Frayed Knot

Bannister - 2 Heilman - 2 Nady - 1.4 Delgado - 2.1 Wright - 0.8 Reyes - 0.3 Diaz - 0.5 LoDuca - 0.8 Bradford - 0.1

From 'Ask BA': Q: -- What do you think of Mets righthander Henry Owens? The New York papers were hyping him during spring training and his Double-A numbers (no hits, two walks, 14 strikeouts) are ridiculous so far, albeit in just six innings. Any chance we could see him in Shea Stadium this year? A: -- Owens is one of the best stories in a Mets system that has been depleted by trades. He hit just .277-6-20 at NCAA Division II Barry (Fla.) as a senior catcher/DH in 2001. With his baseball career figuring to end there, he planned on attending medical school. But scouts liked his arm strength, and the Pirates' Delvy Santiago signed him as a nondrafted free agent with the intention of converting him to the mound. Owens showed a mid-90s fastball and was able to simply blow heat by hitters in the low minors from the start, but coming up with an effective second pitch was more problematic. He was bothered by elbow tendinitis and back problems throughout 2004, after which the Mets grabbed him in the Triple-A phase of the Rule 5 draft. It took Owens a couple of months to get fully healthy last year, but once he did, he had a 1.04 ERA and 41 strikeouts in his final 26 innings at high Class A St. Lucie. His fastball hit 100 mph when he pitched in the Puerto Rican Winter League, and his slider made some strides. It's still not a finished product, however, as evidenced by Owens' performance in big league camp this spring, when he had a 10.50 ERA and opponents strafed him for 12 hits in six innings. The Mets are off to a good start, and Owens still has work to do on his slider, so a promotion isn't imminent. But if he continues to perform and the slider improves, New York is going to be tempted to give him a look later this year.

- LAD reliever Yhency Brazoban out for the season. Tack that onto Eric Gagne's nerve removal surgery and Jae Seo's seo-seo start and I bet they're missing Duaner Sanchez right about now - David Wells comes off the DL, gets bombed, and goes right back on. Gee, his knee is having trouble healing under all that weight ... whoda thunk it? Former NYM - taken in Rule 5 Draft - Lenny DiNardo starts in his place this morning (Patriot's day Game). - Sean Casey out for a few weeks after getting run into at 1st base. Probably too busy talking.

Magadan always wore the double ear-flap helmets. "I'm more aerodynamic that way" was his explanation. Just imagine how slow he would have been without it!

]All the same I'd prefer Bannister not try that ever again... EGG-Xactly! (see how I got that Easter reference in) Runs scored may be the more "important" stat but, to a large extent, RS is merely a function of OBP (combined with SLG and a few other things). In the short run weird things like allowing 2+ base-runners per inning like Bannister did might only result in a scant amount of runs but you wouldn't want to walk that tight-rope too often. And it's ditto for batters. Reyes might score a bunch of runs w/a lousy OBP but a lot of other things have to go right (good SB pct, good backup hitters) in order for that to happen and, even then, it's almost certain that he'd score even more runs with a better pct.

Yes it's back; the 3rd annual ocasional progress report on how the league is shaping up during the year. The first installment shows each team as it was at their 10-game mark. Because I had to wait for some teams to catch up, some of the records and/or 'fun-facts' associated with them a a day or three old. NL East Mets: 8 - 2 But we all know that they really suck Braves: 4 - 6 No wins from starters (first time thru 10 games since '88's 0-10 start) - 6.42 Team ERA Phils: 4 - 6 Jon Leiber: 3 GS, 16.2 IP, 17 ER, 27 H, 9.18 ERA Marlins: 3 - 7 Mike Jacobs: .167/.268/.444 - 5 Hits, 3 HRs Nationals: 2 - 8 Well what do you expect when they had to go against the awesome NY Mets NL Central Reds: 7 - 3 Bronson Arroyo: 2 HRs, Wily Mo Pena: 0 HRs Cubs: 6 - 4 Juan Pierre: .237/.275/.316 Brewers: 6 - 4 Fewest runs scored in NL Cardinals: 4 - 6 Jim Edmonds: .158/.267/.289 Astros: 4 - 6 Pettitte: 3 GS, 17 IP, 28 H, 2.00 WhiP, 6.35 ERA Pirates: 3 - 7 Worst ERA in NL (6.88) NL West Rockies: 6 - 4 65/51 RS/RA Giants: 6 - 4 5 team HRs: (Alou - 3, Neikro - 1, Winn - 1) Diamondbacks: 5 - 5 Lowest OBP in NL (.318) Dodgers: 5 - 5 Highest OBA in NL (.372) Padres: 3 - 7 Mike Piazza: .224/.242/.355 - 1 HR AL East Red Sox: 7 - 3 Schilling: 3 Starts, 22 IP, 11 H, 0.64 WHiP, .147 BAA, 1.64 ERA Blue Jays: 6 - 4 B.J. Ryan: 4 IPs, 1 H, 1 BB Yankees: 5 - 5 Giambi OBP = .550 Orioles: 5 - 5 One-time NYM love interest Ramon Hernandez: .533/.583/.667 Devil Rays: 4 - 6 Kazmir: 1-0, 5.68 ERA, 1.89 WhiP AL Central Tigers: 6 - 4 Chris Shelton:.512/.535/1.293 - 21 Hits, 15 XBH! Indians: 6 - 4 Travis Hafner: .378/.500/.919 - 6 HR White Sox: 5 - 5 Team ERA = 6.00 Twins: 5 - 5 Rondell White: 4-for-43 Royals: 2 - 8 Fewest runs in AL AL West Mariners: 5 - 5 Ichiro: .200 BA Angels: 5 - 5 Vlad Guerrero: 17 hits, 16 singles A's: 5 - 5 Frank Thomas: 2-for-25, 1 2B, 1 HR Rangers: 3 - 7 Brad Wilkerson: .182/.200/.295

Suffice to say that the 2006 award for the most unitelligible and irrational screed on the CPF has been locked up early this year.

Elster88 wrote: The good news is that, although he went 0-4, Andy hit the ball out of the infield today. Which, by my quick count, was the 10th! ball he's gotten out of the infield so far this year - out of nearly 40 ABs. And that's including his 6 hits - half of which were of the IF variety. Tack that on to his 1-fer-18 from last year (don't have that IF/OF breakdown) and this is not a pretty picture that's emerging here.

I don't know if one has any effect on the other. It's just that those w/TVs but not SNY should be able to catch Monday's game.

Mets/Braves Monday night is the ESPN game for all those not in SNY territory

- Those are Eddie Coleman's words on WFAN - Nothing serious, or so "they" say. - Not in lineup on Sunday - 'maybe' available to PH - Endy Chavez in CF

I think it's time to declare that Mariano is no longer 'Sandman Worthy' ... or at least he should be according to the logic of some. I didn't see the end of last night's game so I can't comment on the swing issue (Posada WAS safe the night before). I did see the first coupla innings and the Twins should have been up by more than 4-Zip early. Jaret Wright had diddly but the Twinkies left a ton of runners on. Skimmed over in that article is that the throw to 3rd by Matsui was the real mistake. He had no chance to get the runner there (it was Castillo who was running on the pitch) and making the throw allowed the batter/runner (and eventual game-winning run) to waltz into 2nd. If he throws behind the runner the game-winning single merely ties the game.

So they added the channel but apparently tried to keep it a secret from you figuring you'd eventually stumble across it accidently. And cable operators wonder why being held in high esteem continues to elude them.

1) Neither Keith nor Darling were scheduled to work every game this season. 2) The suspension for dissing Piazza theory assumes that the internet sleulths have discovered that the front office NYM guys put enough pressure on the SNY guys to suspend Hernandez for a supposed dis of Piazza (even though MP's name never came up) because the front office types are afraid that Mikey might not show up to some future ceremony 6 or 8 years down the road all w/o the snoops from any of the newspapers here knowing anything about it. I ain't buying it.

Glavine - 4.5 LoDuca - 0.9 Beltran - 0.4 Delgado - 0.6 Nady - 1.1 Sanchez - 1.3 Wagner - 0.9 Reyes - 0.3

Back to that first ever game; there was a sound recording (available years ago on a vinyl LP) of various Mets highlights and I recall a one of our original announcers (Lindsey I believe) calling that first inning balk by saying (to my memory) 'that the Mets have given up their first run in history on a balk' But according to that play-by-play (I'm assuming from Retrosheet) there was already a run in prior to the balk. So something's wrong here; 1) my memory of the call 2) the call itself 3) the synopsis above I think maybe KC and/or Dickshot may have a copy of that recording. Any help on this?

Seems to me that if Keith really has been pulled by SNY - temporarily or otherwise - then at least one of the media-centric newshounds in this town; Mushnick, Raissman, Best, Sandomir would have caught wind of it. Of course it's possible that the IFPSA has better sources on this stuff but I have my doubts. The idea that Hernandez "destoyed" Piazza stemmed a comment on how LoDuca has been calling games "aggressively" and how that's a help to the pitchers "just like it was when Gary Carter was here". Some took the omission of Piazza as a backhanded slap worthy of the beginnings of a blood feud. Now here's what I ask myself: Why - even if this was a subtle putdown of Piazza - would the suits at SNY get themselves all bent out of shape?

"even if he is the best 2b man on the roster, I want him gone. He steps out ofn the field and I'm all "Oh, no! It's The 2005 Mets! " So I guess the starter shouldn't be chosen on who's better but according to how each one makes us FEEEEEEEEL?

I was thinking of starting a thread telling Met fans - not this group but NYM fans in general - to CALM DA FUCK DOWN !!! Yes it's a real nice start but it's EIGHT games into things and so far we've only played against the weak sisters of the poor. In the meantime; - please stop with the M-V-P chants whenever Wright pokes his head out of the dugout. I realize you're madly in love but it's stupid to even bring the subject up prior to late August - You are forbidden from mentioning the phrase 'World Series' for the foreseeable future. Enjoy the moment. - Stop with the NYY/NYM comparisons. The recent past isn't flattering and one week doesn't wipe that out. Root against them if you want (Lord knows I do) but they're NOT your main competition right now. - Ditto the 'Death of the Braves' pronouncements. This one you should have learned already. As frustrating as the fact that our one loss was not only a 'coulda' won but even a 'shoulda', I think if we had won that one and been undefeated at this point that Met fans as a general breed would already be an insufferable lot.

The one MetIrish found is the one I was thining of.

Torre's work as a member of the media - for the Angels between his Atlanta & StL managing stints - certainly prepared him to deal with things from the other end of the mike.

Dave Lennon in today's Newsday went completely off the edge on this (IMO), saying that AndyHandy has locked up the 2nd base job 'not just for 2 weeks or a month but maybe for the next decade'. Umm, reality check time Dave. Be nice if it happens and all but let's calm down a bit there. No DP turned - however nice - is worth it if his kind of hitting continues. And not only do his outs rarely make it out of the infield but neither have his last two hits. Y'know, those two hits which doubled his year's total and boosted his Avg UP to .185

"Zambrano reminds me in that way of Sid Fernandez. He may not turn out to be as good as Sid was, but you could never be sure if you'd see a good Sid or a bad Sid on any given outing." Or even any given inning! VZ also has that capacity to switch from good to bad in the blink of an eye. Kinda like what Ishii pulled in a bunch of games last year. Always tempting you with good outings thru 4 ... before falling apart quickly.

I guess the Brew Crew is trying to capitalize on that well-known Hispanic population in Milwaukee and eastern Wisconson. I once read that Milwaukee was the most "uni-ethnic" big city in the U.S. IOW, Milwaukee is more German than Miami is Cuban, or Boston is Irish, or New Orleans French, Chicago/Polish, etc, or any other generalization you want to come up with. Not sure how accurate that was (or still is).

Excellent Transit Monkey There is a real good Brewers board floating around somewhere which we stumbled on last year. I forget the name of the site though.