Frayed Knot

Typical NYY/BOS game so far: - Beckett not at his best - Yanx scratch out a few runs - Sox chip back - Torre pulls Pettitte ar the first sign of trouble - Abreu mis-plays a ball - The bullpen only makes things worse - and it's already 2+ hours long and they're only in the 5th inning

Perez - 2.0 Reyes - 0.5 Gomez - 1.0 Heilman - 0.5 LoDuca - 0.5

I was a tone of the early Shea 'Camera Days'. The only thing unique about it was that the players would parade around the rim of the field for 30 minutes or so prior to the game so that early-arriving fans could snap some up-close and personal shots even with your 'Insta-matics'. There was never a restriction on bringing camers into the stadium on other days, just no pre-game set-up. My memory from the one I attended was Mickey Lolich making the rounds on his motorcycle.

I (we) have been hearing from Sheffield for nearly two decades now and he has never once made sense to me !! By this point, whenever he speaks, all I hear is like it's the parents from 'Peanuts': Wah-wah-wah Wah-wah-wah, ... One could ask him to actually NAME the black players who are sitting at home having been screwed out of a job due to their inability to be controlled even though superior to current white & Hispanic players - but it's not even worth it. By mid-week he's going to be either claiming he was mis-quoted or denying he ever spoke to the writer in the first place.

Leave it to the Fenway faithful

Sosa - 4.1 Gotay - 2.2 Delgado - 1.6 Reyes - 0.9 Smith - 0.3 Feliciano - 0.4 Castro - 0.5

Maine - 2.5 Heilman - 0.5 Reyes - 1.0 Gotay - 1.0 Newhan - 0.5

="iramets"]I've been lovin' it. Can you imagine if they pay the guy 20+ mil to go on the DL all year? Would that be delicious or what? Nice thought but he actually signed a minor league contract which doesn't turn into a major league one until he he's offically put on the big league club. So the delay in fact saves the Yanx money as the pro-rated portion of the $25mil figure (or whatever it was) goes down the later he makes his debut and would theoretically go towards zero if he never does. What you want is for him to make his start and then go all DL on his ass for the remainder of the season. btw, Later updates are sounding like the delay might only be one turn through the rotation, putting his debut at late next week instead of early.

... maybe as long as a few weeks. Seems he strained a groin (his own I think) during his last minor league tune-up and has decided it's sore and needs some rest. He was sked to start on Monday in Chicgo against the WSox but that's out the window and it looks like Kei Igawa will be back up instead. They've been "remaking his motion" down in Tampa and Torre pretty much admits that that process isn't complete yet but they're running out of other options. In the meantime, I wasn't going to start a 'Yanx-Sawx IV' thread because I was getting sick of them and I figured that anything other than a Yanx sweep at this point wasn't really news. But they're playing their typical back-and-forth, good-and-sloppy, long-and-longer, ridiculous games. Friday's Yanqui win was marked by about a million walks by Boston (Wakefield) plus the beginnings of a bean-ball war and some more bad blood mixed in. Today's tilt is heading for hour 5 (1/2 hour rain delay mixed in) and they've still got two innings to go. The lead has changed hands at least 5 times; Both Schilling & Mussina were gone early; Jeter has a HR & a 2B but also 3 errors; Meintkiewicz had a couple hits but then was knocked out when run into at first; Proctor, who was in the middle of things Friday, completely fell apart as did the Yanx defense; Abreu was scared off by another wall; etc, etc, The game is so ugly I want to look away but it's like the car crash you just have to check out.

Zambrano - in addition to having a few marbles rolling around in the attic - is one big mofo.

Smith backing a lefty off the plate with his slinging sidearm slider that ran at the hitter and then back over the plate for a called strike three as Callaspo was bailing. Wow!

Getting our money's worth out of Sosa too.

Really bustin' down the fences in this here inning, huh?

Eric Byrnes eats worms

Welcome to the BSOTD awards (it needs a better acronym), a new feature here at CPF which hopes to track some of the really messy late-game blown saves around MLB. No real purpose here, except that I find them interesting and that maybe it'll help us appreciate our guy while he's in the midst of a perfect saves/opps season with a sub-1.00 ERA and sub-1.00 WhiP (although Billy-boy is certainly eligible to "win" the award on any given day). The initial winner is Detroit's Todd Jones Jones enters the game (Fri June 1) against Central-leading rival Cleveland to try and clean up a mess in the 8th inning. Tigers are up 9-5, there are 2-outs and runners on 1st & 3rd: - RBI single (1st & 2nd) - Single + an error - run scores (2nd & 3rd) - Line-out to LF So 2 inherited runs score and the Tigers lead is cut to 9-7 ... but they immediately come back with 2 of their own in top 9 make it a 4-run game again (11-7) Jones still pitching in Bottom 9: * Sizemore - Ground out * Blake - Single * Hafner - Walk * Martinez - 3R HR * Peralta - Double * Garko - K * Nixon - IW * Barfield - RBI single - tie game * Delucci - RBI single - game over Oooh, that one's gotta hurt. Tigers now trail the Div-leading seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians" by 4-1/2 games after losing 5 straight to them over the last 10 days (plus 2 of 3 to TB in between - once of which also involved Jones)

iramets wrote: The part I don't get (credit M & MD for bringing this up) is who's the Giants' closer now? Not sure why those two should be concerned seeing as how they've been insisting for years that any bum dragged off of Fisherman's wharf could do a better job. At least, y'know, when it really counts.

The club is apparently going to decide on discipline for both Barrett & Zambrano. Be interesting to see if they come to the conclusion that one was more at fault than the other. Just speculation, but just before the paws started flying Barrett pointed somewhere out on the field. My guess is that it was toward the scoreboard where he added something along the lines of; "well maybe that one was my fault but who gave up those other 13 hits that are out there big boy?" Also be interesting to see if they decide that those two are an unworkable marriage and try to move one or both. Between this, plus Zambrano's slow start and his impending FA-gency and the impending sale of the club, this might just give them extra motivation to try to get something for him before the trading deadline. Would be an expensive and risky half-year rental for whoever wants to give it a go, but there's also potential for a big upside.

DatesTeamCPFer GWreck, Soupcan & Boy Named Seo warming up in the cage under the stadium. Jun 5-7PhilsGWreckJun 8-10TigersSoupcan Jun 11-13DodgersA Boy Named SeoJun 15-17YanxFrayed KnotJune 18-20TwinsRotblattJun 22-24A'sDoc TeeJun 25-27CardinalsG-FaFiFJun 29 - July 1PhilsGWreckJuly 2-4RockiesOlerud OwnedJuly 5-8AstrosFrayed KnotJuly 12-15RedsJohnny DickshotJuly 16-18PadresCFJuly 19-22DodgersBoy Named SeoJuly 24-26PiratesLundyJuly 27-29NationalsEdgyDCJuly 31 - Aug 2BrewersTransMonk

Maybe he hurt it on the landing or something - although that would imply somthing other than a bruise. Supposedly today's MRI didn't find anything structurally wrong and they're still calling it just a bruise. He will not start tonight and they're calling it day-to-day.

Zambrano's not doing himself a lot of favors as he goes on his FA-gency season tour. His 5.26+ ERA and near 1.5 WHiP weren't looking too good before today's semi-disaster and a quick scan of his games shows only 2 or 3 good ones out of 11 starts this season. And I don't think yapping the whole season and then punching your catcher helps things much either. It just shows that guys play much better in their walk years ... except when they don't. * Felix the Cat !!

Baseball Prospectus ran a little pre-analysis on the 'tendancies' of the teams in anticipation of next weeks draft. A bit speculative in our case since the current director has run only one draft to date. New York Mets -- Scouting Director: Rudy Terrasas (Drafts Run: 2006) - Best Player Produced: Joe Smith (3rd round) - Best Prospect in Minors: Kevin Mulvey (2nd round) - Notable Steals: None yet identified. - Five-Round Strategy: 4 total picks. 75% college, 25% junior college. - Strategy in a Nutshell: Omar Minaya has a background in international scouting, and in selecting Terrasas as his scouting director, he hired a colleague with a background in Latin America. As a result, Terrasas has already been aggressive in the Dominican Republic, but his tendencies running a draft remain to be seen. His first four picks last season were all pitchers, and given Joe Smith's success this season, Terrasas already has one bullet point on his resume. Finding players like Smith will be essential, as Omar Minaya has little reservations about forfeiting first-round picks for free agents. - 2007 Draft Crystal Ball: The Mets don't pick until the supplemental first round this June, choosing 42nd and 47th. If the pitching trend continues, pitchers Barry Enright, Tony Watson, and Aaron Poreda are all good college names that could be on the board at that point. However, seriously associating names with the 42nd pick is a fool's game.

Good Morning, Good Morning - Diamondbacks: 32 - 23 They're Leaving Home - 3 Games at Shea starting Friday Night D'Backs are 17-11 at home and 15-12 on the road Reprise - This is the 2nd meeting this year after taking 3 of 4 from them at their place in early May. The results from that tilt: Game 1: Mets 9 - D'Backs 4 Glavine & Owings started. Mets were down 4-3 heading into the 9th until first Easley, and then Wright, hit 3R bombs Game 2: Mets 5 - D'Backs 3 Maine runs his record to 5-0 as he outduels Randy Johnson backed by HRs from LoDuca & Franco Game 3: Mets 6 - D'Backs 2 Jorge Sosa wins his Met debut against Brandon Webb as a LoDuca single and Hairston error leads to four 6th inning runs. Game 4: D'Backs 3 - Mets 1 Livan Hernandez out-duels Pelfrey to end the lengthy winning streak in Arizona. Getting Better - We're coming up against a hot team; winners of 7 straight and 15-7 overall since our visit there. They're currently in a 3-way first place tie w/the Dodgers & Padres for the West. A Day in the Life - Stats of the moment METSSTATSNAKES34 - 18Record32 - 237 - 3Last 108 - 2259RS239196RA224.278Team BA.257.350OBA.327.429SLG.409.151IsoP.15250HRs4761SBs213.37ERA3.701.22WHiP1.35.375Opp-SLG.400 With a Little Help from Our Friends Friday: 7:10 - Webb (4 - 3, 3.74) vs Maine Saturday: 1:10 - Livan Hernandez (5 - 2, 3.58) vs Sosa Sunday: 1:10 - Davis (3 - 6, 3.27) vs Perez They'll Need a Little Help From Their Friends 1B - Conor Jackson 2B - Orlando Hudson SS - Stephen Drew 3B - ** LF - Eric Byrnes CF - Chris Young RF - Carlos Quentin C - Chris Snyder - Miguel Montero - Robby Hammock For the Benefit of Me -- If you want more info on each of the position players go read the last KTE, I ain't doing it again Fixing a Hole - 3B changes sine we last saw them: Chad Tracy was stitting during our visit to their place with a strained oblique and has since been DL'd Alberto Callaspo was temporarily on the "restricted list" due to an arrest for domestic violence a few days after our series there. No formal charges have been filed yet and he was reinstated. Mark Reynolds has been called up - Another Tidewater, VA area product (23 y/o), Reynolds has been a good bat in search of a position in the Az system and is off to a great start in his ML career (23 for 63 with 11 Xtra base hits) ... and then he went and ran into his pitcher during a bunt play the other night and is temporarily sitting (though not on the DL) with a sore neck. If he plays, it'll most likely be at 3rd with Tracy out and Callaspo on double-secret probation. Within You and Without You No Alou, No Valentin, No Green and possibly no Beltran for a game or two or more. When I'm Sixty-Four - No word on whether Julio Franco will start against the lefty Davis

Glavine - 2.0 Mota - 1.0 LoDuca - 1.5

OHernandez - 4.0 Smith - 0.5 Wagner - 0.9 Reyes - 1.2 Wright - 1.2 Chavez - 1.2 Easley - 1.0

metirish wrote: Games against the Marlins just got tougher. I dunno. In the minds of many Met fans, they just got easier. Summing up some stuff on Benitez While no one is claiming he was the perfect closer duing his time here, there have always been 3 general themes that drove me nuts about much of the anti-Armando diatribes 1) the notion that his presence as a closer was a detriment to the team to the point where virtually any other choice would have been an improvement Tracking the 15 closers who spent the most time in that role during the time he was here (1999-2002) among those, Armando ranked: 4th in save pct (88.5%) 1st in BA-against 5th in WhiP 1st in K/9 2nd in ERA 7th in SLG-against But what the detractors want you to believe was that while he was better than average in all those categories, his contemporaries were managing to give up more hits, more runs, strike out fewer batters, and blow games at a higher rate, yet somehow do it all at times and in games that didn't hurt as bad - even though virtually all closers are used in the same way. 2) That there was a predictable pattern to when and against who his "meltdowns" would occur; both in that he was a "bully" who would beat up on the weak sisters but then crumble at the sight of good teams, and that he was a near-perfect closer from April thru August and then a disaster afterward (Francesa is STILL spinning that one) But that doesn't stand up to scrutiny APRMAYJUNEJULYAUGSEPTERA3.483.211.902.152.363.19HITS504332343630BBs372534282023WHiP1.351.111.001.141.011.23Bl Svs634534 and the teams that he blew those 25 saves against were a mixed bag as well: 1 each: DBacks, Braves, Cubs, Reds, Brewers, Pirates, Padres, Orioles, Red Sox, DRays 2 each: Astros, Yanx 3: Expos; 4 times: Phillies & Marlins (Hmmm, 'Spos & Marlins, weren't those exactly the teams he supposedly dominated?) Now I realize that Blown Saves aren't the only measure of bad games but, between the BS games and the rest of the standard stats, I contend that anyone claiming to see a predictable pattern there is seeing only what he wants. 3) And finally it's the notion that somehow all of his bad outings were solely the result of mental weakness and never just an off-night; a condition which apparently didn't affect other closers who often weren't as successful as him. It's as if they believed Armando to be the most talented pitcher ever to trod the Earth and therefore perfection was the only acceptable result.