Frayed Knot

Willets Point wrote: And Frayed Knot dutifully returns the topic to scoring baseball games for the top of page 4. I don't have any sex w/nuns stories to add. I've led such a sheltered life.

]For force outs: Reyes walked with 2 outs. LoDuca grounds to second baseman, who flips to SS at second to get the force out. In Reyes's box, solid line from HP to 1st, labeled BB. A line halfway between first & second, with a hatchmark at the end of the line. In bottom left-hand corner of Reye's box, #3, circled. In LoDuca's box, 4-6. Bottom right-hand corner of his box is filled in to indicate that his was the last at bat. That's pretty much what I do as well. Whenever a baserunner is out advancing to a base I use the hatchmark to indicate that (out stretching; out trying 1st to 3rd on single, etc.) and then a small notation next to it as to how; like 'CS' for caught stealing, '8-2' if out tagging, etc. I also use the circled number thing to indicate which out of the inning it is - but only when I think it's neccesary because the outs occured "out of sequence". For instance if LoDuca K's in the above example and then Delgado grounded into the force then the circled numbers ('1' in LoDuca's box, '2' in Reyes's) help you remember that LoDuca's out occured before Reyes's. Sometimes it can be even more confusing if odd base-running plays happen.

The thing about Beane is that he's virtually never traded a guy in mid-season who's coming up on FA-gency. People keep talking as if he needs to deal Zito or risk getting nothing for him ('cept draft picks) but that's not been his M.O.; not with Giambi, not Damon, not Isringhausen, not Tejada. I guess you have to go back to Kenny Rogers (nice pitcher but hardly Zito) in '99 to find a "major" player dealt at the deadline. Now all that may change if/when Oakland drops out of things in the ALWest but that doesn't look like it's on the horizon anytime soon. Angels are stumbling, Seattle is bad, and does anyone think Texas will run away and hide? He did deal both Hudson & Mulder but that was prior to the start of the season.

The ump had a big zone the whole game and particularly so at the top of the zone. The first pitch of the game to Reyes was at the upper chest and was called which pretty much set the tone. The difference with Matsui's strike is that it was a breaking ball meaning that it was even higher as it passed him than it was when the catcher caught it. Bad call. The Delucci triple stayed in play. It landed right on the line, then kicked sideways and bounced against the side wall which is considerably higher than the reg OF wall. A bad break followed by a bad break.

Not saying that Nady should have had that 2nd triple -- only that it had a lot of hang time and he still wasn't in the picture by the time it landed. He seems to play fly balls rather cautiously at first instead of sprinting to where he thinks it's going to be and then adjusting. Even the catches he does make he tends to make just as he gets there. The 1st triple was a perfect example of just getting there, while Juan Pierre robbing Barry of #714 is one of getting to the spot first. What mattered in hitting Rollins wasn't erely that he hit him but that he was ahead in the count 0-2 It just suxx that the Phils were able to win on a so-so fly ball, HBP, BB & swinging dribbler. Reyes could have been safe by 12 feet and it would still be a dumb move.

Well faced with logic like that I have no choice but to agree, forget all that stuff I said earlier.

I've said this before, but I think the biggest worry isn't necc that he couldn't handle the jump in levels but rather the increase in IPs that he'll be facing. Those 360 IPs were spread out over 3 years and then were followed by a 9 month lay-off from any pitching at all. He's already facing a much longer season than anything he's seen up to this point and it's different doing it in the minors where the team's W/L can play a secondary role to his development. I do suspect we'll see him before the year's out but that's different from promoting him after just a good outing or two.

I almost feel sorry for ARod. Not really, but sorta sometimes. He's such a good player (even though having a bit of an off-year so far) but the Yanx fans are so convinced that he's "un-clutch" that they're blaming him for everything short of high gas prices and hurricane Katrina. At this point it's just a matter of finding the examples tht fit the pre-determined label and I don't think there's much he can do to turn the image around.

Well one game tonight was fun to watch. * G-I-am-Big stakes the Yanx to a 2-0 lead * But then the Big Eunuch falls apart with walks, wild-pitches, 2 ARod errors, a few hits here and there, and suddenly it's 7-2 BoSox and RJ doesn't get out of the 4th inning * Then later on Melky Cabrera drops a 2-out pop-up to let in 2 more runs

Martinez - 3.5 Delgado - 3.0 Nady - 2.5

]Keith, please drop the "clutch" stuff down a bit. Yes, absolutely. And the worst part is that they're getting these "clutch" stats off of stat sheets telling them that Joe Blow is hitting .429 w/RiSP or some such ultra-selective category and then the screen flashes up that it's all based on 4-for-7 Lots of little culprits tonight: - One Philly triple was catchable and the other certainly shouldn't have been as lonely in the corner as it was. X-Man doesn't seem to get good jumps on balls. - Reyes's baserunning gaffe was the biggest. Not only was a steal there not all that important but to get caught on the fake-to-3rd play is inexcusable. Not his first time for that play IIRC. - Heilman's throw obviously; he should have let LoDuca take that. Hitting Rollins (and almost Abreu) with a 2-strike count wasn't too cool either. - LoDuca's desperation/swipe tag when it wasn't necessary. If he holds on to that throw and simply turns toward the runner with it they've got him cooked. Nice almost comeback though.

Unless it rains.

Phils currently on an 8-game winning streak.

That essentially gives us 8* relievers for the Philly series - one of whom will likely have to disappear in order to make way for Jeremi Gonzalez by Friday. Gonzalez would also need to be added to the 40-man. Wagner (L) Heilman Sanchez Oliver (L) Bell Feliciano (L) Julio Bradford

He's also since admitted that more than a few of the early stories of Guardian Angel exploits were exaggerrated or just plain made up.

Yanqui fan callers to talk radio have been suggesting plunking Papi for about 3 years now. If ya can't beat 'im, bean 'im. btw, Sheffield to the DL, Melky Cabrera up. Cabrera was the one who came up briefly to play CF last year and bombed both offensively & (more importantly since it was the reason he was called in the first place) defensively. He's been hitting real well in AAA and will probably play RF full time until Sheff's drugs kick in ... I mean wrist heals.

The Newsday story is no different from the Daily News one that we excerpted above; they're quoting NYM sources as saying that the recent pitching injuries aren't going to send them into a 'lets-panic-and-deal-the-kids' mode. That they made a back-page spread over it reflects that it's a off-day (for both teams) more than a sign that they are accepting it as stone-cold truth - nor, as far as I can tell, is anyone here despite claims of posters all over the CPF being "reeled in".

Various Adam Rubin musings as they pertain to starters for the near future: - (what Yancy refers to) -- Mets insiders insisted yesterday that the team's core prospects, including Lastings Milledge, won't be dealt under any circumstances - not even to obtain Barry Zito or Dontrelle Willis if they were made available. "We're going to be fine," a team source said. "Nobody's panicking. None of the top prospects are going to be dealt." - Jose Lima and Jeremi Gonzalez are penciled in for the weekend Brewers series. - Brian Bannister (strained right hamstring) will throw his first bullpen session today and is scheduled to return May 19 for the series opener against the Yankees.

This guy was voted the best talent in the whole NY-Penn league in '04 (despite being old for the league), but then stumbled in low-A last year with a sub-.300 OBA. Big change so far.

Boiled down: - Glavine is [u:3adb0d640a]giving up[/u:3adb0d640a] $3mil this year - but is guaranteed to get it back eventually in the form of a buyout if he's not picked up. - If he does pitch here next year he'll make somewhere between $5.5 - $14 depending on a variety of factors -- but with a net cost to the team of $2.5 - $11 since they're saving the $3mil this year. Doesn't sound too crazy or backwards-bending to me.

"Actually I was just curious if Triple Happiness was rooted in Braves hating or actual standings." It was pretty much based on the fact that the two longest division streaks are owned by the in-town rival and in-division rival making losses by them the most likely to make you happy. This was Dickshot's baby so the choice should really fall to him - but it was created with specifically those 3 teams in mind and I feel very strongly that, until at least one of the 3 teams involved breaks a streak, that those should remain the official 'TH' teams ... even though I realize that there may come some late season games this year when we might be in position to root for Atlanta over say the Phils depending on how the standing stand. P.S. I've never been a Brave-hater either; now them MFY on the other hand ...

FWIW, Francesa said he talked to Omar today (off the air, prior to their show): - Want to keep their pen working as is (at least for now) - Will 'work the phones' to see what's out there and in the meantime fill-in with internal folks (at least for now) - Dontrelle Willis isn't available and was never offered despite a newspaper report a few weeks back saying that he was at some unspecified time.

1) Void gets created 2) Media gets behind MAJOR SPLASHY MOVE as a MUST DO!!!! 3) Rinse/repeat

(the creator of this thread should probably change the subject heading by this point) The problem, of course, is that vast quantities of Met fans (aided and abetted by vast quantities of media types) so convinced themselves that no closer in history could possibly be as bad as Armando Benitez that a new one - especially one with as good a resume as Wagner - would give us oodles of stress-free 9th innings almost as a matter of course. What they fail to realize is that big Armando and little Billy have been virtual statistical twins during their common times as closers and that the notion they concocted in their heads that, while Armando's WHiP/ERA/Sv pct, etc. were perfectly acceptable, his slips from perfection inconviently all occured at inopportune times; as if there exists an opportune time for a pitcher who, by definition, works almost exclusively in tight 9th inning games to surrender runs, baserunners, etc. But we all know that the grass is always greener on the other side and so Wags will continue to get a pass for a time beyond when others would have been skewered for the same "crimes". I've gotten a kick out of hearing fans say - as early as the first week of the season - that Wagner is the best closer the Mets have ever had. Oh really? The problem with the contract is that closer types tend to be less consistant and long-lasting than starters, making his contract more of a risk than say Glavine's was back when. So just hold your hats and hope that he's a reasonable semblence of what he's been over the last few years for as many of the next few as possible. He'll likely continue to say dumb things now and then regardless and I expect it to be tolerated to the extent of his performance.

You want to celebrate when other teams lose go right ahead - but "TH" was set-up to commemorate a specific set of circumstances and shall remain such AT LEAST until the string of 1st place/non-1st place finishes changes. This has come up every year as soon as the Braves have a bad 2-week stretch and look like they're not going to contend ... and then we're looking up at them as we celebrate maybe 2 THs per month.