Frayed Knot

Bottom 9, still 4-2 Spencer Steer facing Dennis Santana -- K Elly De La Cruz -- Single (4th hit of the night for EDLC) Matt McLain --

Still 4-2, end of 7

But if you wait for a larger sample size you'll fall behind in the 'I can hate on this guy before you' race.

We knew that this was going to happen and now we find out it already has. So that scratches 2026 for him for sure and maybe longer. I also suspect he has already thrown his last pitch as a Met and there's no guarantee that he'll pitch again anywhere. He turned 30 while on the IL and will be at least 31-1/2 by the time it's even possible for him to join a roster and his track record was only sporadically good prior to tearing the ligament. So best of luck to the uniquely spelled Tylor. Seemed like a good (if quiet) guy even if only occasionally a good pitcher. You'd hate to see 6 runs in 3.1 IP vs Tampa (June 14) as the closing note of a career but you can't always script these things.

Might as well have one focusing on this one team for the week seeing as how, y'know, we have to be at least one game better between now and Sunday. Pirates 4 - Reds 2, end of 2 in Cincy Pitt put up a 4-spot in top-2. The Reds' Elly De La Cruz (EDLC to his friends) went yard with/a man on in the bottom half. Oddly that's only EDLC's 21st HR on the season but just his second since the end of July.

Charlie Morton, 42 y/o in November and traded to Detroit at the trade deadline then released after 9 appearances, signed a contract with the Braves for the purpose of retiring with the team that drafted him in the 3rd round* of the 2002 draft out of a HS in Redding, CT. Morton pitched for seven teams over his 18 year career. He was 3rd in the CY race in 2019 for Tampa. * Brian McCann = 2nd round, Jeff Francouer = 1st round of the same draft. The Mets, that year, drafted Scott Kazmir in Round 1 but lost their 2nd & 3rd round picks by signing FAs Crlos Gomez and David Westhers.

The only real 'dead weight' to me is the CF triumvirate of Taylor, Siri, and Mullins. That was the one position where no one was here/healthy all year. But they also weren't any good when they were playing and even each at their collective peaks would be barely adequate. Plus all are now 30 or over.

Not that 7-5 to a last place team is anything to crow about. Bottom line is this: they have to be one game better than Cincy over the net six AND even with or better than Arizona. At now five games in back of the Padres AND don't have the tie breaker there either only 6-0 vs 0-6 would catch them so that ain't happenin'.

To clarify: the Mets have lost 11 of their last 15 overall including 2 of 3 to the Nats, but are 7-5 vs the Nats this season.

Makes that whole 'Magic Number' thread back in May (April?) seem maybe a wee bit premature, eh?

We're going to need more chairs!

Sure. But just because they've won three of four since the eight game losing streak let's not pretend that their ability to stink up the joint is a thing of the past.

It goes without saying that, with two teams on our tail who both hold a tie-breaker, we REALLY need to have a good series vs Washington. The remaining games are all on the road after this series. The Cubs are good and still not out of winning the NLC title. And, while I don't believe in hexes, jinxes, or what happened X years ago having an effect on what goes on this year, does anyone really want the season to come down to us needing to win two or more games at the end of the schedule in Miami? ... I didn't think so. History hasn't been good to us on that account. Mets: vs WAS x 3, @ CHC x 3, @ MIA x3 Reds: vs CHC x 3, vs PIT 3, @ MIL x 3 Diamondbacks: vs PHI x 3, vs LAD x 3, @ SDP x 3 Giants: @ LAD x 3, vs StL x 3, v COL x 3 DBacks look to have the toughest road, playing three contenders with at least seeding concerns to look out for. The Reds have maybe the easiest, esp if MIL no longer has an incentive by a week from tonight.

I’m not in the weeds on the numbers here but it doesn’t seem that off to me as it appears to also factor in respective talent levels (i.e., the Mets are more likely to play better because they have better players). Yes, I think I know what joke comes next there. If so then their method(s) get beyond the numbers and they're getting a bit subjective ... one might even say a bit generous. Between July 28 & this past Saturday (prior to the wins in the last two games) the Mets had a 14-29 record. That's just over 1/4 of a year and a win rate for a team on pace to lose 109 games over the course of a full season. Seems to me that they should be owed nothing more than to be judged as the team they have been overall -- 'You are what your record says you are' and all that -- one just a hair more than likely than not to win on any given day and less than that if the opponent is any good.

That the Mets should have the best odds is certainly realistic. That they'd have a better chance than all the others combined seems ... optimistic. btw, since San Diego has two more with the Mets and three with Arizona they should be factored in as well. If the Snakes catch the Mets it could in part be due to them steamrolling SD which, combined with a NYM sweep, could drop the Pads back into the mix for WCs #2 & #3. iow, we could get caught by Arizona AND still make the cut so that throws a few more possible, even if unlikely, scenarios into the pot. Pads finish: @Mets (x2), @CHW x3, MIL x3, ARZ x3

I don't remember Rizzo ever being touted as a future Hall of Famer. He was a top-100 prospect prior to his call-up but nothing resembling a can't miss. Plus anyone who touts anybody as a HoF early in a career should be ignored, or at least made to calm down for a few years. And by 'few' I mean at least eight. Rizzo: 14 years, 4 Gold Gloves, 3 ASG, 4 years w/MVP votes (including a 4th place), 300+ HRs, 900+ Runs/RBIs, 828/123 career OPS/OPS+, one World Series, cancer survivor. That's a very nice career with the only possible negative being that it petered out a bit early: done at age 34, last full/good year at 32. And if some feel disappointed that he didn't live up to the hype then that's on them, not him.

[FIMG=300]https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/june-carter-cash-gettyimages-74256789.jpg?resize=1200:*[/FIMG] Carter [FIMG=250]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/June_Lockhart_1947.JPG/250px-June_Lockhart_1947.JPG[/FIMG] and Lockhart* * Lockhart, who appeared in a 1938 film version of 'A Christmas Carol' opposite her parents (that's 87 years ago for those keeping score), is still kicking three months after turning the odometer to 100. Her Two stars on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame (one for movies, one for television) were placed there 65 years ago.

And today Anthony Rizzo officially retires. He will become "an ambassador" for the Cubs. They didn't say to which country. (do the Cubs even have foreign embassies?)

Not crediting Mauricio at all. There was no need to hesitate (but he did, I saw it at the time) as that ball was nowhere near Castellanos. A good runner checks where the OFs are prior to the pitch so he should have read it better off the bat. We/the cameras don't see Mauricio again really until he's shutting it down as he approaches 3rd, but by that time the ball is already en route to the cut off man and Sarbaugh is giving the stop sign. So those comments above about how slow he was running are made mostly out of ignorance and/or from fans looking for scapegoats following another 'L'

Yes, and if you watch the clip you linked we see Stott taking the relay as Mauricio is pulling up to 3rd base having already been halted by Sarbaugh. So even though, as I noted in my opening post on the IGT thread of this discussion, Mauricio did hesitate briefly to check on whether the hit was catchable, the ball simply got out to the wall too quickly to score even a good runner from 1st, and it wasn't particularly close.

Thing is, by the time the 3rd base coach makes his decision to send or not he already knows that the RF didn't fumble the carom off the wall and he already sees the throw en route toward the IF ins't going awry, so those possible conditions are off the board. This leaves only bad throw/muffed catch left and, considering the ground still to be covered by the runner, it would have to be horrid throw/total whiff with no pitcher/backup in order to maybe score the run. As far as Vientos goes, he has to read the runner in front of him before he can even think about heading to 3rd so he doesn't, you know, wind up like the back runner in the Mets play referenced. And the fact that I think Mauricio had no chance is the same reason I don't think Vientos automatically advances even if we force the Phils throw home as he has less speed and further still to run. I doubt he was even at 2nd yet when (Stott?/Harper? ... probably Stott) gets the relay. And even all that doesn't negate the main point of my last post which was that I don't like the situation we wind up in even if he gets his ass to 3rd with two outs! Yup. Thought so at the time and still do.

This is just rehashing the same argument with different verbiage. The problem isn't a simple choice of 'taking chance' vs 'not taking chance', it's that the odds of success were so small that taking the chance there would have been not just risky but stupid. Sarbaugh is a reasonably aggressive coach and he was holding up Mauricio before he got near 3B. He wasn't even doing to 'go until I tell you to stop' wave. It was stop all the way. Which is why you don't give up Half the outs you have remaining for a player with a 5-10% chance of succeeding (I think it was more like sub-2% but I'll play along). And if Mauricio isn't getting to home then the much slower and without a jump Vientos is low odds at getting to 3rd. Wasn't it you who posted that 1986 Dykstra-to-Gibbons-to-HoJo game-ending double play clip recently? Well whether it was you or someone else, this would have been that only with the throw coming from deep 1st-2nd base rather than CF, and with neither play being close, and with neither runner having the option to barrel over the ball handler. And EVEN IF the whole intent is to make the defense 'make a play' AND EVEN IF it succeeds in getting Vientos gets to 3rd on the throw, we've now gone from 2nd & 3rd/1out [not sending] to 3rd only/2 outs [forcing the action] meaning that the upside of failing in the first objective also puts you in a worse position in the supposed fallback upside: runner on 3rd (where one would have been anyway), NO runner on 2nd [now need a HR or successive hits to tie, not a mere single], and there are two outs so no way to score via an out! I enjoy aggressive base running but this one just wouldn't have been within the length of a Pete HR of being smart.

Tonight they were unlucky that Alvarez swung at three pitches outside of the left-handed batter's box.

What you're basically saying is that the Mets have won a bunch of blowouts which they have going 27-17 in games with a margin of five runs or more runs for the season. More specifically they were absurdly lopsided in August winning nine* of those 27 blowouts between Aug 2nd and Sept 2nd (including eight in the 19 day span from Aug 14 - Sep 2) while being on the short side of only three** such games. It's how they wound up leading the NL in both HRs and scoring in the month of August but went 11-17. That's the kind of thing that tends to fluff up your RS/RA ratio without contributing to many extra wins. The other thing, which we've discussed here elsewhere, was their lack of 'clutch' hitting early in the season. At one point they were 5th or 6th in OPS (in MLB, not just NL) but right around mediocre in runs scored despite OPS being the stat that most correlates to runs scored. A little more even distribution in the timing of their hits back in April/May might have led to significantly more runs scored and an even bigger lead back when the pitching was so good. That said, as Bill Parcells was known to say, 'You are what your record says you are". iow, We can 'Yeah but' ourselves silly, but it ain't gonna change anything. * Wins of 6, 8, 7, 5, 7, 10, 6, 10, 7 runs ** Losses of 8, 5, and 6 runs

Darryl went after Keith on Picture Day ... or at least one picture day. This doesn't look like that one though. I don't recall anyone being tackled, held-down or whatever. IIRC the two potential combatants were kept apart by whoever was near and everyone stayed on their feet. This one looks more like hi jinx.