Frayed Knot

I've never heard of this reliever - Carlos Marmol - but he's got some good numbers after putting up some pretty lousy ones in his 1st year last season.

EL DICTATOR EN FUEGO !!!!

[u:298da324d7]7th[/u:298da324d7] walk of the game makes the sacks drunk for Marlon w/2 outs ...

]Newhan, Anderson, Green. Might be the worst defensive outfield the Mets have put out there this year. And it might be better than Soriano, Jones & Floyd (probably not, but it's close)

"ensuring that the best team comes out on top of the league 85 percent of the time would require 10,000 games per season" That doesn't even sound remotely logical.

"After pitching complete game wins in games two and six, [Alexander] comes on in the seventh in game seven with two outs [and] the bases loaded" ... while (rumor has it) being loaded himself.

Other Zambran-o-facts: Slugging Average Against = .361 HIS Slugging Average = .418 ... off of a .291 BA Also, the Cubs bullpen may be boosted by a return of Kerry Wood. He's pitched 20 innings in the majors over the last two seasons.

Because after having a series against the NL Central leaders ... we get to have a series against the NL Central leaders!!

"(Lohse > Teixeira!)" -- Except that Lohse left his first Philly game early after taking a liner off his arm Phils also lost two OFers the other day as Victorino and (his replacement) Bourne went down in the same game. Not sure of the status of those two. For the Braves; Renterea was limping badly as he left the field last night to the point where he might have to miss the series next week. Of course if that happens I'm sure the Braves will just bring up some spare part from A-ball who'll hit .650 until E.R. is ready to go.

which means I'm missing a lot because I've got the sound down (listening to the weekly Springsteen Hour on the radio) but what I'm catching is both wild ...and freakin annoying. - Astros scored 5 runs early were up like 5-1 when I flicked it on - Soon the Braves started adding runs to their ark two by two and it's 5-5, 7-5, and eventually 9-5 (another Teixeira HR - his 2nd so far - was part of that). - But then the Brave bullpen fell apart again, Raphael Soriano mainly, and Houston tied it on a Mike Lamb Grand Slam (hey, that even rhymes). - In the meantime, Renterea looks like he rolled his ankle and was taken out. Chipper's playing SS - So then Houston puts across 2 in the 12th - ... only to have Brad (I'm the closer again) Lidge serve up a game-tying 2R HR to Matt Freakin Diaz w/1 out in the bottom So we're on to inning #13. Houston got the leadoff guy on - but bunted him over and never got him in (rinse and repeat) so we're onto the bottom of the inning. Meanwhile, since TBS is an official MLB partner starting with this playoff year, they keep breaking in to show Barry NOT hitting HRs from the left coast.

Perez - 2.5 Mota - 1.5 Wagner - 0.6 Anderson - 2.2 Castro - 2.2 Green - 1.0

Lawrence - 1.5 Wright - 3.0 Easley - 2.0 Delgado - 0.5 Alou - 0.5 Milledge - 1.5 Sosa - 1.0

So we can do a tag-team KTE. Somebody tell us about their pitchers. 1B - Derrick Lee: .326/.414/.527, 13 HRs; is not quite where he was during his monster year a few seasons ago, but is bouncing back from his lost and injury-depleted 2006 2B - Mark DeRosa: .288/.369/.433 SS - Ryan (the riot) Theriot:.283/.353/.370 takes over for the traded Caser Izturis 3B - Aramis Ramirez: .318/.358/.547 Oooh, another good move by the Pirates OF - They seem to interchange these guys between positions. Jacque Jones: .249/.303/.338 - is manning CF most of the time Cliff Floyd: .294/.359/.396, 4 HRs - is platooning in both LF & RF Alfonso Soriano: .298/.338/.517, 18 HRs - Takes most of the innings in LF C - Koyie Hill: .163/.233/.288 and the recently acquired Jason Kendall: .229/.325/.286 replace the combative Michael Barrett

I didn't see the re-titling. Use either one, I don't care.

The lineups got mixed up in the aborted St. Lucie IGT thread Reyes ss Castillo 2b Wright 3b Delgado 1b Alou lf Anderson cf Castro c Green rf Perez p Hart rf Hardy ss Braun 3b Fielder 1b Hall cf Mench lf Estrada c Graffanino 2b Vargas p

"Awrance ... Awrance" Willie confirms that he'll be called up to start Thursday's game. Sosa in the pen for now.

Rained Out. Pedro will, instead, pitch a simulated game tomorrow morning. (and I will simulate excitement about it)

Several other changes for the Beermakers in time for tonight's game: - Newly acquired Scott Linebrink will not be available all series as he's been put on a temp unavailable list due to the birth of a child - Pitcher Elmer Dessens has been called up. formerly a starter (I had no idea he was still pitching) we may see him out of the pen. - Richie Weeks, who has been the only mis-firing piston in what looked like one of the great young infields in many years, was sent to AAA Nashville. His year just started slow and then got worse. - OF Joe Dillon has been called up from Nashville. Don't know anything about this guy.

Baseball journo Tim Kurkjian grew up in Maryland and traces at least part of his baseball obsession to the fact that he attended Walter Johnson High School

Obviously I'm just having fun 2nd guessing the decisions here, not blaming the pitching - or even Willie - for the outcome. Going down meekly to Suppan ... AGAIN!!! is annoying as hell. Recent hotties Castro & Milledge took a combined 0-for-11.

Glavine reportedly admitted to being fairly well gassed when Willie came to chat. Note that a semi-lengthy conversation went on before he made the call.

I like discussion better than polls and I think the latter tends to stifle the former.

1) Stick with Heilman to pitch to Prince? He had looked good and was guilty only of a bloop hit -- but he's dealing to a power-hitting lefty as the go-ahead run 2) Stick with Feliciano to pitch the the RH hitting Bill Hall after he plunked Prince? Pedro isn't usually treated as a LOOGY -- but also had failed to do the job he was brought in for 3) Work the L/R thing using Heilman then Feliciano then Mota figuring that gave you the best odds. This was Willie's choice. I ws on the phone at the time and wasn't in the IGT or hearing what Ron & Gary were saying about it .... but I like #2. I can make a good argument for pulling Heilman there with PF in the wings but not a very good one for the next move.

So I nerdily decided to continue this project into July in order to both eliminate the inter-legue games and get a better idea if the difference between AL & NL games was as big as I thought when seen through a larger sample size. It's not, it's even bigger. Lg# of games< 2:30< 2:40< 2:50< 3:00< 3:10AL17317%25%36%55%68%NL18319%37%59%77%88% So while barely half the AL games (55%) come in under 3 hours, more than 3/4 of NL games do (77%). Or if you go to an AL game you're almost twice as likely (32% of the time) to see as game lasting longer than 3hrs 10min than you are of seeing one under 2-1/2 hrs, while the NL ratio is more than 1.5/1 the other way around. I knew there was a reason I hated watching AL games.

Glavine - 3.0 Green - 0.8 Milledge - 0.8 Wright - 1.3 Reyes - 1.3 Sosa - 1.0 Alou - 0.3