Frayed Knot

Find yourself up against it your 30/30 quest? No problem, just hit the final needed 3 in the span of a few hours.

And, except for the almost total absence of Starling Marte, there aren't any similar holes in availability on the offensive side. Pete's one IL stay barely lasted the minimum. But Nimmo, Lindor, McNeil, and, once he got here, Alvarez were on the active roster and on the field virtually every day, as was Canha until the trade. Narvaez missed time early but he was hardly expected to be a potent offensive source. It was really just the expected cast of characters badly under-performing expectations.

Skip Schumacher is going to make this kid wear it for the test of this game. Geez Skip, it's his second ML outing.

Buck threw the flag on Drew Smith, 5 yards for 'Unnecessary Excitement' in that last half inning.

Edgy MD wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Did Brooks write lefty? That seems to be the exact sort of thing Rockwell — who was known to work with stand-in models along with photos of his subject — might mess up, but apparently, Brooks indeed did write lefthanded. [FIMG=500]https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0DRBQ-ptsSM/hqdefault.jpg[/FIMG] That sort of mixed dominance thing fascinates me, and especially so when it comes to athletics. The righty-throwing Richard Todd wrote left-handed as well.

Scoring that twister by McNeil a hit is a MUCH worse call than the one to Lindor a few innings back where, yes he fumbled it during the transfer, but even clean would have had to do either the backhand flip to 2nd or the spin-o-rama throw to 1st

Did Brooks write lefty? One thing I thought about since the news was how he often referred to himself as 'Mr. Bad Body' as an explanation for why the hot shots that he blocked always seemed to fall right at his feet for an 'easy' pick and throw for an out. His immediate replacement was Lenn Sakata who had one of those lean, compact gymnastics-type of build and, despite how much he tried to absorb what Brooks was trying to teach him, the ricochets off his much firmer torso were going every which way but down.

Edgy MD wrote: A key to improving your pen is always looking to get one more out from your starters. And/or get one more out from your top relievers. When your 11th-best pitcher is blowing games for you, leaning more on your 12th-best pitcher isn't going to get you far. Leaning on good pitchers will eventually blow up on you also, of course, but the current practice of protecting your best pitchers by curtailing and curtailing and curtailing their workloads only to see them injured anyhow isn't working. ONE team has to zag. Sure. But even with everyone in the pen needing to move up one spot after Diaz's Spring injury - AND the late and/or interrupted starts from Verlander & Scherezer, plus their later trades - AND the cratering of Carrasco - AND the missing half-season-plus from Quintana - AND the regressions (at least until recently) of Megill & Peterson - AND the early season adjustment process of Senga ... the pitching has STILL out-performed the bats, relative to lg average, over the course of the season!

But still a full 60 away from Straw so in order to (realistically) reach that mark those of us who chose the 'Pete will be a NYM to start the '24 & '25 seasons' option in today's poll will need to be right.

Suddenly 2R HRs R us, which is a nice change after 75 straight HRs* with the bases empty. * May not be the exact number, I'll have to do more checking

I almost screwed up when I accidentally hit Orlando Cabrera when meaning to hit Orlando Cepeda for the BOS/StL square. But it turns out that both were correct so that saved me. And then I whiffed on BOS/DET

Ball 3 to Pete was a better pitch than was Strike 3 to Mauricio, and Pete makes the most of his second life.

Cubs, fighting for their playoff lives, get a lazy fly ball with two on to close out the 8th inning ... except that Seiya Suzuki dropped the ball. 7-6 Braves, top 9th

Switching gears and leagues, Cubs have a one run lead in the 8th in Atlanta. And the Phils clinch the top NL WC spot by walking-off the Pyroots in the 10th

Nice fight for your playoff lives Jays ... all three hits of it. They still qualify 'as of now' but it just got dicier and you've essentially handed the yanx their. 500+ season

Final TWiB notes of the season - Scoreless thru 8, Yanx get a 2R HR in top 9th and are on the verge of beating the Blue Jays @%#$*@^&

Edgy MD wrote: "Never has a player meant more to a franchise and more to a city than Brooks has meant to the Orioles and the city of Baltimore," said Oriole historian Ted Patterson. I suppose the genesis of that argument could be that B. Robby, more so than F. Robby for instance, was Baltimore's first home grown hero in the same way that that other Willie M. was considered by many to be SF's favorite son even above the superior one who had made his name before importing his stardom from the east coast. Coming up in 1955 just after the perennially bad Browns moved east in '54, Brooks was also Bal'mer's first MVP ('64) and had his career span the era from those early years to the glory days of the '60s and '70s after being joined by the likes of Palmer and Boog and Blair and Davey et al. iow, more a spiritual importance and meaning than it was a purely statistical one.

No, the pen hasn't been good, a trend that gets magnified in a year when the top-shelf closer misses the entire season. But my point is that the pen, particularly the middle relief, and, let's face it, they're essentially all middle relief now, is almost always low-hanging fruit for fans to bitch about. They shuffle in and out, often getting sent down following good outings, to the point where it's tough to even remember who's who or even who's active on the squad at any given moment. They are, for the most part, forgettable and interchangeable which gives them little to no chance to build up any fan equity. This isn't to say that they deserve a pass -- this is what relief pitching is these days -- only that this particular crew has to be nearly perfect in order to not get blamed both because of how short the starters usually go but even more so because the offense usually gives them no margin for error. So games where the relief corps gives up one run over four innings are met with complaints about 'how the pen blew another one' while ignoring that the bats tallied their final run on an infield grounder back in the 2nd inning leaving the hurlers to walk a tightrope for the rest of the game.

8 of 9 due to whiffing on TOR/CHW after taking a few flyers on TOR/LAD (Raul Mondesi) and TOR/LAA (Dominic Leone) which, to my great surprise, turned out to both be correct.

But not as cool as if they finish below .500 although that dream of mine is starting to slip away. With seven left to play (starting with today's make-up with Arizona) they'd have to go 2-5 (3-4 to finish an even 81 - 81). After today it's a three game set @ TOR which will Shirley need the wins but then the final three @ 103-loss KCR Not impossible, but I'm not counting on it.

Good call on Gwynne as a 100+ RBI man I wouldn't have gone there.

And the game ends on Alonso's hardest contact of the series, a grounder to SS that might gave cracked 50 mph.

Edgy MD wrote: Orion Kerering. The Phils are continuing to scout in Bavaria. Looks like an exciting reliever just fell from the sky for the Phils.

That might be the 2023 swan song for Alvarez.

Y'know, for all the issues with starters (both young and old) this season, plus all the kvetching about the bullpen, the NYM staff holds a RA/G mark that's 0.14 better than the NL average . The offense OTOH scores at more than 1/4 R/G (0.27) below the league norm and sits 5th from the bottom.