Frayed Knot

Plenty of pen left: Smith, Sele & Burgos -- but just Newhan on the bench unless I'm missing someone.

I think it's pretty clear that the severity of the max penalty is designed to quash ideas like gifts for promises of future play: play this way next Thursday and I'll give you X as opposed to Hunter's after-the-fact show of appreciation. And while I see where they need to condemn what he did anyway simply for the the avoidance of even the appearance of impropriety, I'd be surprised if much comes from this beyond a few warnings and maybe something along the lines of a fine directed to charity.

btw, Our RS/RA differential of +52 is BY FAR the best in MLB - only the BoSox & Dodgers (both at +32) are better than +25. Small sample sizes like 18 games generally mean should should take stuff like that with several grains of salt, but from that aspect you could argue that we've been somewhat underacheiving (Pythag record = 14 - 4) and that the annoying Braves (just +6) are well ahead of where they "should" be. Only 4 of our games are listed as "close" (I think that's defined as being within 1 or 2 runs) and we're 2-2 there.

]How much does Pedro factor into Omar's stretchrun/post season thinking? What's responsible? Pedro's not coming back until he's ready to handle a regular start and, when he is, he'll be worked into the rotation. In place of who to be determined by things we don't know at this point.

"Good for you, FK. Now try it when the Mets do it, and I'll give you props." Absolutely, because I intend to be deadly serious about assuming general pre-season statements to be stone-cold promises which when broken - due to faster than expected progress, altered circumstances, or just plain changing of the mind - should be treated as if breaches of trust & security on a Watergate-like level. * Hey, I'm reigning NL Player of the Week Carlos Beltran

Maine - 4.3 Valentin - 2.7 Delgado - 1.9 Alou - 1.1

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/boxscore?gid=270423121

Igawa - again - can't make it thru the 5th, further straining the NYY pen. So, partially as a result of that, the Yanx have gone against their pre-season pledge (F***KING LIARS!!!!) and will call up prized pitching prospect Phillip Hughes for the start on Thursday against the Jays. Matsui re-activated today - Chase Hughes heads back to the minors with the memory of those 4 HRs in his final 10 pitches. Wang will come off the DL for tomorrow. A-Rod HR'd twice tonight. That's 14 folks in 18 games.

That was another funny/sad part about the ranting: that Willie is always going to Franco and how he fails every time up. Ummm, it was this his 1st out and 5th plate appearance in 17 games; no one on the team has appeared less except for Milledge (3) and that's only because he isn't here anymore. It's like the good times caused all the rants to be stored up which then all came flooding out as a result of the bad two innings and no one cared if they were actually logical or not.

DatesTeamCPFer May 22-24BravesRockin DocMay 25-27MarlinsSeawolfMay 29-31GiantsSharpieJune 1-3D'BacksFrayed KnotJun 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 12-16RedsJohnny DickshotJuly 16-18PadresCFJuly 19-22DodgersBoy Named SeoJuly 24-26PiratesLundyJuly 27-29NationalsEdgyDCJuly 31 - Aug 2BrewersTransMonk

]If your point is that the Met fans are ignorant abusers of their excellent players when they lose, you're right as far as Heilman and Wright go, but the other cases you cite there's good reasons for thinking as they do.My main point was just to note the virulence of the complaining and the wide-ranging variety of targets after not hearing it for a while even as it was a near nightly occurance for years. As far as the pen, I know all fans really want from their relievers is virtual perfection, but Burgos has given up all of 4 hits in 8+ IPs (and that includes the Green drop) while those were the first 2 runs charged to Schoeneweis all season (yeah, I know, he walks too many). In fact, the (defense aided) 6 runs (3 earned) coughed up yesterday brings the grand total charged to the pen to all of 10 ERs in 51 IPs - that's a 1.76 ERA even after Sunday's debacle. I mean, jeez, it must not be that incompetant or being mismanged too badly. btw, for all our complements thrown to the defense so far, 11 of the 67 runs given up to date have been unearned - a ratio which strikes me as unusually high (although I'm not sure what a "proper" one is). 7 of those 11 UNearnies have been charged to the pen even though the starters have thrown nearly 2/3s of the IPs (62%)

Papillion in to face the top of the NYY order and try to protect a 1-run lead: - Damon - FO7 - Jeter - K Swinging (oooh, not so clutch this time!) - Abreu - BB - Rodriguez - FC 5-4 ... and the sweep is complete!

Jeez Coco ... You lay flat-out to rob DWright with a bases-loaded game-saver last year and now you let that pice-o-shit blooper land at your feet right after you're put in for defense?!!? C'mon man, you're on national TV!

Proctor, Proctor give us the news Sox got a bad case of smacking you 1B, 2B, 3R HR (Lowell) to Scott Proctor's first 3 batters of bottom 7th and it's 7-5 Boston. Exit Proctor, enter Luis Vizcaino.

Glavine - 1.2 Reyes - 2.4 Green - 1.4 LoDuca - 0.5 Alou - 0.3 Vaalentin - 0.2

Yanx take a 5-4 lead into the 7th on that Jeter HR plus an RBI GO. Andy Pettitte - in his 2nd relief appearance of the year so far - pitched the 6th. Matsuzaka still dealing for Boston. That was the [u:1176a89f40]2nd time[/u:1176a89f40] in MLB history that [u:1176a89f40]one pitcher[/u:1176a89f40] has served up 4 straight HRs. When the Dodgers did that crazy 4-straight thing in the 9th inning of a game last year it was 2 each off of 2 different hurlers.

Game 3: Yanx giving Andrew Dice-Kay a bit of a hard time; he's walked a few, hit a few, and given up a few hits as the Yanx took a 3-0 led. Meanwhile, the Sawx were hitless against Chase Wright in his 2nd ML start until ... BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!!!! in the bottom of the 3rd when Manny, Drew, Lowell & Varitek went back-to-back-to back-to back and there was nuthin' cheap about any of them. 4 - 3 Sox in the 4th. Yanx have changed pitchers.

Braves got 8 of their 9 runs on three seperate two-out hits off of three different pitchers. Not much more to say about this game than that. Change even one of those to an inning-ending out and at worst you're looking at extras. The best offensive inning of the year was followed by the worst 2-inning bullpen stint of the year. Judging just on the bit of talk radio I've heard tonight, this is the most disgruntled Met fans have been all season and maybe since 2005. The funny part is that much of it is aimed at Burgos who was the only reliever not to shit on himself today aside from that "double" that Green should have put in his pocket. But, in addition to him, the general consensus is that Willie suxx, Shoeneweis suxx, Heilman suxx, Wright suxx, Franco suxx, and we'll never beat the Braves again. I don't know what to make of Green's defense. He looks fine going after balls and, although he isn't as fast as when he was younger, he's hardly ploddingly slow and doesn't look jumpy or unsure of himself out there. But he often manages to just miss a number of balls including stuff that hits him in the glove. I mean, some guys you can just tell they're shakey just by watching them track a fly. Green doesn't look that way even if the result winds up the same. Weird.

Perez - 4.0 Beltran - 2.1 Reyes - 1.8 Castro - 1.0 Easley - 0.7 Heilman - 0.2 Wagner - 0.2

Castro is signed for just this year and will ALSO be a FA after this year -- he came in with 5+ yrs MLB service so will have the needed 6+ at years end. A lot might depend on if both we and other teams can see him as a front line guy. He'll be 32 next spring btw. I mentioned in the IGT that I was interested - even going back to last year - in seeing him as closer to a "1A" kind of backup to LoDuca rather than the more traditional once a week guy. That idea fell apart last season amid his injuries and LoDuca's offensive surge but the fate of both guys bears some watching this season.

Winning Friday was really the key to this series for Boston. It was the only game in which the Yanx had anywhere near an even pitching matchup, plus they had Mariano available while Papelbon was not. Then when Pettitte outpitched Schilling AND ARod continued his insane streak it was all set up for the Bronx boys until their pen collapsed late amid a couple of questionable choices by Torre. Saturday started to look like a give-back when Beckett looked like he was continuing his awful pitching vs the Yanx from last year by giving up more runs in the 1st & 2nd innings than he had in his first 3 starts combined. But he straightened out after that while Karstens was even worse and the Sox eventually out-clubbed 'em even as they missed several chances to make it a blow out. The "other" Japanese pitcher for Boston - Hidecki Okajima - looks like he'll be a useful multi-purpose pen guy and got some big outs in both games. Yanx are winless this season in games where ARod does NOT homer.

]That's prolly what I was thinking of. My bad. If Yancy will extend it past 24 hours, though, I can find someone and collect multiple nickelsThat search bearing any fruit yet? ... Or do we just assume that the strategy is going forward is to hear something somewhere then pretend that "multiple" people here said it so as to set yourself up as the lone voice of truth howling against the uninformed masses?

Nicely done all around. Smith may achieve the rare feat of getting hisself some beer despite facing only one batter. It's tough to label an AB w/a 4-run lead a "turning point" but a bad result there could have become a turning point the other way. It pretty much stifled their last best hope. Still early obviously, but we're getting glimpses of the Castro we saw two years back when I (and others) was touting him as a good candidate for something closer to 1/3 of the catcher starts in '06 as opposed to the more traditional 80/20 splits that many starter/backup duos use. He then started slowly and got hurt while Dookie was having better than expected season so the whole point became moot. But now this is something worth watching as it unfolds. * Hey, I'm Jack Fisher!

]If the only answer you'll accept is "Omar is smarter and more articulate than Satan, and more decent and helpful than Jesus," then there's no dealing with you, but don't make that out to be any fault of mine.This, I can only assume, is directed at all those here who have been constantly touting Omar as a polished public speaker. In the meantime, what looked like a typical (read: frustrating) Yanx/Sawx game - what with ARod continuing to be insane and Pettitte pitching like it's 1999 - suddenly turned on a few key ABs and a few Torre decisions (not all bad necc) that backfired. - first Posada had to leave and he was stuck with Will (I haven't had a hit all year) Nieves catching. Nieves was then on-deck when the last out was made but Torre was ready to PH with his DH/3rd catcher Phelps if the inning continued - he then pulled Proctor after just 2/3 IP in favor of his LOOGY Myers to pitch to Papi in the 8th (didn't work), then had to go to Vizcaino for the rest of the inning and he was the real culprit - he also pinch-ran for Giambi trying for what was then a tack-on run (didn't get it) and it was Giambi's spot which came up w/2 outs in the 9th and the tying run on base. Kevin Thompson batter instead and K'd to end the game. - and the big blow against Mariano - Crisp's 2RBI triple - was really nothing more than a 2-hopper that got between Meintky and the bag as he wasn't guarding the line w/the tying run on 1st

Green - 2.0 Alou - 1.4 Beltran - 0.6 Smith - 0.4 Scoeneweis - 0.4