Frayed Knot

Glavine - 4.5 Delgado - 2.5 Alou - 1.0

That's 3 straight games with only 2 runs scored in each - and not exactly against a murderer's row of starters.

What's the record for shitty hit in one game? Whatever it is I think the Phils are closing in.

This would be going much better if Reyes & Wright weren't taking the series off.

Joe West still as pleasent as ever I see.

Ambiorix Burgos was checked out by doctors in NYC today and will need to have Tommy John surgery

Vic Sage wrote: what about Mulvey? How has he been doing this year? Any reported consideration of Mets giving him a taste of September? None that I've heard. Besides, he's not on the 40-man so it would involve not only a dropped player somewhere else now but it would also mean one fewer guy would be protected this winter. I can't see how that would be worth it for essentially one start. Anyway, it won't be Lawrence this Saturday. He was the one sent down to activate Endy.

Vic Sage wrote: well, if you don't, you've certainly given me the impression that you do, over the course of its entire existence in MLB. That certainly hasn't been my intention. And besides, even if I were against the system - either at its conception or during the time since - it's not like I'm going shun discussion of it by burying my head in the sand and pretending it doesn't exist. What I have done from time to time is taken Selig and others to task for crediting the WC system for everything short of a cleaner environment. Some of baseball's "ailments" that Selig claims have been solved by the whole expansion/realignment/WC system are ones that those changes have either caused or at least exacerbated: reduced chances for division races, uneven schedules, breaking up of old rivalries, etc.

MLB released the post-season schedule last week with substantial changes compared to how they've done it over the last number of years. Their aim was to get the "Big" LCS & WS games (1 & 2 plus 6 & 7) off of the weekends when television viewership is down. The problem is that the season is still ending on the same day so in order to stagger the beginnings of each round they simply built in more off days both within the series themselves (even when there's no travel involved) as well as between each round. So say hello to LDS & LCS series which are more broken up than in past years and to a later finish with quite possibly worse weather. A big boon, in some cases, to teams with 'Ace' pitchers who can now pitch an extra game or two. [u:d5684b294d]NLDS "A"[/u:d5684b294d] Wed, Oct 3 Thurs 4th ----- Sat 6th * Sun 7th ----- * Tue 9th [u:d5684b294d]NLDS "B"[/u:d5684b294d] Same as "A" [u:d5684b294d]ALDS "A"[/u:d5684b294d] Thur, Oct 4th (remember season ends Sunday) Fri Oct 5 ----- Sun Oct 7 Mon Oct 8 ----- Wed Oct 10 [u:d5684b294d]ALDS "B"[/u:d5684b294d] Wed, Oct 3 ----- Fri Oct 5 ----- Sun Oct 7 Mon Oct 8 ----- Wed Oct 10 [u:d5684b294d]NLCS[/u:d5684b294d] Thur, Oct 11 Fri Oct 12 ----- Sun Oct 14 Mon Oct 15 ----- Wed Oct 17 ----- Fri Oct 19 Sat Oct 20 [u:d5684b294d]ALCS[/u:d5684b294d] Fri, Oct 12 Sat Oct 13 ----- Mon Oct 15 Tue Oct 16 ----- Thu Oct 18 ----- Sat Oct 20 Sun Oct 21 [u:d5684b294d]World Series[/u:d5684b294d] Wed, Oct 24 Thur Oct 25 ----- Sat Oct 27 Sun Oct 28 Mon Oct 29 ----- Wed Oct 31 Thu Nov 1

Vic Sage wrote: But FK, you hate the wild card! 1) I do? 2) Good thing I was talking about division races then.

btw, Humber pitched last night and so would be on rotation for Saturday as well -- following up his 10-K/near no-hitter in his last outing with a 5 IP, 1 unearned run, 2-hit performance against Oklahoma.

Only a looser would put up a baner like that

Angels & Padres each ride their aces to a win in the first games of the West division showdowns - Lackey tossed a complete game shutout in Seattle. Angels now lead by 3 games - Peavy held the D'Backs to 1 run over 7 IPs and cuts the Arizona lead to 2

Beltran - 1.5 Lawrence - 0.5 LoDuca - 1.0 Sele - 0.5 Castillo - 0.5

So here are our choices for Saturday's game in Atlanta: -Lawrence again. Reason for it: Ummmm, it's his turn - Sele: Reason: Cuz Lawrence has just been hitting too many bats and how much worse could this choice be? - PEDRO!! Reason: It'll be his turn too. Of course it would be nice if he would pitch to someone of drinking age first. - Humber? Reason: It'll already be Sept 1st and he's already on the 40, so his callup is a freebie. And as a one-shot deal there's little to lose. Pelfrey could work here too but he was pulled from his last start due to "tiredness" It also occurs to me that any one of these has the potential to look like a panic move if we're riding a string of losses when we get to week's end. I think we could see Lawrence sent down in the next day or so and Endy activated. If nothing else it would put the pitcher/hitter ratio where you want it for post-season (one fewer pitcher than normal) in time for the Sept 1 cut-off.

This outing - stacked atop all his other recent ones - could cost Mussina his starting slot. Be interesting to see what they do with him. Their main problem is that he's signed for next year as well.

]Did anyone see the take out slide in the Phils last series vs the Mariners? A double play grounder where Phils Ruiz took out M's Giles at 2nd base? He deff broke up the DP and a runner scored. After Giles cried a lil Ruiz was called for interference and the DP counted, and the run didnt score. If U saw it, what did u think about it? I thought it was a great take out slide and me and my brother ended up arguing about this. That slide - nowhere near a slide really - wasn't even close to legit. Ruiz is going to pay for that one each and every time he faces SD.

HoJo

Wow! Purpura, who was Gerry Hunsicker's highly regarded long-time assistant, just got booed upon introduction during the Bagwell number retiring ceremony. Clearly a classless move by the fans - but a sign of frustration over the progress (or lack of) since the change. Even the WS appearance in 2005 could be seen as being the remnants of the Hunsicker regime.

"The Mets weren't wrong about Scott Kazmir." Well, there were at least some in the Wilpon circle of advisors who were. "They were wrong about Scott Kazmir relative to Victor Zambrano." Quite wrong "Kazmir alone shouldn't factor into any decision to keep or deal Mulvey." Of course

Heard that reporter on the radio yesterday. Yeah he's a fill-in, mainly because he covers numerous things for the paper and no longer works the Philly beat regularly even though he was doing so before Meyers was born. But I guess covering Schmidt & Luzinski doesn't give him enough knowledge to question current players in Brett's eyes. btw, LoDuca activated, Almoar DFA'd

]Mulvey is not considered even close to the prospect Kazmir was,is he?.... No. Mulvey was the 61st overall pick as a supposedly more advanced college pitcher. That's a nice spot, but not where an overwhelming talent would normally get selected and I don't see him being anywhere near the upper tier of prospects when this sort of stuff is evaluated over this coming off-season. Kazmir was a less-polished but theoretically more high-ceilinged high-schooler taken 15th overall and maybe would have gone earlier than that except that some teams were scared away by the prospect of having to buy him out of the college scholarship (U Texas) he already had in his pocket. On account of that perceived potential - as well as his early success in the lower minors - Kazmir was almost immediately near the top of all those prospect lists. All that was, of course, the main source of frustration over the trade. First a top-10 talent falls to you in the middle of the 1st round ... then the early returns makes it look to be as good as you hoped ... and then you go and trade it and get only an iffy talent in return.

Reyes - 1.4 Milledge - 1.2 Wright - 2.0 Mota - 1.0 Maine - 0.4

5 of the 6 divisions have the first & second place teams matching up this week. If this were college football, ESPN would dub it with a catchy phrase like "Shake-Out Week" which the rest of the media would then sheepishly follow along with as if it were some kind of official title. Anyway, in addition to the Mets/Phils battle: * Sox @ Yanx - 3 games (starts Tuesday): Although the Boston lead is suddenly up to 7.5 games again (pending the outcome of Monday's NYY/DET game) after dropping from 14.5 down to 4, the Sawx have a chance to put a serious dent in the New Yorkers' WC hopes as well as salting away the division before Sept 1st even rolls around. Nice pitching matchups: Matsuzaka v Pettitte; Beckett v Clemens; Wang v Schilling * Angels @ Mariners: Only 2 games seperate them in the West despite Anaheim leading almost every day of the season. Loser of this race will most likely will ultimately fight it out against the Yanx for the WC Not sure who the Yanqui fans (and, by extension, us) should be rooting for here? Probably Angels since Mariners are 2 games up in the WC, but Seattle winning could put both teams in play to be caught. * D-Backs @ Padres Arizona up by 3 games. Loser still has WC lead. * Brewers @ Cubs (starts Tuesday) Final series of the year for these two. Cubs up by 1.5 games as the Brewers have fallen all the way to .500 and have the Cards nipping at their heels.

Sure, cuz you only notice them when they screw up. They're the bass guitarists of a baseball team. I agree that this one was Sandy's fault; as soon as it was hit I was thinking that it was NOT a run-scoring hit. What Alomar was trying to do, IMO, was waive the runner on so as to not break his momentum in case of a bad relay, figuring he could then hold him up if the relay was on target (which of course it was). The problem was then compounded when Milledge looked down at the exact wrong moment and didn't see him again until it was too late.