelfrey - 2.0 Sosa - 2.0 Heilman - 0.4 Wright - 2.0 Alou - 1.8 LoDuca - 0.6 Castillo - 0.7 Reyes - 0.5

The cool thing about Sosa's first inning was not just that he got out of a 1st-&-3rd/no outs situation but that he wrapped it all up in 4 pitches: strike - strike - strike - GiDP (to the fastest player on the team)

sharpie wrote: Meanwhile the Orioles seem to have given up completely. I caught maybe 5 minutes total of the Yanx/Balt game between innings of the real game last night - but it was still enough to see the O's get caught stealing twice where the runner just gave up and was tagged standing up. Yeah at least one was a missed H-&-R and he would have been out anyway but there was zero effort. As a result, Pettitte held them to 1 run despite allowing around 10 baserunners thru 7. Mariano also gave up a hit & two walks in the 9th but they couldn't push anything across. O's had actually beaten the Yanx 8 of the first 12 this year but have been in free fall for nearly a month now and their one good pitcher, Bredard, has been shut down. Perhaps ironically, their free fall started just as they took the interem tag off the replacement manager.

Nice of the Cards to actually get a 2nd run out of their 11 hits and 5 walks ... but I guess I can't complain too loudly.

You woke up this morning. Got yourself a gun. Mama always said you'd be the Chosen One. She said: You're one in a million you've got to burn to shine, But you were born under a bad sign, with a blue moon in your eyes. You woke up this morning all the love has gone, Your Papa never told you about right and wrong. But you're looking good, baby, I believe you're feeling fine, (shame about it), Born under a bad sign with a blue moon in your eyes. You woke up this morning the world turned upside down, Thing's ain't been the same since the Blues walked into town. But you're one in a million you've got that shotgun shine. Born under a bad sign, with a blue moon in your eyes. When you woke up this morning, when you woke up this morning, When you woke up this morning, you got yourself a gun. Was the theme to 'The Sopranos' although not written specifically for the show.

Yanx win - Boston loses - AL East down to 1.5 games Last night Gagne put several runners on - and eventually allowed them to score - during the late innings of a close game and Francona took some post-game heat for NOT bringing Papelbon in to quell the fire. Tonight Timlin loaded the bases and Francona DID bring in Papelbon ... and he promptly gave up a Grand Slam. Both teams have the playoffs pretty much sewn up but losing the division title that looked like a lock from mid-summer til about a week ago seems like it would be a huge ego-blow to Bostonians ... although maybe the fans moreso than the team.

WFAN talkie Evan Roberts in the stands tonight and getting interviewed by Kevin Burkhardt ... which allows fans to discover that Roberts has the perfect face for radio. Pelfrey's looking good IMO even though that's 6 hits thru 3. Several have been of the infield/seeing-eye variety.