Frayed Knot

They knew he had a partial tear when they acquired him from Arizona four years ago but lots of guys have partials of this or that and can play with it. Tanaka does as well. Few athletes who have any kind of time under their belts will show a pristine anything once you X-Ray, MRI, or poke and probe enough. The Yanx think what sent this injury to surgery-land occurred during the Boston series and he did make two bad throws (both short) in that final game. Unlike Gleyber Torres (who did his on a slide at home) this is on Didi's throwing arm and he plays the position with the longer throw. Torres missed eight months.

DeeDee Gregorius is the latest position player to need Tommy John surgery.

I never saw any of the THREE! previous versions of this story: - 1937: Frederic March, Janet Gaynor - 1954: James Mason, Judy Garland - 1976: Kris Kristofferon, Barbra Streisand which might just be a good thing in the long run as I've heard good things about this one and I just might get around to it. And at least Gaga isn't playing Gaga (doesn't even look like Gaga) as opposed, say, to Madonna who never wasn't playing Madonna in any of her various screen roles. Because, while I recognize LGG's talent, I tend to have an aversion to attention whores which makes me dislike both her 'character' and and suck-up media who can't seem to get enough of it. I wasn't particularly fond of Cher's early act (speaking of attention whores) but I thought she found her best niche in serious acting [sILKWOOD, MASK, MOONSTRUCK] so maybe this one will also find a second career that doesn't make me want to turn away from her constant 'Look at ME!' act. Plus I still can't hear her 'name' without it bringing up the Letterman line about her only getting that title upon marrying Lord Gaga

The difference with the AL this season is that there were several really bad teams, as well as some good ones, so the result was a league 'stretched out' from top to bottom while the NL was more squashed at the ends and bunched towards the middle. AL this year had three 100+ game winners but also four teams worse than the 98 loss Marlins, vs the NL where 96 wins and 98 losses were the high & low. That's the same condition which existed for a long time during the '90s and in the early 21st century years. No NL team, for instance, has surpassed, or even reached, the '86 NYM's winning pct of .667 in the 32 seasons since and yet the '18 BoSox are now the 4th AL team to reach or top it ['95 CLE, '98 NYY, '01 SEA] but they've also had the 119 loss Tigers and now the 115 loss O's I don't really have an explanation as to why that 'bunch in the middle' NL vs 'stretched out' AL has often been the case in the past and rarely if ever can I remember it being the other way around. Maybe increased inter-league play over the last decade-plus made that go away for a while but it returned big time this year and it's probably not a coincidence that this was also the first season in the last 14 where the NL had the better of IL play; not by much (.527 winning pct) but it's something and a 300 game sample isn't a small size. Bottom line is that I think that makes it easier (relatively of course) to win a ton of games in the AL but, at the same time, those totals also mean less because of it making the 'Worst 108 Win Team Ever' phrase make some sense, and I think those using just the record totals to say that BOS/HOU/NYY are/were all superior to LAD/MIL/CHC are making a bad assumption. Hope that made sense.

vtmet wrote: I haven't been around much lately (the Cranepool Forum's post about the yearbook cover derby showed up on my facebook feed, so I checked in)...so I apologize if this has already been covered...but: If the Brewers and Astros faced each other in the World Series, would that be the first time that featured 2 teams that switched leagues? As in: the Brewers used to be an AL team (and I don't think that they ever won a World Series in the AL); and the Astros used to be a NL team (and I don't think that they ever won a World Series as a NL team) Obviously yes, seeing as how those are the only two teams (at least in the WS era -- since 1903) that EVER switched leagues. There's actually a discussion on this topic (and let's face it, there aren't many topics we miss around here) in the 'Astros/Indians Rooting Interest' thread.

Ken Davidoff, NYPost: "... the 3.4 offensive WAR [stanton] put up for the Yankees this season, as per BB-Ref, put him on par with the Marlins’ Starlin Castro, one of the players the Yankees traded for him ... and that value ranked smack in the middle — four years better, four years worse — for Stanton’s career. iow, it's not like they can claim he underperformed for them (except for those who believe that putting on the pinstripes is supposed to add 150 points to one's OPS). On the contrary, he gave them right about what they should expect and, unlike much of GS's career so far, he went uninjured in this one and was available for every game this season. But, hey, at least he paid off in defensive value ... Oh wait, it's Castro who's the middle infielder while Stanton DH'd more than half the season and did so almost exclusively down the stretch and into the playoffs. Oh well, they only owe $239 million more (give or take) thru 2027/28 to the guy who turns 29 in a few weeks.

When?

Torre used to use the word 'heartbeat' all the time and largely for the same purposes. You can probably get where Kay picked it up.

That Astros - Brewers matchup would also be the gypsy World Series as the Brewers played in the AL West from 1969 - 1971 (in '69 as the Seattle Pilots), and then as the only central time zone team in the AL East from 1972-1993 (Washington's move to Arlington, Texas prompted that switch), then to the AL Central from 1994-1997 following the realignment of leagues into three divisions, and since 1998 out of the NL Central Houston, meanwhile, has migrated from the NL West (1969-1993) to the NL Central (1994-2012) and now to the AL West (2013 - ), not to mention having existed in just the plain old NL from 1962-1968 Either NL team winning it all this year would up the number of different champions over the last 20 seasons in MLB to 13 as the Dodgers last win was 1988 and the Brewers last won ... never. Obviously an AL win keeps that ticker at 12 as both the Astros and Red Sox have won recently and while the Marlins 1997 WS title 'falls out' of the 20-year window with the conclusion of this year's post-season, their 2003 WS win keeps them on the list so no reduction there. 21 different franchises have played in a WS during that same 20 year window*, a number which will go up by one if the Brewers prevail this week. Remaining unchanged this year is the number of franchises, three, who have failed to at least reach an LCS since 1999. Oddly all are from the NL: - Cincy, whose last NLCS appearance was getting swept in four straight by the eventual WS winning Braves in 1995 - Pittsburgh, whose most recent NLCS memory is that of Sid Bream sliding into home with the winning run for the 1992 Braves - and finally Montreal/Washington whose last -- actually ONLY -- LCS experience was losing to a Rick Monday Game 5/9th inning HR in 1981. In the bottom of that 9th Jerry White grounded out with Gary Carter and Larry Parrish on base to end the game (2-1 Dodgers). As the Nats they've famously lost four times -- 3-2 (2012) 3-1 (2014) 3-2 (2016) and 3-2 (2017) -- in the round just prior to the NLCS (moment of silence please ... OK, that's enough) The NFL, btw, has also had 12 different champions over that same 20 year span, but fewer finalists (20 vs 21/22 in MLB) and currently has nine different franchises on the outside looking in at the conference championship round over the most recent two decades: Buffalo, Miami, Cincy (tough sports town), Cleveland, Houston, Kansas City, Dallas, DC, and Detroit But the salary cap promotes parity!!! -- Yeah, no it doesn't. * not MIN, BAL, TOR, SEA, OAK on the AL side, nor CIN, WAS/MON, PIT, or MIL from the NL

Tracking all the 'name' relievers that the Nationals have brought in over the last few years -- off-season, in-season, trading-deadline -- might be an interesting project, especially since many of them really didn't work out like they hoped. Maybe if I get some time ...

Centerfield wrote: And clearly it's different now, but if a fan is in his 40's or older, and didn't grow up in a metropolitan area, it's very likely that his choices were limited to good teams because that's who was on TV. Yup. It explains Yanqui fandom (and will for many years to come), also the Celtics/Lakers, and Cowboys/Steelers (plus, once upon a time, the Raiders) It's just more palatable to me when that kind of thing occurs with a pro team where there's no local connection as opposed to doing to same with a college team. I find middle-aged guys, whether it's fans or the talking heads on ESPN, attempting to latch onto the youthful spirit and tribal inclusion of a university that has nothing to do with them to be borderline creepy. That asshole who thought it was a good idea to poison the trees at Auburn wasn't some drunk kid but a guy in his 50s or 60s who's hitched his wagon to 'Bama because it's Alabama and because the athletic exploits of teenagers he's not related to make him feel better about himself. Grow the fuck up, dude!

They fucked all their starters. Yanqui starters for the series: 4 starts, 13 innings, 15 ER, 19 H, 6 BB, 9 K and if you take Tanaka's 5 IP / 1 R / 3 H out of that mix it becomes 14 earned on 16 Hits in 10 innings

So the south Bronx is basically the go-to spot for the Red Sox to clinch, right? 2004 of course. And this year it was the AL East and now the ALDS

In retrospect, I like that it happened that way. Build their hopes up while giving them the impression that 'Yaqui magic' is going to come through ... and then it doesn't.

OK, the run is meaningless. The out was important. Tying and winning runs still where they were.

You gotta be fuckin' kidding me Kimbrel!!

Kimbrel!! [fimg=450:2bsxkstc]https://moonwolves.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/thefugitive7.jpg[/fimg:2bsxkstc]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: ... if they get insurance runs here, they should TOTALLY send out David Price to close. Only if they got 17 of them Bryce Harper didn't hit off his dad in the HR derby the way Gary Sanchez does off of Price

All RHBs this inning (w/the SW-hitting Hicks and once Boone made the obvious move of PH'ing McCucheon for Gardner) so maybe not an ideal time to employ Sale, but this version of the Yanx isn't nearly as left-handed as their typical teams have been.

Always Be Closing And remember, first prize is a trip to the ALCS Second prize is a set of steak knives Third prize is 'You're Fired'

HahnSolo wrote: Remember earlier this season when some media and Yankee fans thought Severino was the best pitcher in New York? Yeah that was cute. I like to think it was our 2-0 win on the June 10th nationally televised Sunday night game over the then 9-1 Severino that started his decline. It doesn't quite line up that way as he had a couple good games under his belt after that, but I'm claiming it as the turning point anyway ERA by month: 2.61, 2.03, 1.60, 6.58, 4.86, 3.98 BA-Against: .176, .215, .211, .324, .274, .250

That Sabathia generates a lot of grounders, Neil Walker will get tonight's start over the atrocious-fielding Miguel Andujar. Also Gardner and Aaron Hicks are in LF & CF, McCutcheon to the bench. It can't be too much to ask that Rick Porcello out-pitches CC, can it? And poor Brock Holt, hits for a cycle one day and is benched the next (he usually sits vs LHPs)

smg58 wrote: I'd be enjoying this more if the Sox had won game two. Or if you got awarded two wins for winning by a sizable margin.

Shouldn't the system be altered so that all Angel Hernandez calls are automatically reviewed It would certainly save time. oe: and now another one!!

Please Hammer, hurt 'em more! Bronx Bombers crappin' the bed through 4 1/2. Actually, it's just 3-1/2