Frayed Knot

Ugly but effective. I'll take it.

And the rout is on!

Finally a ficking hit past Fuck!!!!

So do we hang (blame?) all this backwards strategy on Willie, or just assume that this is how things would go if Jerry Manual ran the team?

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Especially when you're aware you've screwed the pooch as furiously as the Mets did in the 8th tonight. Has there been a worse inning all year?I'm going to remember that inning the next time someone pleads to me the "small ball" is the only way to play. Washington pitchers got one legit out that inning; we gave them an intentional out and ran into another. * I'm Claude Lockwood!

Wow! This is the one spot I WOULD like the bunt.

8-9-1 due up: Easley, Pitcher, Reyes Not used tonight: Bench: Castro Pen: Wagner & Burgos

Extra inning games on the road are tough. You know if you don't score in your half you then have to: hold them, then score yourself, then hold them again. It's very draining mentally to play that way especially when you know that any pitch to them can be the game winner.

Yanx wound up getting a better outing from the guy they originally bypassed for today's start than they ever could have expected from the guy they did start. Sunday's pitching matchup favors the MFY getting the rubber game and avoiding panic city.

We've def had the benefit of several loud & deep outs tonight almost as much as we haven't been getting the ones at 1st -- although Gary has gone a bit overboard as far as how bad those first two calls were. They were safe but just barely. The next two were the worst ones; Lopez was clearly out and he eventually scored to go-ahead run, but Easley was out too. Odd game tonight in a lot of ways.

Lots o' baserunners but still scoreless thru 3. Big Papi Ortiz - that never comes through against the Yanx choke artist - has two GiDPs

Karstens stays in one more batter - a Youkilis single - and then is pulled for Igawa, the guy who was originally slated to start today but was bumped in favor of Karstens. btw, Friday night's game: 3 hours, 56 minutes AL games in general and NYY games in particular can be painful to watch. The bottom 4th/top 5th alone must have lasted almost an hour. That's the inning the Yanx got all their runs on 4 walks and 3 bloops, before Pettitte immediately gave the lead back on a similar walk & wild pitch filled frame. Matsuzaka's got some good stuff but he's def tip-toeing his way past the tougher parts of the lineup and takes for-freakin-ever to throw a pitch. He does the whole; take the glove off, rub up the ball, take 9 deep breaths, throw a pitch, then do the whole thing over again routine.

Oooh man, 1st pitch of Game 2 is a Julio Lugo liner right back at NYY pitcher Karstens. Got him on the leg somewhere and he's now up after rolling around on the ground for a minute or two. Looks like he might stay in though.

Perez - 2.0 Alou - 2.5 Green - 0.5 Smith - 0.5 Wright - 0.5

I think the Valentine/Hundley comments were mostly about late nights and drinking - something Hundley pretty much copped to later on. Not that roids in addition to that would surprise me, but I doubt that was specifically what BV was talking about. Roids + Met will always equal Dykstra in my mind

It can be any of the scenarios you list plus others. - Usually it's that the team trading Smith doesn't have a specific player in mind so they get a list of several who it can be or a longer one of who it [u:5092289baf]can't be[/u:5092289baf] and get a period of time to scout and choose. - Sometimes it's a timing deal where the trading team dealt the player so as to create room on their roster for a minor leaguer and don't really want a replacement until they can re-finagle their roster after the season - And occasionally it's a procedural move where they agree on a player who can't be traded at that point due to being on the DL or maybe because he's still within in first year of being drafted or something along those lines.

Of course the timeline says that he worked for the Mets for a certain time and then went into dealing which, if true, might not make NYM players anymore nervous than others. Remember that the Pittsburgh clubhouse caterer caught dealing recreational drugs in the '80s seemed to be an equal opportunity implicator. I suspect there's more than a couple nervous players all over MLB on account of this. Great subject heading, btw.

Willets Point wrote: The next question is: Why did the Yankees want him back? Do they really buy their own "true Yankee" propaganda? In part, yes. At least many of the fans & media types believe it, hard to say about the front office. Mainly he was brought back as a FA to replace the traded Randy Johnson, a move many took as an improvement simply based on the "TY" principle. Johnson was ornery while in NYC and was neither as good as he had been (Duh!, he's 43) nor worth the money they were paying him (again, who told you to give contract extensions to senior citizens?). But some failed to realize that failing to live up to the hype & cash isn't the same as being bad and therefore made the mistake into thinking that Pettitte - who had about 1-1/2 good seasons in 3 years w/Houston - was an automatic upgrade even though it will likely be more along the lines of treading water. Pettitte is also younger but they're paying him as much as they were paying Johnson and are on the hook for next year as well (player option).

"What's the longest losing streak for an eventual division winner?" I remember those 2000 MFY losing like 17 of their last 20 before ... well nevermind. The division was pretty much settled by that point though. The '05 MFY also lost 6 straight (including 3 in a row to KC) en route to an 11-19 start so this one is hardly over. The fun part about this one is that they've held the lead in every game. The streak also started the day after that 6-run 9th against Cleveland which ended with ARod's walk-off Grannie. So much for momentum. The previous Mariano "melt-downs" this season weren't really all that bad when viewed in the larger context - a couple of bloops here and there mixed in with a hit and a walk - and I thought much of the panic talk was overblown worrying about a small sample size. But last night he was getting smacked all over the place and wasn't close to the plate on those pitches not getting whomped. Plus they had to pull him mid-inning so as to not burn him for Saturday & Sunday's games. It's still a small sample size but he's got to start trailing off eventually and there seems to be concern about radar readings.

Thoroughly winnable game that you could say turned on two ABs: the 2-out/2-on hit (HR) that Austin Kearns did get vs the 2-out/bags-loaded hit that Reyes didn't - I was OK letting Perez bat there. a) he was pitching well 2) he isn't an awful hitter III) there was only 1 out so we still had another crack at it. With 2 outs I'm more likely to PH - On the other hand I was calling for Endy to pinch-run even as Moises was rounding 1st. The counter argument is that you pretty much had to go out in order for the rest of the game for that spot not to come up again ... but it turned out that was exactly what happened.

="Johnny Dickshot"]I had let my subscription to I Know More Minor League Shit Than You Magazine expire, but mostly because I've become so fond of Draft and Follow Weekly. Which reminds me that I think ESPN needs to do more NFL draft previews. I'm not sure the 100 or so hours/week they're doing now - or the all-day coverage planned for the next two days is enough. Shirley there's some overlooked aspect that they can take more time to explore: - pinky toe size as a predictive factor of NFL success? -the effect of Jr High shop classes as linebacker preparation?

Very, very small in my mind - no matter how it all plays out. * Only 4,220 more posts until I "trade" being Pat Zachry for Tom Seaver

iramets wrote: ="Frayed Knot"]Dick-K Is this what they're calling him now? Oops!

It's way too early to even think about a series being a "knockout punch" for one team over the other - what with having 140-some games to go and all - but having the Yanx 5-1/2 games behind following last week's beatdown sparking a 6-game losing streak presents an unusual early opportunity for Boston to really step on their necks with a sweep or near-sweep and maybe throw them into panic mode. That said, the pitching sked in the Bronx doesn't set up nearly as well for the BoSox as last week's series in Boston did. [u:37cf0b646e]Friday - 7:00[/u:37cf0b646e] -- Matsuzaka - Pettitte Dick-K wasn't very good against the Yanx last week (7IP, 6 ER, 8H) but at least gave them some length which the Yanx haven't gotten from anyone. Pettitte's been good in each of his starts this year but has been the victim of both Rivera blown saves. [u:37cf0b646e]Saturday - 3:55 (FOX Network)[/u:37cf0b646e] -- Wakefield - Karstens Wakefield may be 87 years old, but he throws the knuckleball and has had success over the years vs NYY. Karstens gets the nod over Igawa (banished to the pen) even though he was on the business end of the Beantowner bats in the prior series (4.1 IP, 7 ER, 9 H) [u:37cf0b646e]Sunday - 1:00[/u:37cf0b646e] -- Tavarez - Wang The biggest NYY edge going in. Julian Tavarez is just plain awful (and frequently an asshole to boot) while Wang has been the best Yanqui starter over the last year and a half and looked mostly good in Tuesday's game vs Tampa (6.1 IP, 4 ER, 9 H) despite it being his first start since coming off the DL.

Back to the Milledge/Gomez question for a moment. Gomez's torrid streak naturally cooled off somewhat although he maintains a nice stat line of .304/.382/.443 in 79 ABs w/7 2Bs & 2 3Bs in his 24 hits. 10 SBs in 13 attempts Milledge, meanwhile, picked things up and is hitting .333/.372/.436 in just 39 ABs. 1 2B & 1 HR in his 13 hits. 5-fer-5 in SBs But now Milledge is on the DL with a "sprained foot"