Frayed Knot

Two ground balls in the right place followed by one in the exact wrong place.

The kid is listed at 6' 1" / 215 so he's a bit more stretched out as compared to his 5' 9" / 205 dad, but still not quite your stereotyped long and lean hurler's build. I think he came up as a OF but made the switch after not being able to hit enough.

First glimpse of the Giants this year — first since last June actually. As mentioned by Gary a few days ago, the Giants have been muddling along in quiet mediocrity all year; haven’t been more than 5 games above .500 all year, haven’t been more than 5 below .500 either. Currently they’re sitting at 61-64 and are coming off a three-game whoopin’ at the hands of the mighty Cincinnati Reds combined score = 20 - 6). Even we didn’t do that. It doesn’t help when all your high-priced/big-name players are all in the midst of ‘Meh’ years themselves. Buster Posey sports an acceptable but hardly All-Star OPS+ of 105 as does SS Brandon Crawford Big off-season acquisitions Andrew Mc Cutcheon and Evan Longoria are at 109 & 88, while Hunter Pence (50) has missed much of the season and 2B Joe Panik (78) has never matched his first full MLB campaign. Their best hitter has been 30 y/o 1B Brandon Belt [.275/.366/.462 // 828 (104)] leads the entire team in WAR And on the mound, Derek Holland (3.83 ERA / 1.31 WHIP); Jeff Samardzija (6.25 / 1.63 and injured), and even Madison Bumgarner (3.05 / 1.30) are just kind of muddling along too. Their brightest new face has been 26 y/o rookie Derek, son of Ivan, Rodriguez (similar body, better hair) who’s been pitching to a 2.25 ERA and 1.00 WHIP over 14 games / 12 starts but he just hurt his hamstring while jumping over the dugout railing to join an on-field scrap (vs the Dodgers of course).

I thought they had a run in them too. And they did, but it lasted about a week. The thing about this Nats season is that they've managed to stay right around .500 (currently one game under) despite [u:1f1ssavm]a +59 RS/RA[/u:1f1ssavm] edge. And that's including their 11-run loss yesterday; prior to that they were AT .500 with a +70. Wasn't sure that was possible.

That was Vargas's second hit of the season and the his [u:1gwveb3m]first game[/u:1gwveb3m] where he had 3 PAs

Edgy MD wrote: Mets have six hits in 10 trips to the plate, and three strikeouts. Apart from catching Rosario stealing, the Phils aren't being asked to make a whole lot of outs in the field. Which, considering their ineptness at it this week, is a good thing for them.

That makes sense then seeing as how Cromartie played in Japan for a long time and was very popular there. A Miami native, the USA is probably third in line for Cro's popularity behind (in one order or another) Japan and Canada given his nine seasons* with the Expos. * plus two more with 'Quebec' when they were a AA affiliate of the Expos

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Pawtucket Red Sox moving to Worcester, Mass. Worcester apparently came up with better [crossout]bribe money[/crossout] investments in a new stadium. Shame for Pawtucket which has been the AAA affiliate of the BoSox since the early '70s and were their AA team for several years before that. The Pirates & Cubs just finished a four-game series in which nine total runs were scored. Shyeeeet, the Mets had two half innings this week where they scored more than that. Cubs won 1-0 on both Thursday & Friday. Pirates came back with a 3-1 win and then another today, 2-1 in 11 innings.

Oh sure, and the only black guy in the whole commercial is the one who gets thrown out of the game. Why they gotta do that to a brother?

This game is for another series win (currently 2-2) and to maintain our .500 or better record since July 1st [9-9 in July, 12-12 in August]

btw, don't ya just love the sports geeks who dismiss the sabermetric aspects of baseball analysis and see it as an unholy takeover of the sport by a bunch of pocket protector wearing geeks ... and then switch immediately to discussions of Quarterback ratings as if those represent some kind of etched in stone truth or that there are more than about seven people on earth who know how they're calculated or what the number represents?

Even Buster Olney chimes in on the chain of command issues/questions and its effect on future GM'dom.

I find it a bit odd that the Mets both flew from Baltimore to Philly (something like 18 minutes) earlier this week, and then again from Philly to Williamsport today. While 18 minutes is shirley shorter than driving it, once the park to airport and then airport to hotel times are factored in, it hardly seems worth the trouble. Today's trip I suspect has more to do with the ballplayers not wanting to overnight on a Saturday in a town not up to their usual hotel/nightlife standards while bussing AND playing in the same day was considered too much of a burden. And whereas leagues usually have rules against scheduling flights the same day as a game, this was probably waived due to the one-time nature of the destination.

Like the play called on the Mets the other day, I think the fielder's foot got in the way and delayed the runner from touching the base just long enough. Of course I'm on record as not wanting to overturn ANYTHING where it's not obvious so [u:3qnbov2p]I[/u:3qnbov2p] wouldn't have flipped it. But I"ll take it.

In fairness to Kurkjian, he was arguing that it's close between JdG and Scherzer but he gives the edge to Scherzer because the ERA is close AND Scherzer leads in strikeouts AND in WAR AND is innings pitched AND in batting average against as well as in wins. It's not like little Timmy is some kind of stuck in the mud old timer wondering why he ever sold his horse for a car. Wilbon is simply obstinate on this topic. Working as he does on an opinion show, he's set himself up as the anti-stats/anti-'millennials' standard bearer where he takes it far beyond just this particular topic. Neither he nor Kornheiser could understand it when Felix Hernandez won the AL CY with a 13-12 record while David Price was 19-6 and Sabathia was 21-7 (so it's not like the writers haven't done this before) and neither could either understand why Trout should be MVP (he wasn't) the year Miggy Cabrera won the Triple Crown and no amount of explaining how while, yes, Cabrera had a slightly better offensive year, Trout was vastly superior in fielding, running, throwing, positional value, etc., could get them off that argument. Don't care what McCarthy thinks/says but, c'mon folks, he's saying it about his own guy. Let's not pretend some of us (or Gary or Keith or Ronnie) wouldn't be making the same points if the roles were reversed (see Dickey vs Kershaw).

In the hugest series they've played in Oakland for a while, the A's scored on an overturned call at the plate w/one out in the 9th, then won it on a leadoff walk-off HR in the 10th to nip Houston 4-3 and close to [u:21zgm18e]1.0 game back[/u:21zgm18e] of 1st in the AL West A's , who were 11.5 out in mid-June, are now 73-49 and on pace for a 98-win season.

And, no, it's not just your imagination, this game -- 4-2 and heading for the bottom of the 8th -- is already longer than the 24-4 game 1/DH contest from yesterday.

41Forever wrote: The Phillies catcher sorta looked like he was napping there and didn't expect or see the throw. I suspect he was deke-ing rather than sleeping.

I always question those claims of 'muscle weight' gain including this recent Justine report about Jeff McNeil putting on 25 lbs And while this one is at least possible since she mentioned it was over a 2-3 year span (many of these stories involve mere months) I still tend to treat such claims as exaggerated.

G-Fafif wrote: 1,066. Daniel Zamora Perhaps we should commemorate the event with a tapestry, particularly since he's opposing a pitcher who's from the Bayou. And, yeah, I went a long way for that joke

So this is now 33 runs in less than 24 hours and less than two full games (16 innings). Did they score that many in all of June? Answer: Yes they did, they actually scored 89 runs during the [u:1iy9e7tm]26 games[/u:1iy9e7tm] played in the month of June (3.42 RS/G). On the other hand, it took them until [u:1iy9e7tm]their 15th game[/u:1iy9e7tm] of the month [u:1iy9e7tm]on June 18th[/u:1iy9e7tm] to pass the 33 mark which they did by laying a 12-spot on the Rox - and, yes, it was in Coors. Take away that four game series in Coors, where they tallied 12, 8, 8, and 4 runs, and the June vs last 24 hours ratio of runs scored is just 57 to 33

The former hockey announcer in Howie comes out on the Philly pitching change which resulted in starter Ranger Suarez leaving in the 5th inning: "Ranger eliminated in five"

Frayed Knot wrote: If this game ever actually reaches the end, I predict we're going to win it. Well, it did finally end and we did win. On, and the Yanx lost. It's their first loss to Tampa since, I believe, sometime during the Ford administration.

G-Fafif wrote: 1,065. Jack Reinheimer Scored a run before he even got an PA

If this game ever actually reaches the end, I predict we're going to win it.