Frayed Knot

That strike 3 to Diaz was about 8 inches off the plate!!

Trax - 5.6Wright - 3.3Looper - 1.1

Lawton's a decent pickup but he's not nearly the defensive player he used to be, hence the reason why he's not going to CF.Of course Matsui in CF is no prize either but Bernie let a triple fall last night that most CFers (and him in his younger days) put in their pocket so I guess the thinking is that anything's an upgrade at this point.The longer than expected rehab by Sierra prolly has something to do with this also. It strengthens their bench.They could hit him 2nd I suppose. They recently bounced the slumping Cano to the bottom of the lineup.Oh, and the list of career Met/Yanx grows by one.oe: Lawton makes his NYY debut batting 6th and palying [u:0ec8bb7bfd]RF[/u:0ec8bb7bfd] - Sheff DHs, Bernie still in CF.

- Looper on why Padilla was warming up:Nothing to do with him, just throwing on his own since he hadn't pitched since being stretched out on that day Benson bombed (Gary & Howie speculated that it was something to do w/Looper).- Trax: Was "getting close" [to his limit] during the last few batters.

Everyone in the East gains one on 'LantaAnd in Los Angeles:Brad Lidge in for the 9th leading 2-1 to face:Kent - walk (Houston fans are now wondering why their closer always makes them nervous)Saenz - K-swinging Phillips - 1B, runners on 1st & 2nd (pr for Bono naturally)Cruz - K-swingingLeDee (pinch-hitting) - STRIKE THREE and the game's over

NICE RECOVERY LOOPY!!!!

I think what Beltran was "afraid" of was having the ball go by him if he dove for that ball but missed. That's the wise play there. Neither he nor Diaz - nor any Diaz replacement you might want to name - were likely to catch that one.

Well Lastings Milledge mostly.Slugging IFer Brett Harper also, plus maybe OFers Bobby Malek or speedster Wayne Lydon.

Phillie breaks it open on a Chase Utley HR & a Bobby Abreu GSHouston still leading 1-0

I like Trax batting there.Seaver kept talking about a pitch count but the guy had 6 rehab starts plus a simulated game and was able to build up to 100+ pitches. No reason why he needs to be held back here and with the meat of the pen all being used yesterday I'd rather see him in bottom 8 (and maybe 9) than anyone else right now.

That "story" has been floating around the internet for at least 2 weeks now. Long enough where the date where the "news" is going to "break" keeps changing as each succesive deadline comes and goes w/o any revelations.It's a phony deal, not worth the lookup.

I maintain that Met fans have, in recent years, taken whining pessimism to new levels. Frustrated by the successes of the Braves & Yanx and egged on by talk radio (and, yes, internet chat rooms) fans now find plenty of reinforcements for the idea that their team is uniquely subject to horrible fates and circumstances.Of course in reality, ALL fans think this way because you only tend to remember and internalize things like getting beat by weakling opposing hitters, late inning blown saves, etc, when they happen to your team. Fans just tend to vocalize it more when things aren't going well.WFAN's Joe Benigno is the patron saint of this sort of thinking. He cries daily for instance about how the Mets give up more hits on 2-strike counts than any other team in the majors yet I highly doubt he has a single piece of data to back that up. It's just that he doesn't live & die with any other baseball team. Not surprisingly, Joe's other teams (Jets, Knicks & Rangers) also suffer cruel fates that are unknown to fans of other teams not to mention that they're all picked on unfairly by umpires & refs (or so he seems to think).

Of course he has the right to speak his mind.I just don't think what he said had anything to do with why Jacobs stayed.Nor should mgmt get in the habit of basing all their moves on player requests, no matter how well intentioned.

Trax ... a pitcher on the mend

I agree, much ado about nothing.First of all, I don't know that Pedro ever went to mgmt asking that the kid be kept. The version I read was more along the lines of him just loudly voicing his opinion in the locker room, something that may or may now have been overheard by anyone who mattered.And, while I have nothing against players making their opinion known, I kinda hope they're basing their decisions on something a little more substantial than a fellow player's "insight" of one AB. I'm not sure that players will always make the best scouts.

AP: Gooden to be jailed [u:83038dd471]without bail[/u:83038dd471] until an [u:83038dd471]October[/u:83038dd471] hearing.

You'll see ME behind the plate before you see Roberto there.And Jacobs is fine right where he is also.He wasn't considered a very good catcher before his missed virtually all of 2004 with a shoulder injury and, in his return this year, has played more DH & 1B than catcher.So with our reg 1st baseman AND catcher down, he fits the bill as the fill-in 1st baseman and 3rd catcher. Two catchers is sometimes too few because you rarely want to use the backup to PH (particularly when it's 75 y/o Mike DeFelice) but 3 is too many. Jacobs as the emergency guy puts us in the desireable spot of effectively having 2-1/2 - and one of them has a potent LH bat.No need to stick him back there at this point short of one of those long-game/multi-switch nights.

Pedro - 3.5Diaz - 2.5Hernandez - 1.4Looper - 1.1Wright - 0.5Floyd - 0.6Jacobs - 0.4

Supposedly that was discussed but Pedro - who only threw 70-somepitches last time out - asked specifically to stay on his regular turn.

Wright's gamble paid off.

]but Benitez seemed to get all the blame for both losses, even though he didn't pitch the second one.I recall Benitez getting the blame for about the next 14 losses even though he didn't pitch in those either.

And there's your HBP/retaliation.Howie & Gary speculating that Matsui's plunking had to do with his delay in getting to the plate following some sort of helmet mixup in the dugout.

In the AL, Cleveland is well on their way to keeping the 3-way WC race in a log-jam. Oakland won earlier and so did the Yanx. So tonight the Injuns did a tap-dance on Scott Kazmir's skull to the tune of 7 ER in 2.1 IPs and lead 12-4 after 7.The bad news is that Curt Schilling's return to the rotation isn't going well (nor was his relief stint for that matter). Royals got him for 6 earned and lead 6-2 after 5.

]I remember that some long-term injury and a strange clause in the rules enabled the Angels to put Franciso Rodriguez in the postseason roster even though he didn't get called up until late September back in 02. Does Cameron's situation provide the Mets with that luxury?What that loophole allowed you to do was to add a player to your playoff roster even if he wasn't active on Sept 1 if he was a replacement for someone disabled on your 40-man. What GMs would then do (Phillips did this all the time) was to add some injured single-A player to the 40-man and then "replace" him by adding an extra role player to the big league squad in mid Sept.I think they've cracked down on it a bit since then but I'm not sure what the full story is. Cameron is obviously a legit 40-man guy so (assuming he's not back by late Sept) he can probably be replaced by someone else. The thing about Fracisco Rodriguez is that he didn't even fit the rules the way they were back then, but MLB wrongly approved the move and didn't realize it until it was too late.

Also in the AL:NYY hosts Toronto this afternoon: Chacon vs Chacin good thing Phil Rizzutto is no longer announcing - man wouldn't HE get confused! Twinkies hanging on the fringe of the WC & AL Central races - send Silva up against Jon Garland and the visiting ChiSox in a gay dameCleveland in Tampa tonight - Cliff Lee goes against KazmirBoston in KC (8:00) - Schilling starts against Lima (that'll get you some post-game quotes)