Frayed Knot

Was that our 56th strikeout of the day or 57th, I lost track?

Wheeler = 33 pitches thru 2 innings, Wainwright = 33 pitches thru 3, despite both allowing only 1 baserunner Seen this movie before.

TJ gets a long throw across the diamond to 1st on the fly!! That's a nice change of pace.

There have been several human cases of the plague in New Mexico just this year. It is treatable these days and fortunately I think we've learned a few things about sanitation since the middle ages so it's not expected to break out and kill 1/3 of the population on the continent. And just the other day I was reading about someone's death (forget who at this point) and the description sounded a lot like Valley Fever.

Geez, what next? Bubonic Plague? And how exactly does one go about acquiring a partially collapsed lung? oe: NYDN: Nimmo said he experienced shortness of breath after the July 4 game for a brief period of time and some tightness in his back. He did not say anything to the Mets initially. He said he mentioned it in passing before Friday's game. Terry Collins said there was no collision or fall that caused the issue. But, hey, doctors assured the Mets that the condition is "not life threatening". So there's that.

Not bad. Did he add "baby"? No, but the latest MFY try at 1st base (now that they've DFA'd Chris Carter for the second time in two weeks) is Korean Ji-Man Choi, and when he HR'd (because every player the Yanx bring up homers in their first game) John Sterling gave him a double-call, declaring: Oh Ji-Man, you're a He-man ... Oh Choi, Oh Boy! Which reminds me, Chris Berman will no longer be doing the BACK BACK BACK at the home run contest at the All Star game. And here I was thinking that there was no hope left in the world. Actually, the HR Derby was really the perfect event for Berman; an event full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. iow, Noise for the sake of noise which was pretty much his speciality.

Been an up and down year for the soon-to-be 36 y/o Wainwright. He's 9-5 but with a 5.48 ERA and 1.55 WHIP as he seems to alternate good performances with ones where he gets smacked around. At one point towards the end of May he had 4 straight outings where he allowed a total of 1 run, but since then has coughed up 9, then 2, then 9 again, then 2, 2, and 6. He notched a win in his last outing as part of the four game split the Cards just had with the Marlins but only because he was given 14 runs while he struggled to get through the minimum five. The short outing in general is becoming the norm for him these days; he hasn't once gone beyond 7 this year and in more than half his outings (9 of 17) he's lasted 5 innings or less.

Strange game ... but I'll take it.

Holy shit, it's like ten minutes or more since the GS and the Brews are still batting in the 7th. Now 9-4 and 2 on. P.S. the Yanx have 4 runs on 3 hits but with the help of [u:3cg4adjq]Five[/u:3cg4adjq] Brewer errors!! RF Domingo Santana has two of them leading Michael Kay to suggest that Santana has to change his E-9 ways.

I was just hoping he'd be an extra arm that could stabilize the bullpen, that maybe his stuff could still work in smaller doses.

Maybe. It was supposed to be Roark's turn but they switched to Gonzalez because of the previous day's rainout, and Gonzo often pitch-counts his way out of games in the 5th or 6th anyway. Plus they were going to have to play the game at some point, whether it be last night or in the to-be-determined future. And, oh yeah, they lost anyway.

Better turn on that potential DP (that's all on Cabrera) and that run doesn't score.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: TyLOLer CLOLippard in a 4-4 MFY-Brewers game walks the bases loaded then gives up a grand slam. Beat me to it. Came with 2 outs and on a full count too. 8-4 Brews, middle 7th

Not even sure if this is a bad thing these days or a good one, but the Nats scored 3 in the 9th and then just walked-off the Braves with one more in the 10th.

Yeah, that's a curious choice. Not sure what Terry's logic is there.

Edgy MD wrote: d'Kong76 wrote: Answer to the shift in a nutshell, just keep doing it until it stops... Yup, yup, and yup. Why the Mets aren't doing it wit' regularity is a question that troubles, and provokes me, and uneases my sleep late in the night. If you were Matt Carpenter and the defense was shady, would you swing away anyway or drop the bunt maybe?

With that blue hair Carlos Martinez is sporting these days, shouldn't he be pitching in south Florida?

So much for strategic baseball tonight.

Ashie62 wrote: Aledmys Diaz got sent to the minors. Yup, he was their surprise power source last year, and before that they released their previous power-hitting SS with time still left on his contract. So now they just reach into their system and pluck out a 23 y/o former 4th round pick who comes up and immediately starts hitting HRs.

I haven't taken a look at what Minny's rotation looks like these days, but it's possible the Twins gave him a better shot of starting a few games as opposed to what Sandy would promise him.

Yes, HFA in the WS has been eliminated from the ASG equation.

-- Matt Carpenter was just moved back to 2B after spending most of the last full season at 1st which kind of seemed like a strange place for him anyway. But Kolten Wong is DL'd so Carpenter slides over while rookie call-up Luke Voit (now THERE's a quick autograph!) takes the reins at 1st. -- The Cuban SS they seemed to concoct out of thin air in 2016, Aledmys Diaz, is also DL'd so rookie call-up Paul (Come Back and Stay) DeJong is the fill-in. And if it seems like the Cards have a different SS every year, and then that guy never plays well for any other team after he leaves, it's because that's pretty much true. 2007 - David Eckstein 2008 - Cesar Izturis 2009-10 - Brendan Ryan 2011 - Ryan Theriot 2012 - Raffy Furcal 2013 - Pete Kozma 2014-15 - Jhonny Peralta 2016 - Aledmys Diaz btw, they seem to do the same thing with closers: 2007 - Jason Isringhausen 2008-10 - Ryan Franklin 2011 - [u:21124a54]Fernando Salas[/u:21124a54] 2012 - Jason Motte 2013 - Edward Mujica 2014-15 - Michael Rosenthal 2016-17 - Seung-hwan Oh And even though you'd probably have trouble even remembering half of those guys, the Cards managed to use that turntable of spare parts at these two important positions to get themselves into the playoffs six times over the last decade including into two WS.

d'Kong76 wrote: Nymr83 wrote: I think given the state of modern radar, MLB should have a meteorologist who decides if games start or not and then also consults remotely with umpires (much like instant replay) on when to resume or cancel them once a delay in-game happens. its time to take the decision out of teams' hands. Buena idea. Set up someone with a weather center at Command Central (or whatever they call it where those umps are hanging out) and run it from there. I dunno. I have issues with thinking that big brother MLB can do a better job at forecasting the weather in 15 locations per night than can the locals for the same reasons I'd have trouble believing that the federal gov't would do a better job micro-managing each county's zoning laws. Obviously the Nats brass thought they saw something that made them think that starting late was better than starting - then stopping - then starting again. Just as obviously they blew the call but it's not like that goof helped them in any way and no one wants two rain-outs (given the Wed game canceled w/the Mets) and two days off just before the ASB when you're going to have to make up those games late in the season anyway. Can leaving in the home team's hands get abused? Yeah, probably once in a while. I remember the Yanx one time calling off a night game around noon even though it turned out it never rained that night and the likely reason, though obviously not the stated one, is that they were all backed-up in their rotation that day. But even if left up to the league there'll still be charges that a cancelation (or non-) was manipulated because one of the owners was in better with Park Ave than the other.

btw, the discriminated-against Angel H. has been named to the squad of next week's ASG although, particularly as far as his lawsuit goes, I suspect this won't soothe his feelings over being denied (or so he says) post-season assignments and/or a position as crew chief.

Final Score: Braves 5 - Nats 2 - Rain 0 Total Time of Game: 6:15 (3:05 delay + 3:10 game) That puts the approximate end of the game at 1:20 AM in a city where the trains shut down around 11-ish? But they did give the remaining fans (all 50 ? of them) free ice cream starting around the 4th inning No cases of sunburn were reported, either on the field or in the stands, during the evening.