Frayed Knot

Manager Kirk Gibson

Go for it ... although 'Oscar Gamble in a leg lock' is going to be tough to top. I'll kick things off this weekend by taking a crack at the homeless currently unhoused Athletics.

That Arizona had ZERO LHPs in their pen was an argument in favor of both those moves. And the (questionable) Mauricio call-up in place of Soto is at least working out well so far.

KTEs were easier when we had more posters and fewer Es

Whilst we slept and/or did other shit last night ... Braves lost: 6-2 at LAA w/Sale on the mound Marlins lost: shut out at home 2-0 by Reds Phils won: 6-4 at SFG Nats won: 9-6 at home vs StL And in non-NLE news: Willlllson Contreras (he's the the one currently with BOS after stints with the Cubs & Cards if you, like I do, have trouble keeping them straight) got hit by a pitch vs Milwaukee last night ... and he wasn't happy about it. Now he gets hit a lot [131 career, second only to Starling Marte among active players*] but a whopping 24 of those have come from a Brewer pitcher [nearly twice as many as from any other club: 14 ea from Reds & Pirates] and six times by yesterday's pitcher Brandon Woodruff alone. So if it happens again, he said in post-game comments, he's going to "take one of them out". The fun part of all this is that his younger brother William is, and has been, the Brewer catcher for a chunk of these HBPs including the one last night. So as they used to say prior to remotes and TiVo: 'Don't touch that dial' * Pete is 8th, Nimmo 13th, McNeil 14th

Not that many, but Keith's #17 made the rounds following his retirement as well. This included at least one David Cone who jumped into the number not long after the body was cold to honor his former teammate. Cone also donned Gooden's #16 in his second stint with the Mets. Teams should think about honoring a past player in just this way. Don't put the number permanently in mothballs but dole it out only to those who you think might do it justice, particularly someone playing the same position.

For a (hopefully) short term coverage issue, that's probably the reason ... or at least A reason. We've also got a few IF/OF hybrids right now to the point where this doesn't have to be a strict position replacement.

Of course they're going to schedule midweek games at night as they should (at least most of them). But with earlier starts to the season they're occasionally going to get burned (Froze?) by it and they have to be prepared to pivot if necessary. Good on them that they have. It's the Saturday ones which perplex me especially seeing the Yanx, who used to play ALL Saturday games in the daytime unless forced to do otherwise by network contracts, suddenly going all S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT! -- IN THE FIRST WEEK OF THE SEASON -- as well as the Twins who seem to not realize that they play in the coldest big city in the lower 48. and it's April freakin' fourth! Probably couldn't get enough public money for a dome. The old one (which, of course, sucked) was a multi-purpose stadium which netted the city a Super Bowl or two.

I can't either but it's a smart move and now, I see, an increasingly popular one this week. One could argue that NE/midwest teams shouldn't be scheduling ANY April games at night but TV money suggests otherwise. otoh, the Twins scheduled a Saturday (6:10 local time) night game this past Saturday (which is borderline insanity if you ask me) and got 39 degrees with wind and flurries. And even the Yanx, who along with the BoSox were one of the stalwarts of Not playing at night on Saturdays unless forced to by network TV (which happens often for those two), also scheduled a night game on the same day which I never thought I'd see in the Bronx in April. the Sawx at least went with 4:10

Officially to the IL with an expected time missed of 2-to-3 weeks. Ronny Mauricio to be called up. https://nypost.com/2026/04/06/sports/juan-soto-to-miss-at-least-two-weeks-in-mets-injury-calamity/

And what lesson teams should take form Adell's afternoon is: Don't make your fences too high!! Yeah, you might get burned by it on occasion too, but it's an exciting play either way and it gets your logo on the hi-light reels.

So with the first full week of the MLB season in the books ('cept for the 4-4 Cards and Tigers still battling it out in the Sunday Night NBC Peacock game) and all teams at either the 9 or 10 game mark, here's how things look: NL Best: LAD: 7-2; MIL: 7-2; MIA: 6-3 after (barely) salvaging their final game in the Bronx are leading the pack, while bringing up the rear are the 3-7 Giants along with the 3-6 Nationals & Rockies The AL is being paced by the 7-2 Yanx with everyone else kind of pushed towards the middle with the exception of the 2-7 Red Sox. Oh that's not going to make the chowder go down well tomorrow.

Thanks. I thought I had posted the videos but looks like I grabbed and dragged the wrong link. Toriiiii Hunter was in the stadium at the time -- he works for the Angels in some capacity -- and HE said he nearly passed out watching Adell's catches and few played the wall better than Torii in his day. btw, the only run of the game was a HR on the first pitch of the game (bottom 1st) by Seattle, meaning Mariner pitching managed to hold the Angels scoreless over 27 outs wile Mariner bats hit three over the wall to the Angels one ... and yet still found a way to lose the game. And, finally, a fan took this picture of the last of the three catches (1st out, top 9): Los Angeles Angels (@angels) • Instagram photo WWW.INSTAGRAM.COM 104K likes, 477 comments - angels on April 5, 2026: "good night, Jo Show viewers 😴 📷: @kay_kraus". Pretty cool, huh?

The Mets were only going to hit once more (most likely) and the pitcher's slot was going to be, where it traditionally was, in the #9 spot as Alvarez was both the last out of T-8 and the guy being double-switched out for Torrens, so it was unlikely that spot would ever come to bat. So not a high risk move and it got them better defenders in the OF and behind the plate.

Possibly. Although 15-6 is a pretty ridiculous deficit. Yanx had five singles, three of which knocked in four runs, a 2R HR plus a Sac Fly (both Bellinger). And then the Marlins catcher decides to wait until there's a runner on 3rd for both of his passed balls.

Baseball world, meet Angels RF'er Jo Adell Final score: Angels 1 - Mariners 0

Following up on my post yesterday about the relationship between hits and runs, the Yanx last night got out-hit by the Marlins 15 to 6 but won 9-7 despite the fact that five of the six hits were singles and the pin-stripers were a mere 3/13 w/RiSP. But Miami pitchers were kind enough to chip in with 10 walks and the Yanx scored twice on passed balls in a game. There were also EIGHT ABS challenges (seven overturned) in a game that ran 3:49 (gonna party like it's 1999!!)

So I was looking at our early season stats during last night's game: - In games one and eight the Mets scored a combined 21 runs on 26 hits - Games two thru seven: 14 runs on a total of 40 hits Not that anything about those numbers should come as a surprise to anyone who even partially watched the games since not only did they barely hit during those middle games but they barely scored even when they did actually manage to scrape up and handful of bingles. But I was struck by the contrast between games 1 & 8 where they scored nearly a run for each hit compared to the shit sandwich that was that middle stretch where it took nearly three hits just to score once. And that all got me to thinking (rarely a good thing) about what a 'typical' ratio was, something I don't think I even thought about before. So after some exhaustive research (aka: looking at league-wide totals for the most recent completed seasons) it turns out that the ratio for the seasons 2022 thru 2025 has hovered between 1.8 to 1.9 hits per each run scored. In the end I'm not sure that this 'discovery' is all that interesting and probably even less useful, except to maybe emphasize that not only do the number of hits matter but so does the power and grouping of those hits. But it does answer a question that I never thought to ask prior to last night.

Seven full-counts by McLean, but still a more than decent pitch count [67 thru 5]

The reverse curse of the 'Suxx' thread strikes again!

Don't you think he probably already has a place to live?

So Leiper was aggressive with no outs but passive with two outs. (and a fast runner)

Mets send eight to the plate in top 1 ... and manage to score the mathematical minimum possible. I'm not sure that Robert got the outs wrong. He appeared to duck the liner, or at least pause so as to not risk running into it. But then the coach seemed to make the premature decision to hold Robert while failing to read that the LF'er wasn't even looking to throw home.

There was a clash of the Titans at YSIII today as the AL best 5-1 Yanx hosted the NL best 5-1 Marlins for their home opener. The Fish got smoked. Pirates called up #1 overall prospect Konnor Griffin for their home opener today after just 500 total minor league ABs and less than 100 of them above A ball. The 1st round/9th overall 2024 draft* pick out of a Mississippi HS is a 6' 3"/222 R/R SS who doesn't turn 20 until three weeks from now. And, seeing as how he was called up just a week into the season, he'll still play enough (assuming he doesn't get sent down for any length of time) to get credit for a full season so his FA-gency won't be delayed (iow: NOT like the Cubs did to Kris Bryant) although that's likely a moot point as there's talk (not yet official afaik) of an immediate multi-year contract. He seems to have about 80 family members in the stands who have seen him hit an RBI double, walk, strikeout and gave him a Standing O for his successful ABS challenge. * he's not the first from his draft class to reach the majors, but he's the only high schooler in the top 10 so the others are all around three years older than him

He got unlucky in a few spots, but there's no disguising 19 batters faced with only 8 retired.