Frayed Knot

At least I think that's what I heard from one of the talking heads during today's game; that the Mets have drawn at least 50K in what amounts to over 1/3 of the home dates this season. Do you suppose that the conflict between the above and the fact that they're building a sub-45,000 seat stadium out in the parking lot occurs to the Wilpons? * Hey, I'm "Whitey" Jones !

Alou - 3.0 Reyes - 2.0 Delgado - 2.0 Heilman - 1.0 Sosa - 1.0 Perez - 0.5 DiFelice - 0.5

Uggla's a nice hitter but a bad 2nd baseman. He had a ton of time to make that play.

Ahhhh, breathing room!!

For those of you scoring at home (or even if you're alone): Heilman in - hitting 2nd in the order. Castillo in - hitting 9th replacing Gotay

That part is correct, they did that as part of a double-switch with the pitcher change.

Rockin' Doc wrote: Wow. Apparently Sosa will come out for a third inning as Willie allows him to hit for himself. No, Easley PHed and walked.

Well, Heilman, who had as bad a night as Mota plus threw about 35 pitches in his lone inning of work, is the one warming up.

Good Lord that old sunnavabitch can hit!

Interesting trip around the bases for Cody Ross: Walk, Error, Error, Pick-off

We saw Vandenhurk in April. As I recall he had some great looking stuff but was so inconsistant with anything other than the fastball that we eventually started smacking him around and he was pulled after throwing a million pitches in just four innings. Of course we were actually hitting back them.

So after I go and praise Billy M. what does he do? He shits all over me, that's what he did!

Thus at least partially explaining the seemingly unneccesary double-switch last night.

Wright - 3.5 Glavine - 2.5 Reyes - 0.5 Milledge - 0.5 Schoeneweis - 0.5 Castro - 0.5

Which one is Lenny's kid? "Les Rohr, not bitter" About which, missing out on a baseball career or being named Leslie?

"Was there maybe something about the abdominal strain he had that makes it ok to hit from one side but not the other?" Yes, that was specifically the sticking point about his return.

Not a good night for the other "premier" deadline reliever pick-up either Sox & Orioles were locked in a pitcher's duel for 7 innings (Matsuzaka vs Bedard) until the Sox broke through for 5 in top 8th to take a 5-1 lead. Eric Gagne then replaced Dice-K and went: 2B - RBI 1B - BB - GO - 2 RBI 2B then the normally untouchable Okajima replaced him and promptly gave up another RBI hit to tie the game ... and then for good measure a run in the 9th to lose it. Gagne: 0.1 IP; 4 ER; 3 H; 1 BB

Lawrence - 2.0 Sosa - 1.0 Beltran - 2.5 LoDuca - 0.25 Castillo - 0.25

]Were we tied at that point or still up one? Still up one. It became a 2-RBI 2B that flipped things from one run up to one run down. Beltran didn't play it well - he didn't get a good jump and looked over the wrong shoulder at first - but I don't think he catches it even if he did.

2008: Tim Raines - No Goose Gossage - No (but will) Mark McGwire - No (t least for now) Jim Rice - No Andre Dawson - No Bert Blyleven - Yes Harold Baines - No Jack Morris - No In 2009: Rickey Henderson - Yes Mark Grace - No In 2010: Roberto Alomar - Yes Barry Larkin - No Edgar Martinez - No In 2011: Jeff Bagwell - No Juan Gonzalez - No Rafael Palmeiro - No (pending) Larry Walker - No In 2012: Craig Biggio - Yes

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Traditionally, we don't do well against kid pitchers making their debut. A statement made by fans of all 30 MLB teams.

Rooting for rainouts is rarely a good idea. Brain Lawrence vs ML debut guy Dan Barone tonight. ]We are in the midst of a drought down herem and the 100+ degree temperatures aren't helping matters either That's your payback for all the; I'm driving around with the top down today while the rest of y'all are freezing up there' comments.

]Curious, what do you make of Pat Burrell (11.5% of his ABs against the Mets, but 18% of his HRs)? Nothing more other than that a larger number of his HRs have occured against the Mets than the norm would suggest. Where I would NOT take it is to blind acceptance that such an inequity is a lock to continue because it's the result of some kind of unalterable fact of life. My objection to the cliche is not that these inequities don't happen. Variations from the norm ARE the norm. It's when the 'got the number' line is used as a substitute for any kind of intellectual reasoning for explaining why something happened as it did or whether it will continue to happen in the future. Burrell HAS hit a lot of HRs against the Mets. But I don't buy the notion that if the team adds a pitcher he's never faced before - or faced but with poor results - that his HR rate is about to take a jump because said pitcher is now wearing NYM pajamas.

At least even our cliche-spouting 3rd baseman doesn't buy into the notion that future losses are inevitable on account of this 'number possession' thing.

"The reason such a term should exist is for the likes of; Tommy Hutton with Tom Seaver, or Joe McEwing with Randy Johnson. Guys who usually are mediocre or terrible players, whom for whatever reason just play better against that pitcher (or hitter) or team" At least with a player-on-player match-up - as opposed to teams which are nothing more than constantly changing groups wearing the same laundry - a case could be made one player's skills match up very well or very poorly against an opponent and whatever trends develop might reasonably be expected to continue. But even there it's frequently over-stated. McEwing had two good games off Johnson - but since those were the first two (at least as a Met) the 6-for-8 with several XBHs streak he started with gave him the rep as a Unit-Killer. The problem was that after that he had about what you'd expect from a marginal player against a top pitcher -- on the order of 2 for his next 20 or something along those lines. Not that those minor inconvenient facts stopped people from believing that Joe had some sort of magic power against Long Tall Randy and that lineups should forever be re-arranged and better hitters sat down, and all because little Joe "had his number".