Frayed Knot

AL East Red Sox: 33-21 Jonathan Papelbon: 60/60 Sv/Opp, 84 IPs/39 Hits Yankees: 33-21 Chien Ming-Wang: 224 IPs / 81 Ks Blue Jays: 31-23 B.J. Ryan: 80 IPs/39 Hits, 96 Ks/15 BBs Orioles: 25-29 Miguel Tejada - 36 GiDPs Devil Rays: 22-32 Ty Wigginton: 588 ABs, 36 HRs, 135 Ks AL Central Tigers: 36-18 Placido Polanco: 606 PAs, 6 BBs White Sox: 33-21 Jose Contreras: 192 IPs, 141 Hits allowed Indians: 27-27 Grady Sizemore: 15 3Bs Twins: 25-29 Johan Santana: 267 Ks Royals: 14-40 Jeremy Affeldt: 131 IPs, 174 Hits, 87 BBs AL West Rangers: 29-25 Gary Mathews Jr.: 633 PAs - 90 XBHs A's: 25-29 "Moneyball" star Nick Swisher: 48 HRs, 93 Bbs Angels: 24-30 Jeff Weaver: 187 IPs / 132 Ers Mariners: 22-32 Sexson: 192 Ks

All the teams reached the 54 game mark this past weekend. Not only is that the official 1/3 mark but it's also the first good time to start projecting full season stats. Each team is shown where they were at the 54 game mark along with a selected full season projection. NL East Mets: 33-21 Jose Reyes: 555 Outs Braves: 28-26 Jeff Francouer: 699 Plate Appearances - 9 walks Phils: 28-26 Ryan Howard: 57 HRs, 12 2Bs Nationals: 22-32 Soriano: 57 HRs, 114 RBIs Marlins: 20-34 Dontrelle Willis: 229 IPs, 255 Hits, 78 BBs NL Central Cardinals: 34-20 Albert Pujols: 75 HRs, 195 RBIs, .310 / .444 / .755 Reds: 30-24 Adam Dunn: 177 Ks, 135 BBs Astros: 27-27 Pettitte: 36 HRs allowed Brewers: 26-28 Rickie Weeks: 33 HBPs Cubs: 22-32 Carlos Zambrano: 229 IPs / 141 BBs Pirates: 20-34 Roberto Hernandez: 69 G, 70 IPs, 51 H, 54 Ks, 36 BBs NL West Dodgers: 31-23 Nomar: 150 Hits, 48 2Bs, 18 HRs, (.357 / .417 / .614) Padres: 29-25 Mike Piazza: 411 ABs, 21 2Bs, 24 HRs, .263 / .333 / .489 Giants: 28-26 Bonds: 510 PAs, 90 H, 21 HRs, 63 IWs Rockies: 27-27 Todd Helton - 12 HRs Diamondbacks: 27-27 Brandon Webb: 269 IPs, 30BBs

Welcome from a former Massapequan (two brief stints in my life). Drop by often.

Trachsel - 3.0 Milledge - 2.0 Wright - 2.5 Valentin - 1.5

BA Notes: The Mets Bobby Parnell had his first strong outing of the season as the righthander allowed only one earned run over seven innings while fanning six and walking none for low Class A Hagerstown. He did surrender a home run, his second in 28 innings this season. Last year, in 73 innings in the short-season New York-Penn League he allowed only one.

BA Notes: The Mets Henry Owens, out since April 30 with an elbow injury, returned to the mound for Double-A Binghamton and struck out two while pitching a perfect ninth.

Favorite Sign: 'Bar Open' Or is this just restricted to those at a ballgame? Oh, nevermind then. Actually, remember the '93 WS game between the Jays & Phils that went about 5 hours and ended 14-13 or something like that? Both teams used about 6 pitchers each on none were very good and the game became a sort of symbol for the increasingly boom-ball era of baseball. Anyway, the next game some fan holds up a sign reading: 'WILL PITCH MIDDLE RELIEF FOR FOOD'

At this point, trading Kaz and simply cutting him is virtually the same thing. A trade get you almost nothing in return and will still cost you most of the remaining money (~ $5mil). Throw in the fact that Kaz has almost complete veto power over a deal and (guessing here) will likely return to Japan for next year anyway, thrying to strike a deal that satisfies all the right condition might just be more of a headache than it's worth.

I think the A-P prospects thread idea got abandoned in favor of one for each of the minor league teams.

* Just to pre-empt the talk radio (either side) denizen from claiming the Met comeback was assured as soon as Benitez strolled in from the pen; his stats vs Mets in his post-NYM career prior to today: 16 G, 18.33 IPs, 1 ER, 18 Ks, 6 BBs, 14 Svs, 0 BlSv, 7 Hits I have this sneaking suspicion that those who claim they "knew it" all along prolly said the same thing in each of the prior 16 appearences as well and were, of course, wrong each and every time starting with the first one and running through game 1 on Saturday. Thing is, once you do a rain dance every day for 2 weeks straight in the midst of a dry spell you lose the ability to say 'I told you so' when it finally rains on day 15. I'm wondering if some sort of comment along the lines of 'you could see it coming' will come from Francesa even though it would go against his repeated claims that Armando "is perfect" from April thru August only to fall apart when Sept 1 rolls around. I'm betting yes, consistancy isn't his strong suit. * In the wake of Pujols DL-ing, LaRussa had Edmonds playing 1B today. * Atlanta & Houston both take 4-game sweeps (Ariz & Cincy). With the Astros now 3 games under .500 I wonder if Roger wants to change his mind or try to force a trade to the Bronx? * Anyone see Carl Crawford's injury the other day? He slid home trying to score but was called out as the catcher blocked (or didn't) the plate. So Crawford jumps up to argue but lands awkwardly and crumples to the ground holding his knee. He stayed in the game briefly but had to leave an inning later. Kinda cut his whole argument thing short too. * Tony Clark came into today's game against Atlanta's Jorge Sosa with 3 consectutive HRs off him. So he homers in his first AB today too to make it 4 straight. He later HR'd again although Sosa was long gone by then. * When 'Inside the Actors Studio' is interviewing Tim Allen I think it's a sign that maybe it's time to re-consider the mission statement of the whole project. * Around 6PM today I briefly saw some orange-ish ball in the sky which was giving off both light and heat. Any ideas what that could be?

It shouldn't happen regularly because the game is still going on at that point and it's an act that reeks of an athlete celebrating himself.

I was surprised and a bit disturbed by the display. On the other hand, for a first ML HR in a game-tying/2-out/2-strike situation it can be written off as youthful exuberence w/o getting too bad of a rep. Shouldn't happen again though and it sounds like he might know that now.

]"Did they just say they [Foxwoods] offer a 'Wampum Rewards Card'? That's the worst thing I ever heard!" Designated minority groups taking offense at designated "hate speech" $eem$ to be a $elective proce$$

1) The best hitting pitcher. - Gooden 2) The best hitting pitcher who nonetheless didn't look good up there - El Sid 3) The worst hitting pitcher - Koosman 4) The worst hitting pitcher who nonetheless looked like he should be able to handle himself up there - Koosman 5) The best bunting pitcher - Glavine 6) The worst bunting pitcher - all the others 7) The best hitting relief pitcher - Darren Oliver 8) The slugging guy who didn't hit much but was a threat to connect for a homer - David Arthur Kingman 9) The best baserunning pitcher - Robert Person 10) The pitcher who you thought was a better hitter than a pitcher - Robert Person

Yeah, it's officially raining REAL FUCKIN' HARD!!!! They're going to do wait forever to get this started - even if it only means one game today - so I'll be surprised if they call it anytime soon.

Today (so far) stinks.

Reyes - SS LoDuca - C Delgado - 1B Wright - 3B Floyd - LF Valentin - 2B Chavez - CF Milledge - RF OHernandez - P Don't know if this means that Beltran's on the shelf for the day or just taking advantage of the extra couple hours to rest.

"Tonight" is this thread started out by meaning Thursday but has now morphed into Friday. Seeing as how it's in the present tense I suppose it'll always mean whatever day it is so long as we keep the thread alive and therefore every night will stink ... or something like that. We're def getting delayed at some point tonight. Saturday is a FOX game @ 1:20 so I wonder if that'll rule out a one-admission DH tomorrow if we're rained out Friday. They could do a day/night thing so as to move the FOX peeps and equipment out and the SNY stuff in. Most reports are showing Saturday's weather as getting better as the day goes on. Sunday makes for a bad DH day because the Mets are headed for the West Coast.

Actually it's James - son of Charles - Dolan doing the white-boy blues band thingie. The only thing I notice about the sound on my SNY feed (also Cablevision) is that it's usually lower than that of surrounding channels. IOW, when flipping between innings I'm constantly lowering and then re-raising the volume when I go off and then return to SNY. But no cut-outs.

I don't get Raissman's point either. His theme seems to be that the 'truth is taking a backseat' even though he starts the article by noting that Hernandez brought up the subject almost immediately, and then noting how his own paper talked about Milledge's "flamboyance" and "unpopularity" in the minors. And is his point about the high school issues that they've been ignored? Jeez, those things were hashed and re-hashed when he was drafted and had at least a partial hand in why the negotiations dragged on for 3 months as new (and proven baseless) accusations for old incidents were investigated - and regularly reported on. That NYM brass is looking to put the best face on things is certainly an angle to pursue but he doesn't supply much in the way of meat to back that up other than vague references to rants that apparently didn't do much. His theory that the media has completely "rolled over" on this issue sounds a bit like an angle in search of an actual story.

One more thing on this game: It may not have mattered, but nice heads up play by Valentin to move from 2nd to 3rd on Castro's grounder. Normally the rule is to go if the ball is hit to the runner's left and stay if it's to his right. This one was several strides to his right but chopped slowly enough that Valentin's correct read of it gave him plently of time to get there. Of course as it turned out he scores either way because N.D.'s ball scooted up the gap but maybe they pitch him differently if that run's still on 2nd. Big difference between having the winning run on 3rd as opposed to on 2nd with only 1 out.

No, there's no "phantom" calling of the game. The network version of the game will be the only telecast that exists. I was in Baltimore a couple years back and was wandering around the harbor an hour or two before the game when I walked right past Howie Rose (then doing TV) and his wife & kids. Just as I was about to ask him what the hell he was doing there instead of being down the street at the stadium I realized it was a network game giving him the day off to spend with the family.

Except that our buddy Jorge Julio collects a save against the Los Bravos (despite serving up a bomb to Andruw) ... just minutes before Kyle Farnsworth blows one agin' Le Tiggers (Mariano not available 2night). So the night wasn't a total loss. btw, there's prolly good odds we'll get rained out - or at least seriously delayed - tomorrow.

- Is Moises off the DL? He twisted his ankle real bad about a month ago to the point where he had to be carted off the field. I didn't think he was back yet. - I do know that Lance Neikro was just activated from the DL - Matt Cain was one of the more heralded prospects heading into this season. He'll still have his 'growing-pains' starts but a good outing from him should neither be considered a fluke nor an excuse to wail about how we can never beat "No Name" hurlers. - Matheny's defensive rep out-sizes the reality these days. You can def run on him a lot more than in recent years. - That's a hefty WHiP for Mr. Benitez. He was consistantly down around 1.1 while here.

Houston was early in the electronic/exploding scoreboard deal too. Not long after the Dome opened they installed a monstrosity of a scoreboard (everything's bigger in Texas don't you know) which partially became an attraction in and of itself. Bouton even mentioned it in 'Ball Four' (1969) about how the crowd seemed to sit quiet and wait for their cues. That was all very new at the time and considered 'Bush League' by most others. I still don't like the whole idea either.