Frayed Knot

Also, if you're going to get as few baserunners as this team has been getting lately, you can't doing their hurler a favor by just gifting back four of them: - two via GiDPs -- OK, those will happen and one of them was smoked (you could say the diff in this game was the hot shot Swanson turned into a DP vs the one Cabrera didn't ... although that takes Swanson off the hook for botching a 1st inning GiDP which led to the first NYM run) - but there's no just saying 'eh, one of those things' to the back-to-back pickoffs. Fried faced three batters in that inning, retired just one of them, and still wound up with a 1-2-3 inning. That's just down right criminal.

Charlie Culberson, really? A 29 y/o .204 hitting (.228 career) journeyman with 6 career HRs coming into today, half of them at Coors Field. But that's the way Atlanta's season has gone so far. Their hits w/RiSP and late in games is ridiculously high even compared to their overall stats. Streaks like that have to end sooner or later, it just would have been nice if it had done so today.

Nymr83 wrote: How else would you pronounce Fried? Hey, yaneverknow: Koch = Kotch/Coke; Levine = Laveen/Lavine, etc. On the NYM side, Plawecki is likely to be activated tomorrow with Nido shirley being the odd man out. It would be nice to have a somewhat stable catching situation for a while. While the Braves, for instance, have had their main two guys start 42 of their 51 games this year and all of them since 4/25 (Flowers was on the DL for first two weeks of season), the Mets have started five different catchers, none of whom started even 1/3 of the time and the guys who began the season in 4th and 5th place: Lobaton = 14, Nido = 13, Mesoraco = 11, Plawecki = 7, d'Arnaud = 4 Not exactly how they drew it up to start the year. Also likely to be active for at least one of the two games sked for tomorrow is PJ Conlon and Hansel Robles. Between Ramos heading to NYC to get his shoulder (and maybe head) checked out and the added roster spot during DH days, those two pitchers flew ahead to Atlanta and it's possible that Conlon will start game 2 on Monday depending on all sorts of factors from deGrom's performance and bullpen needs in Game 1 to the rain coming in ahead of tropical storm Alberto.

Well they're probably flying to Atlanta rather than marching (Sherman, after all, didn't start way up in Wisconsin) but go there they will to meet the first place Braves for four games in three days. Of course all of that is conditional on the weather cooperating which it almost certainly will not as tropical storm Alberto is approaching the state of Georgia from the gulf as I/we type/read. Los Bravos are coming off their own 3 losses-in four vs a 1st place club, starting the series by losing the first three in Fenway which caused them to lose their hold on 1st place temporarily. They avoided the long sweep on Sunday by beating Chris Sale and co. which, coupled with Philly's loss, got them a 1/2 game on top again. But Sunday's win was tempered by Ronald Acuna's awkward step while crossing 1st and sending him into a tumble which resembled a slightly less violent version of Bryce Harper's hyper-extended knee last year. No official word yet on (the somewhat cooled-down recently) Acuna's condition. Braves have actually fallen off the lead in NL offense (to our next opponents, the Cubs) but are still both scoring and preventing scoring at better rates than us. Part of their advantage is that they essentially run the same lineup out there every night. Only 3rd base and their brief experiment with trying Jose Bautista there (wonder what became of him?) has been a shifting position for them this year. Kurt Suzuki and Tyler Flowers essentially share the catching position, w/Freddie at 1st and Albies at 2nd have both started every game this season. At SS Dansby Swanson is back following a two week outage and Johan Camargo is now re-established at 3rd while Markakis/Inciarte/Acuna have started every game in the OF since Acuna's call-up on 4/25 (Damn, that must be nice!!) even if Acuna's dance step today will probably break that streak (or does he possess extra-quick healing powers seeing as how he's only 13 years old?) Game 1: 1:10 -- deGrom vs Max Fried Fried (pronounced: FREED) is a 2012 1st round/7th overall pick by the Padres out of sports factory Harvard-Westlake HS in Los Angeles. Dealt to Atlanta in the Justin Upton deal (Dec 2014) the now 24 y/o lefty (well he's always been lefty but has just recently turned 24) made 9 appearances/4 starts for the Braves in 2017 -- including one start vs the Mets: 5.1 IP, 2 ER, 7 H -- and is being recalled tomorrow to make his first start of the season after relieving in 4 ML games earlier this year. Needless to say, a lopsided series in either direction will have a big effect on the team's (and our) psyches over the near future, a future which includes their [u:34cj71v6]third and final trip[/u:34cj71v6] to Atlanta just two weeks from now.

Now THOSE (strike one & two to Conforto) are strikes!?!?!? We'd have this game won already with Robo-Ump

I was about to ask why Mesoraco then Nimmo PH'ing instead of Nimmo - Mesoraco ... but I guess I'll stay quiet now.

Infield single - bogus walk - bloop - bloop = 3 runs

Frayed Knot wrote: This Blevins for Gsellman swap I agree with (for reasons that Gary mentioned -- Shaw particularly vulnerable to LHPs) unlike the one the other night. Oh well.

This Blevins for Gsellman swap I agree with (for reasons that Gary mentioned -- Shaw particularly vulnerable to LHPs) unlike the one the other night.

How many more of those fucking topped grounder/infield singles in Cain going to get in this series? That's two today and he had at least one earlier in the weekend. A couple more and he'll be forced to legally change his name to Jeter.

Edgy MD wrote: Let's chase Chacin now. They certainly blew an early chance yesterday to Chase Anderson.

Wheeler knocks in about 75 years old worth of legs on the bags.

Not actually a bad 1st inning from Wheeler - topped grounder too slow to be turned into an out - solid single by Yelich - fly ball which was deep though catchable by either Conforto or Bruce, but wound up being caught by neither - pop-up, pop-up, K One hard hit ball. Also too many pitches but even that was mostly caused by the two non-plays

It's Rhaming on my parade.

Noah pulled after 74 pitches? I mean really? A bit of a difference between being "pulled" and being pinch-hit for in a one-run game with 2-outs and the tying run on in the 7th inning. And the bullpen (meaning: Lugo) retired the next six straight so that wasn't a problem either.

bmfc1 wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Blevins fails to get the only guy he was required to retire Yeah, I was less than enamored of this Callaway move. I mean, yeah, he'd have to answer all kinds of questions about why he didn't bring in the lefty to face Yelich, but I have enough confidence in Gsellman there with two outs and the only runner not even in scoring position. Agreed, especially for Ramos. However, Mickey felt obligated to do something because so far, he appears to always want to do something. Well at that point it wasn't even about Ramos, it was just a choice between Gsellman or Blevins. But once Blevins failed to retire Yelich, Callaway was forced to go one more link down the chain and that's where things went haywire. I wanted him to stick with Gsellman for that one more out and if he gave up an extra base to Yelich (the runner was only on 1st) then I could have lived with it and not second-guessed the decision. I disagreed with those fans yapping about the Syndergaard/Reyes switch, but if they want to carp about this one I'll understand.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Blevins fails to get the only guy he was required to retire Yeah, I was less than enamored of this Callaway move. I mean, yeah, he'd have to answer all kinds of questions about why he didn't bring in the lefty to face Yelich, but I have enough confidence in Gsellman there with two outs and the only runner not even in scoring position.

The latest mocks have college players going in each of the first six picks as both Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo agree on the opening seven selections. With the Mets picking 6th, their likely to either get what's left of the early college picks or their first choice of the HS guys. That could mean either Jonathan India, 3B, U of Florida, or Matthew Libatore a LHP out of a Glendale Arizona HS Various scouting thumbnails on the upper level players can be found here

Not a bad chance. Took a near perfect throw to get him.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: nimmo is Gzimmo Also helps that Shaw is Stupid

We fans tend to only recognize it when it happens against our teams -- ie. Familia two nights ago -- but one run saves are blown more than 20% of the time and tonight it was Mr. Rebel Knebel adding to those stats.

bmfc1 wrote: Mickey is getting destroyed on Twitter, by writers and fans alike, for pinch-hitting Reyes when Noah had a low pitch count, the Mets have a lot of games coming up (including a DH on Monday where they do not have a SP for game 2) and it's not like Reyes had a great chance of getting hit off Hader (or mostly anyone). I disagree with the haters vis-a-vis PH'ing against Hader In what may have been their last best chance to tie up the game, did these folks really want their lefty-swinging, .185-career-hitting, star pitcher in there with two outs vs that 95-throwing lefty monster? Not me.

Odd game for Noah so far in that he's got a high hit count yet a low pitch count. Usually it's been the other way around his year for NYM hurlers.

No way can/does Hanley play SS anymore (he wasn't all that good at it back in his prime) and in my mind he's almost exclusively a DH/PH/1B these days (not a particularly good 1B either but you can live with that) so the whole Reyes-replacement thing doesn't really match up. Had he come to market prior to Bautista I'd have preferred Hanley given an either/or option. It'd be a little quick to dump Bautista after (what ... six?) ABs but that's five more than Gary Mathews Jr. got IIRC although under somewhat different circumstances. I suspect, though, that someone else will offer him a bit more playing time than that.

At least have him play regularly until he proves he CAN'T keep it up. One problem with the "fourth outfielder" stuff is that it's an idea some got in their heads because that's the way he was (sometimes) labeled as he made his way through the minor leagues and didn't immediately set the world on fire. Not coincidently this was also right around the same time it became fashionable to say that picking him at #13 overall was a "reach" by the Mets (something the detractors knew all along of course though I remember nothing of that at the time) and shirley he'd have been available in a later round if they still liked him. But just because someone once said that this is was he is doesn't mean he is that, and taking the view that the label is the reality and the reality unfolding in front of you is nothing but a mirage is just stupid, particularly for a guy with only ~250 ML ABs under his belt coming into the season and very few of those on any kind of a regular basis. Ride that horse til it drops ... and hope it doesn't drop.