Frayed Knot

That "is something else" seems to be this year's marketing slogan for MLB. I've already seen several variations on that theme.

Roger Clemens is part of the ESPN booth?!? Not sure if this is a permanent gig or just a trial outing but right now he's the third man with Karl Ravich and Eduardo Perez. ChiSox & Astros are scoreless in the 7th but Houston threatening.

Early O.D. games underway Braves 3 - Nats 1 in the 3rd Collect your winnings if you had Dom Smith scoring the first Nats run of the season. Yanx 1 - Giants 0 in the 3rd on an Aaron Judge 1st inning HR

Sounds like Mountains of Downtime.

1. Reach base safely - McNeal 2. Hit a single - Lindor 3. Double - McNeal 4. Triple - Nimmo 5. Home run - =#0080FF]Marte 6. Score a run - Lindor 7. Drive in a run - Canha 8. Steal a base - Lindor 9. Draw a walk - Nimmo 10. Get hit by a pitch - Canha -- 11. Commit an error as a fielder - Escobar 12. Get thrown out at home - =#0080FF]Marte 13. Strike out because of the new pitch clock rules ,--- 14. Pitching) strike a dude out - =#0080FF]Scherzer (if it's Not him then there's trouble afoot) 15. Make an appearance as a relief pitcher - =#0080FF]Drew Smith 16. Get a "hold" - =#0080FF]Smith 17. Get a save - =#0080FF]Ottavino 18. Get a victory - =#0080FF]Scherzer -- Tiebreaker 19. Date of Bucks first ejection - =#00BFFF]I dunno, ask Mrs. Buck ... Oh eJection, ummm, June 6th

I'm surprised to see Muffy returning. That's gotta be a tough gig to take for not much money in your late 30s with three young kids at home. And I assume he hasn't lived in NY in years. Murph has a younger brother who played college and minor league ball. It would be a good move for the Ducks to hook him up as well.

Using 'Rotten Tomatoes' as a gauge, both the critics and the audience reviews were very high. I got about a half hour in recently and was totally lost, both because i had trouble understanding the dialogue due to accents and very rapid fire delivery, and also lots of trouble following the plot. Maybe I'll give it another shot, maybe not.

So the background to this is that pitcher Kimbrel had been called for a pitch clock violation on the previous pitch resulting in ball four. Probably mad at the call, he somewhat angrily threw the ball out of play (maybe it was the ball's fault?) then rejected the replacement ball the HP ump tossed him also. Rather than throw out another ball to Kimbrel, the ump, probably thinking he was being punked at this point, opted instead to drop the next offering into Realmuto's mitt. When JTR's glove suddenly disappeared the ump must have assumed that the backstop was also party to the ongoing act and immediately tossed him. But Realmuto wasn't looking back so it doesn't seem like he could have known when to pull the glove away if that was even his intention. I think he just probably reflexively offered his glove then, when no ball was immediately placed there, assumed the ump was going to throw it out himself as he had just done the previous time. The ump is a minor league one with 30-some replacement appearances in the majors under his belt. Not sure if this incident sends him back to the end of the line or not but it wasn't a good look for him.

Today is the final day without baseball for many months so it's a good time to rejoice. Look around, the grass is high, the fields are ripe, it's the springtime of my life.

I don't generally watch many ST games either, just enough to wet my whistle and just see the sport again after the long void. But this spring I hardly read much coverage as there didn't seem to be many decisions to be made, at least not once the FA season and the extended Correa saga was decided.

No biggie. In three days all this changes as, you know, seasons change with the scenery, weaving time in a tapestry.

I made a similar post last year right around this time. That was due mostly to the labor strife and my thinking that I wasn't going to pay attention to them and get hyped up for the season's start only to see games get canceled in chunks at a time. My thought was that if the lockout went past May 1st I was going to cancel the season even if and when they resumed it. Not sure how that would have gone but it's good that I never had the opportunity to find out. I'm a bit better this year but still a bit behind the eight-ball. Most of my watching was WBC rather than Mets and I paid only scant attention to the few ST action I did see. And, yeah, fewer spots in question was at least part of it. Mostly I was just waiting for O.D. to roll around so that didn't sneak up on me but am still going to need a few weeks to get totally up to speed, both on our squad and others. Found myself having to re-remeber stuff like ... oh yeah, Trea Turner's in Philly now!!

=batmagadanleadoff post_id=120680 time=1679945776 user_id=68] I know exactly what you meant.

Yes, never promoted. That's precisely what I meant.

Let us keep in mind that Baty and Vientos are a combined 13 for 74 vs ML pitching thus far.

=MFS62 post_id=120557 time=1679755916 user_id=60] My recurring memory of Jed Lowrie is that the Mets signed him for $10 million and four days later the MFYs signed D J LeMahieu for two years at $12 million per year. D J gave his team 26 HR and 102 RBI the first year and led the AL with a .364 BA the second.(COVID year) Jed gave the Mets bupkis.

He was once the 4th overall draft pick out of an Oklahoma HS at a time when there seemed to have been a lot of pitchers plucked out of the Sooner state.

Speaking of Opening Day starters here's the scheduled full slate in order of game starting times. Number of overall O.D. starts (not necessarily for that team) in parentheses. 1:05 GIANTS @ YANX Logan Webb (2nd) Gerritt Cole (5th) 1:05 BRAVES @ NATS Max Fried (3rd) Patrick Corbin (3rd) 2:10 ORIOLES @ RED SOX Kyle Gibson (2nd) Corey Kluber (6th) 2:20 BREWERS @ CUBS Corbin Burnes (2nd) Marcus Stroman (3rd) 3:10 TIGERS @ RAYS Eduardo Rodriguez (2nd) Shane McClanahan (2nd) 4:05 PHILLIES @ RANGERS Aaron Nola (6th) Jacob deGrom (4th) 4:10 BLUE JAYS @ CARDS Alek Manoah (1st) Miles Mikolas (2nd) 4:10 METS @ MARLINS Max Scherzer (7th) Sandy Alcantara (4th) 4:10 ROCKIES @ PADRES German Marquez (3rd) Blake Snell (2nd) 4:10 TWINS @ ROYALS Pablo Lopez (1st) Zack Greinke (7th) 4:10 PIRATES @ REDS Mitch Kellet (1st) Hunter Greene (1st) 7:08 WHITE SOX @ ASTROS Dylan Cease (1st) Framber Valdez (2nd) 10:07 ANGELS @ A's Shohei Ohtani (2nd) Kyle Muller (1st) 10:10 DBACKS @ DODGERS Zac Gallen (1st) Julio Urias (1st) 10:10 GUARDIANS @ MARINERS Shane Bieber (4th) Luis Castillo (3rd)

I never suspected otherwise.

Hoskins went down while playing 1B in a non-contact injury that looked not a little like Edwin Diaz. No word yet if it's a similar deal. Also, Adam Wainwright to start his (final?) season on the IL. Groin strain.

Annnnnnnd, we should point out, that this wasn't one run to WIN the game merely to extend it so a second (or third or fourth) run held importance as well. Then throw in that the USA were NOT the home team so scoring one but only one run STILL would have left them with less than 50/50 odds of winning the game. Advantage: Not Bunting (or H & R)

A Boy Named Seo wrote: ... but there is a difference between "run expectancy" and "% chance to tie the game" - is it possible that run expectancy is higher with [runner on 1st, 0 outs] than it is with [runner on 2nd, 1 out] because the possibility of a big inning is so much higher, BUT the bunt has a higher probability of scoring one run? Yes there's a difference in 'Run Expectancy' vs odds of scoring, mainly that one is an average and the other a percentage. Run Expectancy factors in not just the times scoring once or twice but the chances of putting up a 10-spot are factored in as well. What we want here is the odds of scoring at least a single run or, it's corollary, the odds of NOT getting bagel-ed in that inning. The numbers I remember is that the strategy of NOT bunting is still going to be favored but not by as much. iow, the run expectation gap is bigger because more big innings are erased by ceding an out but the odds of scoring 'one and only one' are now closer to the point where how you play it is more likely to be affected by who's up in the inning. In this case I'm not asking Mookie Betts to intentionally make an out, especially not with his low GiDP odds and with Goldschmidt & Trout behind him so I'm backing DeRosa here. If it's 7-8-9 coming up with less speed and lower BA's then I might favor the bunt in this particular case.

Just as there's a difference between street basketball vs YMCA gym ball, I think there's also a difference in how the game is first learned. Are you learning baseball as s a child by way of pickup games with friends where rules are improvised and swinging is preferred over standing by watching close pitches go by? Or are you learning via structured games complete with uniforms, umpires, and coaches? The former is more likely the Caribbean way with an 'if you can reach it, hit it' mentality while the latter more likely the route for the modern day American. That doesn't mean those generalities are exclusive to your birth place or that you shouldn't want to get the best of both worlds when a player gets into organized professional ball, no matter what route he took to get there.

Arizona starting catcher Carson Kelly sustains a broken forearm from a HBP and will miss significant time off the beginning of the season. Damn WBC!

Seems odd that a nation with such deep talent and an established league would wind up with an ersatz- Japanese player on their roster, particularly one with an obvious northern European name as Lars Nootbar.