Frayed Knot

Agreed.

NL: Braves win - but Smoltz hurting Phils win - Rollins now at 30 straight games w/hit Giants win Marlins lose Astros lose Padres lose Houston leads Phils by 1 for the WC. No one else realistically in it. Braves 'magic number' for the East is 2 Pads still lead West by 4 and face the Gints 4 times this week AL: Yanx win BoSox win ChiSox win seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians" lose (in extras when their CFer loses a ball in the sun) Angels lose A's lose East in a flat tie Native Americans down in the Central by 2.5 and up in WC by only 1/2 over whoever loses the East race. A's down by 4 to Angels and will butt heads w/them this week. Like their cross bay compatriots, they'll essentially need a sweep.

Appreciation threads from a forum that spent most of it's time calling him a choking loser, a selfish ingrate, and trying to trade him at least twice a week always gets just a bit teary eyed.

That was career HR #299 for Jeromy btw. And even if it ends this week (and I see no reason why it has to) the dude carved out a nice career for himself.

Also: - As to the prima donna question (or, as some used to put it on another forum; the [u:6918a54c22]Pre-Madonna[/u:6918a54c22] question): it's not clear whether this is Pedro setting this (shutdown) schedule or the team. Quite likely, it's a meeting of the minds of both parties. - As to a possible Houston complaint: it's not like the Mets are going to start some minor league nobody in his stead. It'll likely be Zambrano and Philly is going to see 3 legit ML pitchers in this series.

AL: Yanx lose -- BoSox win -- ChiSox win -- seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians" win So the Bostons make up the game they lost the other day and there's a dead tie in the ALEast. Both those teams are 1.5 games behind the WC-leader Cleveland who themselves are 1.5 behind the PaleHose. - Cleveland's won 17 of 19 - Boston's Foulke won't pitch again this year - Jaret Wright likely pitched himself out of a rotation spot - and managed to *Yet Again* get nailed with another comebacker. That's 3 times this month! Oakland won today after being the only contender to lose yesterday. Angels have won 7 straight plus are winning tonight. Oakland's gonna need a sweep this week to have a chance. NL: Houston wins on the day Rocket sits out w/a hammy. Zeke Astacio out-duels C. Zambrano Phils get skunked by Eric Milton of all folks and lose to the Reds. Jimmy Rollins keeps his hit streak going at 29! 'Lanta beats the Marlins again. Marlins have lost 10 of 12 after briefly leading the WC chase. And, oh yeah, the Mets beat the Nats!!!! Houston leads WC - Phils back to 2 back - Marlins at -5 Shockingly, ESPN is showing a bunch of these games tomorrow. NYC will get Phils/Reds at 1:00, Angels/Rays at 4:00, then the national TV game a A's/Rangers at 8:00. Nice day for FOX to decide [u:4dcc397ca9]not[/u:4dcc397ca9] to show a GotW huh?

cooby wrote: Did anybody hear the Aflac answer? I was reading the paper with the sound off and missed it It was Piazza from 2000 (only NYM w/a .600+ Slugging Pct) ]I have no idea why Floyd ended up only at first and Beltran at second. That was very deep and high. Off the base of the wall. It was because Beltran decided it was a good idea to tag in case the fly was caught. It was a stupid move (as tagging from 1st usually is) especially so since neither OFer came all that close to catching it. I have arguments w/some of my softball teammates all the time on this - but tagging from 1st rarely works. Think about it, the ball has to be far enough to where you can beat the shortest OF throw there is yet high or short enough to where you know (or at least strongly suspect) that it will be caught. That's a rare combo and the downside to being wrong it that you not only cost yourself an extra base (maybe 2 in this case as Carlos might have scored) but also you cost the batter a base.

Beltran - 2.5 (half point off for the 'dumbth' of tagging on Cliff's hit) Trachsel - 3.7 Padilla - 1.1 Floyd - 1.5 Heilman - 0.8 Reyes - 0.4

Yes, because then we could turn to the trustworthy Roberto Hernandez to save things. Oops!

Blown leads & saves all over the place today - not just in D.C. Marlins take a 3-0 lead into the 8th and - deciding that the save opp isn't always in the 9th inning - go to Todd Jones to shut things down. Only he didn't ... and the Braves scored 4 times and essentially killed whatever slim hope the Marlins still had. That's 2 bad games for Jones this week alone. Wonder if it's because he can't handle the pressure of playing in Florida? David Weathers was the culprit in the 9th for the Reds after the Phils blew and early 5-run lead. 8 HRs in that game. Cleveland blew several leads but has now score in the 10th and turn things over to Bob Wickman ... who shuts down the Royals 1-2-3. Giants score 5 in the 8th against Colorado - and mostly against Mike DeJean.

I kida liked the order .... but then McKeon screwed up his own strategy by having Dontrelle bunt in front of those two humpties batting behind him. Speaking of pitchers hitting and odd strategies: - in that Brave/Phils game yesterday where the Phils won w/4 in the 9th, Cox left Hudson in to hit w/1out in the 8th / scoreless tie / runner on 3rd. Hudson dribbled one in front of the plate and then Furball grounded out. The Phils then exploded for 4 off Hudson in the 9th after 2 were out. I know Hudson was a good hitter in college but that was a while ago. Shows what Cox thinks of his bullpen as much as anything.

AND DOWN THE STRETCH THEY COME ... NL East Braves: 86-67, 4.0 GA 3 vs Fla -- 3 vs Col -- 3 @ Fla Phillies: 82-71, 4.0 GB 3 @ Cinc -- 3 vs METS -- 3 @ Wash Marlins: 80-73, 6 GB 3 @ Atl -- 3 vs Wash -- 3 vs Atl Nationals: 78-75, 8 GB 3 vs METS -- 3 @ Florida -- 3 vs Phil Wild Card Astros: 84-69, 2 GA 3 @ Chic -- 2 @ StL -- 4 vs Chic Phillies = 2 GB Marlins = 4 GB Nationals = 6 GB NL West Padres: 76-76, 5 GA 3 @ Arizona -- 4 vs SF -- 3 vs LA Giants: 71-81, 5 GB 3 @ Colorado -- 4 @ SD -- 3 vs Ariz AL East NYY 89-63, 1 GA 3 vs Toronto -- 4 vs Balt -- 3 @ Boston Red Sox 88-64, 1 GB 3 @ Baltimore -- 4 vs Toronto -- 3 vs NYY AL Central White Sox 91-61, 1.5 GA 3 vs Minnesota -- 4 @ Detroit -- 3 @ Cleveland Indians 90-63, 1.5 GB 3 @ KC -- 3 vs TB -- 3 vs Chicago AL West Angels 87-65, 3 GA 3 vs TB -- 4 @ Oakland -- 3 @ TB Oakland 84-68, 3 GB 3 vs Texas -- 4 vs LAA -- 3 @ Seattle Wild Card Indians Red Sox - 1.5 GB Oakland - 5.5 GB

Diaz didn't do anything wrong on that ball - like take a new and interesting scenic route to the destination as he sometimes does - he just never got there. Sure Cammy puts that in his back pocket, but I can't kill Diaz for missing it. Piazza's getting the send-off greeting from fans - all of whom will deny ever booing him for not winning the triple crown in his first weeks here. Which got to to thinking about players over say the last 5 years that have NOT had a significant segment of fans hate them at some point: Olerud, Fonzie, Wright, Reyes, Pedro. Then there's the list of those who have felt the wrath: Everyone else.

'Specially not since they play us next week and we're gonna kick their cheese-steak eatin' butts back down the turnpike.

Bottom 9: Giles - 1B Chipster - GO Druw - K Franco - K ... and the Phils win. Houston lead in the WC stays at 2, Atlanta's east lead at 4

Gay Dames - 9/22: - Houston threatens to make the final week of the NL sked very uninteresting. They beat Pitts again, 2-1 this time as Backe & Lidge combine for the win. Both RBIs by Berkman. - But Atlanta continues to stumble. Hudson & Leiber take dueling shut-outs into the 9th ... but Cox stays with his guy just a little bit too long as the Phightins stick him for 4 after 2 were out; RBI PH single by Michael Tucker then a PH 3R HR by Shane Vittorino?? Wagner warming for the bottom of the inning. Lack of faith (deservedly so) in the pen could cost Atlanta big time in the post-season. Also, their bats have cooled down as their offense is near the league bottom for September. Even wonderboy Francoeur has 2 HRs in his 2nd 100 ABs after tallying 10 in his 1st 100.

I think Lou's probably a good manager ... BUT: 1) I don't think Willie's performance warrants being fired 2) I know the press loves Lou and they're going to be beating the drum loudly for this one. Hell, Lou drinks, he smokes, he cusses, he gambles, he's got NYC attitude and he's often sloppy and unshaven ... in other words, he's just like many of them! But getting a manager because it'll "steal the back pages" and give the beat guys and columnists a colorful guy to cover isn't enough of a reason to do it. 3) Whatever intangible benefits the Mets may see in "making the bold move" essentially gets erased by looking likes dolts by deciding to go in a new direction each time some shiny new (or, in this case, not so new) bauble gets dangled in front of their eyes. 4) Do we really thing Lou will make that much of a difference? As he gets credit for the Mariner 116-win season does he also get the blame for flaming out meekly in the playoffs that year? And how was the 3-year improvement in Tampa? Yeah that org suxx and they won't spend any money but he's got better talent now then he had when he got there but the record is barely improved. 5) Doing something as an attempt to somehow mentally erase the Kazmir deal is a really, really stupid idea.

1) Will there ever be another? (times running out) No. Bud is apparently making some noise about throwing the NYY one more before they tear down that joint but he's not going to go out of his way and bump a park already planning for it to get one more to the much less historic Shea But more so....... 2) Why wasnt there more over the years? Like Yancy said, Met mgmt never wanted one. Smaller parks in smaller cities tend get a bigger "boost" from things like A-S games than big cities and the Metsies didn't think it was worth the trouble. Also sticking it in a shiny new crib became the thing to do and ... well, we're neither shiny nor new. On the other hand, I'll bet you can lay a fairly heavy wager that you'll see one within 5 years of whenever the new place opens.

Seo - 3.5 Cairo - 1.2 Reyes - 1.5 Hernandez - 0.25 Beltran - 0.65 Jacobs - 1.2 Piazza - 1.0 Hamulack - 0.3 Padilla - 0.4

SI Metman wrote: My take on the whole thing is that it's fewer new teams coming to Shea. In the immortal words of Derrick Colman; "Whoop-dee-damn-doo" I know the league tries to promote this notion that new and different teams visiting your crib once every 5-6 years spurns some sort of jump in attendance but their "proof" of this comes when they compare IL games (mostly in June & July when school is out) with that of April games giving them a fool-proof way of pronouncing their experiment a success every time. The fact that IL games can be (and frequently are) distributed unfairly is true, but whether losing or gaining one will be an advantage is totally random. Of course it would be nice if schedules weren't subjected to randomness but that's the fault of the whole IL concept in the first place.

Parnell gets named by B.A. as the #20 best prospect in the NY-Penn league, the only Brooklynite to make the list.http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/minors/05league20s/nyp.htmlThere'll be a 2PM Q&A if anyone wants some more NY-Penn info.

Bret/Sal/Doc/etc is a 10/5 guy -- at least 10 years as a Met fan and 5 with this forum -- so he has the right to refuse any trade.

Nice game by the much-maligned Miguel Cairo. He ran that rundown play perfectly from the second he got the ball. Seo was better than the linescore looked. The Marlins had hits in every inning but many of them were cheesy little dunkers. Reyes makes 2nd there because he runs to 1st expecting that the fielder will not make the play cleanly. If/when he does field it w/o a hitch you've got plently of time to get back but in the meantime you don't lose your momentum by anticipating that it'll only be a single. Most players don't do that and the slower guys are the ones who should do it even more than the fast ones. Looper's problem was the walk. The hits were all dinkers but his lack of a 'K' pitch this year contributes to that. The booers are stupid because they're booing before anything goes wrong.

What I thought I heard Willie say to EC prior to the game (I tuned in in the middle of the chat) was that while they haven't given up on Jacobs behind the plate it's not likely to happen now on account of the arm thing, and because he hasn't caught lately, and because he hasn't caught this batch of guys at all. He did add that they expect Jacobs to play winter ball where he'll both catch and play 1st and then they'll get a good look at him next Spring. Hey, I'm all for sticking him behind the plate if he looks even halfway decent. I just don't think it'll happen in the next week and I'm of the opinion that I don't think they're apt to go that route with a guy who'll turn 25 next year and wasn't that good to begin with even before he took nearly 2 years off from the position. 2nd catcher would be a bonus, 3rd is more likely.

I think Willie's def from the 'I want a catch-n-throw' guy behind there and isn't keen on having guys like Jacobs as a top option. He wasn't considered a good defensive guy to start with and that was before he spent almost no time behind the plate for most of 2 years (missed most of '04 and played 1st & DH most of '05). In other words ... this movement is doomed to failure. I'm not even sure if he'll get a true crack in the spring. What would be best is if he can show that he'll hit enough to play 1st on at least a platoon basis and be the 3rd option for backstop. 2 catchers is often too few because it limits the PH-ing options, 3 is too many. 2-1/2 could be just right if he could imitate the good version of Bono.