Frayed Knot

Reyes - 2.5 Oliver - 1.0 Feliciano - 1.0 Bell - 1.0 DiFelice - 0.5

Phils-'Stros have a gay dame today. We could clinch hours before taking the field.

Well the day part of the D/N DH is a network game so he's def not working that one. I suspect he won't work the night game either. He's said he wanted to go out with little or no fanfare so disappearing like this would be just perfect. He may already be on a plane home. Mushnick had a nice piece on him in Friday's NYPost. Kaat was always one of my pavorites. He deserved a bigger audience but I'm sure the likes of ESPN probably thought he was too old, not a glamorous enough name, and not loud or "gimmicky" enough.

It's def a cause for concern as a LHP (somewhat) negates Delgado, Floyd, Endy & Green, plus turns Beltran & Valentin around to their weaker sides. Oddly they had a pretty good record against LHPs during the first half of the season. Part of the downturn could be due to Nady being dealt, part of it is that Wright was absolutely mashing LHPs early on and has reverted to more human numbers since, and part of it's probably just a quirk of numbers.

That rule about hitting streaks has existed for a number of years and (as Yancy points out) it's actually a rule which exists in the baseball rule book as opposed to being just something that exists as part of the official scorer's guideline. A guy from Elias was on the radio talking about it the other day (nothing wrong with being paranoid but MLB inventing the rule just for Jeter goes a bit far). I suggested when it happened that Torre is being less-than-honest by claiming to be unaware that by pulling Jeter he was, in effect, guaranteeing the streak would continue instead of ending it.

]not because they are all from East Asia, but because it may be an indication of organizational weakness in scouting in that region, and a lack of familiarity with whatever one has to know in order to figure out whose talents will translate well to MLB Except that (with the exception of Matsui) it's not like the Mets scouted these guys and pegged them as super-duper stars only to see them all fail to meet expectations. Yet there seems to be a general feeling around Met-dom that somehow the "exoctic-ness" of Asian imports meant that they were ALL supposed to become major players, leading fans to act as if they were duped and mgm't so incompetant when it didn't turn out that way that we best not venture there ever again. As mentioned, Matsui's the one case where they should examine what went wrong - although I've yet to hear anyone (including Bobby V) who didn't love the guy - but it hardly signals that there's a lengthy bad track record involving everything east Asian.

Perez - 2.0 Delgado - 2.7 Floyd - 1.0 Wagner - 0.6 Heilman - 0.6 Bradford - 0.5 Mota - 0.5 Wright - 1.2 LoDuca - 0.9

Assuming that they wind up pursuing this guy, the Met "record" with players from the far east is destined to become a huge topic of conversation IMO; as if the performance of the ones who came before has some sort of direct bearing on the odds of a new one succeeding. Add that to the (false) perception that the line of Asian Mets has been nothing short of a colossal failure and it could get real ugly. In fact, only KazMat was ever paid and presented as "star" material, and only JW Seo as a prospect. The remainder were never paid or slotted as anything other than role players and possible fill-ins, but somehow that little nugget has been more or less ... wait for it ... Lost in Translation

Lotsa fun stuff last night in between and around our rain delays: NL: - Cincy beat WC-leading Sandy Eggo with 1 in the 8th and then a walk-off from Jason LaRue in the 11th - Dodgers jump out to a 7-0 lead after 3 ... and then proceed to cough up 8 to the Cubs, and then tie it up again, only to lose it in the 11th also. Cubs won despite making SIX errors - Pujols haunts Lidge again - this time with a come-from-behind, walk-off 2-RBI 2B in the 9th for a 6-5 win. Pettitte left in the 3rd with an injury - Nationals beat Arizona - which by itself isn't all that interesting - but Luis Gonzalez hit his 50th 2B of the season, becoming the oldest player to do so. This is a guy who was being benched earlier this season - Giants spotted the Rox a 4-0 lead, but came back with 6 in the 2nd and went on to win 10-4 - And the Braves got eliminated from winning the division while getting rained on at the same time. Cool! AL: - Twins get 4 in the 8th to beat Oakland 7-5. The game-winner was a 2-RBI 2B by Justin Morneau who would be a MVP candidate if only he could get some clutch hits like Derek Jeter - Tigers win 3-2 on a walk-off 9th inning HR from Jose Guillen - his 2nd HR of the game. Guillen's a SS with numbers very similar to Jeter (JG=.310/.389/.519, 19 HRs vs DJ=.346/.423/.492, 13 HRs) and would be an MVP candidate if only he were on a 1st-place team and could get some clutch hits - ChiSox take a huge body-blow by losing to the Angels in the 11th, and a game to both other ALCentral teams - BoSox give up 4 to the O's in the 9th but survive 5-4 - KC beat the seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians" - Booooorrrrring - but the fun part was Royal pitcher Runelvys Hernandez and John Buck getting into a fist fight in the dugout between innings. Both stayed in the game. - And it's not like the Yanx beating up on Bal'mer and TB for a couple of straight days is all that interesting, but GEEZ can the opposition at least catch a fly ball. In the last 2 nights the O's and Devil Dogs have mis-played [u:fc66307f71]3 different[/u:fc66307f71] 2-out/bases-loaded "hits". Playing some "D" would at least keep the spread to within a touchdown. Jeter got plunked once and walked 3 times in the game. He was then PH'd for - which seems kind of weird until you realize that because all his ABs were walks & HBPs that his hitting streak does NOT end. Torre is apparently claiming he didn't realize this when he made the swap.

cooby wrote: How do you lose a giant leaf? Wilt Chamberlain was playing the lead in a play about Adam & Eve and borrowed it for a while.

]I do like the neon skyline on top of the scoreboard and I really do dig when it lights up after a homerun. Wish they'd remove the Twin Towers from it though. It takes away a small bit of the joy I feel when I look at the sign and see the red, white and blue ribbon surrounding the blacked out towers. Gary was talking about this the other day - saying how the ribbon over the towers was the perfect way to handle it; not removing them like they're gone from our memories yet not keeping them there and lit up like they're still up. I agree.

<<<<---- Where'd I leave them orange wristbands? Cliffy may not be moving all that well these days, but that's 3 or 4 balls that he's absolutely STUNG in the last 2 days: yesterday's HR, that 2B right there, plus the near-decapitation single earlier today. Several of them were off LHPs too.

OK, NOW let's go step on their fucking necks!!

So, what the hell, I'll run it now:There's a wango-tango, at the peppermint innI'm gonna be there, Shakin' my thingbe bop a lula, little Peggy Suewe both got company, don't know what to doBut that's alright ... yeah that's OKIn the middle of the nightHeeeeeeere's LISA!!!Lisa likes rock 'n' roll, she plays it every day.Down by the drugstore, everybody playShe turnin' on the radio, she's shootin' up the stereo.Puttin' on a video, she's sayin' let's go let's goLisa won't marry me, she says she's only four.Her mum don't like me, she says I'm too mature.Down at the disco, I go soloand the girls don't wanna know, I've been too slow.And that's alright, and that's OK,in the middle of the night.Heeeeeere's LISA!!!And when you see her, you wish you could be her.Ain't no one can beat her.She goes yeah, yeah, yeahyeah, yeah, "You're my daddy.I know Lisa likes rock 'n' rollI know Lisa likes rock 'n' rollI know Lisa likes rock 'n' rollI know Lisa likes rock 'n' rollI know Lisa likes rock 'n' rollI know Lisa likes rock 'n' rollI know Lisa likes rock 'n' rollI know Lisa likes rock 'n' rollYeah!

The old man's been getting a lot of bad calls lately.

I know Lisa likes Rock and RollI was gonna use that one if I were around when the chix thread hit L

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Josh, Cody ... and Taylor. This is devolving into a George Carlin routine; the one where he explains how Josh, Cody & Taylor would get their asses kicked by Charlie, Butch & Frankie.

Well Howie - who claims to be a big Ian fan - didn't necc say that Hunter was a Met fan per se so much as a Willie fan for a long while now.So I guess he's now a Met fan by extension. And, yes, he mentioned the living in Connecticut part.Willie wasn't all that certain who I. H. was when Howie explained all this to him.

A good way to see the pre-adorned Shea is to check out the flick 'Bang the Drum Slowly' Much of that movie was filmed there circa 1972: green plywood walls, no apple/hat, no picnic area, etc.

Lame poll questions are rapidly becoming a staple of sports braodcasts. It's all about getting folks to log onto their websites. Whether they do it with intelligent queries ortotal lameness seems irrelevent to them.

Yeah, plus the Giants are hanging around more than it looked like earlier. Old man Bonds is looking healthier and swinging well again. Almost as old Jason Schmidt is pitching well and so is young man Cain. That one-two pitching punch alone could make a formidable 1st round opponent for someone.

Another quirky "race" to watch is the one where Los Mets are 33 games above .500 and the remainder of the over-.500 NL teams are [u:cc9fcb8916]a cumulative 27[/u:cc9fcb8916] games over. It'll be tough for them to keep their heads above that theoretical waterline, but it's something that's only happened twice in the (post-'61) expansion era according to the geeks at Baseball Prospectus.

I'd like some sort of alternative whether he's kept or not. Like Knight, you can make an offer for next year at a reasonable price hoping he'll stick around, but if someone else is offering multi-years you've got to be smart enough to pull the plug. The other situation - besides Knight - that this reminds me of is Mariano Duncan as the 2nd baseman for the '96 MFYs. Duncan - who had only once before hit as much as .290 - batted .340 for that team at the age of 33. But Chuckles Knoblauch was available and they took the plunge. Duncan was still around the following year but got only 170 ABs (.244 BA) before finishing out the season AND HIS CAREER in Toronto. Valentin turns 37 next month.

At least it is for those without cell phones and SUVs

Worst stretch we've played this year since the Boston-Bronx trip.