Frayed Knot

First meeting of Mets and stRangers since 2014 and our first trip to Arlington since 2011 Mets are 8-4 overall in the lifetime series, winning 2 of 3 each time (2003, ’08’ 11, ’14) This however will be a four-game series with the two in CitiField to take place in August After finishing 1st (4 times) or 2nd (4 times) in the AL West 8 times over the last 9 seasons, the Rangers started 13-20 out of the gate this year to find themselves 8.5 games out of the division by May 9th. They then went on a 10-game winning streak which more than erased the losing record although barely gained in the AL West given the roaring play of their cross-state rivals. And then they gave all of that ground back by winning just 3 times in their last 14 games including a weekend sweep by the Astros (outscored 20-8) and currently sit 15 games out of 1st and just 1.5 ahead of last place Oakland. As usual for this team and that park, they’re better at scoring runs (5th in the AL) than they are at preventing them (tied for 4th worst). C - former Brewer Jonathan Lucroy starts about 2/3 of the time behind the plate and DHs part-time when he’s not, although backup Robinson Chirinos has been the better hitter this year. 1B - started out with Mike Napoli but he’s now 35 y/o and a total feast/famine guy: .192 BA, 65 K, 11 HR So lately it’s been the highly touted Joey Gallo who’s young and a total feast/famine guy A massive guy with massive power, but he’s a .191 career hitter so far (300+ ABs) even as more than half his hits go for XBs and his HRs sometimes break scoreboards. That's Crazy He'll also play some 3B and LF and DH 2B - Rougned Odor plays everyday and pisses opposing players off on about half of them, but he also seems concerned with power and hits around the Mendoza line with few walks (.249 OBA) SS - Elvis Andrus - Looks like the best hitter on their team this season: .305/.350/.475 3B - Adrian Beltre - now 38 y/o and in his 20th ML season - spent the entire season on the DL until just last week. 49 hits short of 3,000 and 54 HRs short of 500 OF/DH has been a mishmash of Delino DeShields, Shin-Soo Choo, Nomar Mazara, and Jared Hoying Choo DHs more than he plays the field, but he walks a lot so he often hits leadoff. Hoying is a 28 y/o rookie who isn’t hitting but they appear to like him in CF while Carlos Gomez is on the DL Mazara is just 22 but with already a full year under his belt. Reminds one a lot of Pittsburgh’s Josh Bell whom we just saw. Big guy, lots of promise, lots of power, still learning how to harness it all. DeShields seems to just fill in all around although, as the one guy on the whole roster who seems to have no power (7 careers HRs in 700 ABs) he’d have been better off better off if he was a middle infielder like his daddy. Tuesday 8:05 Jacob deGrom, coming off his worst start of the season, vs the 2017 starting debut of … Dillon Gee!! After 9 mediocre starts for AAA Round Rock plus 6 innings of relief work with the big club, Dillon Gee makes his first start of the season and only his 15th start since his last one as a Met in June of 2015. Gee is filling in for the DL’d Cole Hamels. Wednesday - 8:05 Zack Wheeler vs Yu Darvish [5-4; 3.13 ERA, 1.19 WHIP] This is the Japanese/Iranian pitcher’s first full season since missing all of 2015 and the first part of 2016 with TJ surgery. The Mets faced him once back on July 4th 2014 where they hit him up for 3 in the 1st (Bobby Abreu and Lucas Duda went back-to-back!!) in an eventual 6-5 NYM win. Jennry Mejia with the win in relief. Sam Dyson was their breakout star last year, saving 38 games after being named the closer in mid-May. But a rough start this year — How Rough? … How ‘bout 1-6, no saves, 4 Blown saves, a 10.80 ERA and a WHIP of 2.58 !! — led to him first losing the 9th inning gig and then being DFA’d over the weekend. Matt Bush is now their closer. It’s been a rough road for Bush; several off-field incidents plus a change from SS to pitcher was interrupted by him serving time for nearly killing a man in a drunk driving accident. He finally made the majors last season at age 30, 12 years after being the #1 overall draft pick by his hometown SD Padres in 2004

Whatever the missing ingredient to this staff is, trying to squeeze one more year out of Bartolo Colon wasn't it. 8 more earned runs tonight in just 3-plus innings vs Philly, all tacked onto an ERA and WHIP which began the night at 6.99 and 1.66 Yikes!

Except that the Yanx didn't hire Hoch in the way that the Isles (along w/their TV station) hired Howie. Hoch simply went to work for mlb.com and was assigned to work the MFY beat. Writers rarely get to pick their assignments, particularly not those just starting out.

What, no slushie updates?!?!?

I've had no issues with Bruce's defense. He's not been great but he's been fine.

HahnSolo wrote: batmagadanleadoff wrote: Our lefty murderer, remarkably, has only 26 AB's against lefties this season. That's crazy. Mostly a case I think of us just not facing that many LH starters so far this season and, when we did, Wilmer wasn't always around. Remember that he was DL'd himself just when Duda went down with the elbow, something Wilmer seems to have made a habit of in recent seasons when a job, even a temporary one, comes up. As far as I can recall, Terry has been near manic about getting him in vs every LHP that we faced - but that adds up to not much. I mentioned this in an IGT over the weekend but Wilmer seems to be going the other way with at least a little bit of punch recently. He still has just the one career HR to RF but some of his hits lately have been liners to RF & RCF rather than the little bloops he usually gets on those rare occasions that he doesn't pull. Maybe just a small sample but also maybe an encouraging sign that he's not just going to be a one-trick pony who murders inside fastballs down the LF line but does little else.

Maybe the real mystery to that HR, as per Gary's comment yesterday, is how Piersall was able to pull off that move without big 'ol hard-ass Dallas Green, the pitcher for that AB, tackling and then pummeling Piersall en route.

Some trace Valentine's decline to getting hit in the face by a pitch. The other thing that stands out looking back at his stats is not just his lack of walks but that his plate discipline, never high to begin with, seemed to go down as he aged. In his one full-ish season with the Mets he walked 5 times in 350 PA, so his respectable .288 BA was accompanied by a .294 OBA Still the author of one of my favorite OF throws of all time, a spin-o-rama he did off a high first hop of a bloop just inside the RF line that nailed Pete Rose trying to go from 1st to 3rd

The thing about Cabrera is that he's not particularly old (31 - Valentin was 36 back in 2006) and, while 2016 was his best statistical season, it wasn't THAT much of an outlier to where it was reasonable to expect a significant correction. That said, I'm fine if they want to promote Rosario and go with him and Wilmer on that side of the IF with Jose & Asdrubal coming off the bench. I don't think that's happening tomorrow but it could come soon. But of course unless the pitching does a quick about-face (back to DFL in the NL) then none of this is going to matter anyway. Thread title aside, Cabrera is about 7th on the list of things killing this team.

d'Kong76 wrote: What's with the 2 7th inning stretches thing I'm hearing about? Top of 7 supposedly ended with Pitt hitting into and around-the-horn DP But it seems that Neil Walker's spikes were 1/8 of an inch off the base as he made his pivot so we of course have to go to replay because this is the textbook example of why replay exists. But it seems that the umps were reluctant to go to replay while God Bless America was playing. Why GBA needs to happen every 7th inning is another question we should be asking ourselves, but one problem at a time. And it seems that no one informed Terry that Hurdle was challenging as the challenge didn't even begin to happen until GBA was over and the Mets were putting their batting gloves on. So then the call was overturned, the Mets had to come back out onto the field and re-warm-up in order to get the 3rd out ... which didn't happen until the runner who was put back on 2nd base scored on a single. Ronnie, God bless him, called the entire thing an embarrassment to the sport And now you have not only an answer as to why the dual 7th-inning stretches but also a partial answer as to why there were more NYM games over three hours just last year then there were during the entire decade of the 1970s

Or that Reyes can be a utility player which is what he was brought on board here to be - that was the plan for both last season and this one. The larger issue here is that if Wilmer starts to hit the ball to RF with any kind of authority he's going to be a dangerous offensive weapon. He doesn't need to hit it over the fence that way necessarily (he has ONE career HR to that side) but up until recently he's been strictly a 'Carvel Hitter' to RF ... nothing but soft serve.

The Infield Fly Rule shouldn't have been called on that play no matter who the SS was, but that's a separate problem.

There is no obvious explanation for the poor throws. Twice in the last week now he's simply goosed throws off target that were neither difficult nor rushed. The previous one hurt us, tonight's (Saturday's) error almost did and instead "only" wound up costing Blevins a dozen or so extra pitches to overcome.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Think an extra, oldish arm would help? Ernesto Frieri as This Year's Salas, anyone? And speaking of relievers acting on a contractual clause to opt out of a minor league, old buddy Bobby Parnell did so with Kansas City when he wasn't promoted by June 1 (a 4.51 ERA and 1.57 WHIP while pitching for Omaha will do that to ya). Sandy, though, is quoted as saying that the Mets "aren't likely" to pursue either Frieri or Parnell. Of course if they were he'd probably say they weren't anyway so who knows.

Reyes still has the pop-up thing perfected.

themetfairy wrote: Whatever the question, Sewald is not the answer. Well, he was the answer to the question of who had been really good up until tonight.

Frayed Knot wrote: I think if we can hold the Pirates down to 12 or less this inning we've still got a chance here. Except that it's looking increasingly less likely that we're going to hold the Pirates to less than a dozen.

I think if we can hold the Pirates down to 12 or less this inning we've still got a chance here.

Somebody tell Duda that he needs to hit 2 or 3 more tonight.

Edgy MD wrote: Man, Polanco looked like Joe Hardy suddenly turning back into a middle-aged man in the middle of a play. Polanco is beginning to show shades of former Phillie prospect Domonic Brown to me. Same type of tall build, lefty swinging, highly-rated prospect who's coming around slower than his team hoped. Not saying Polanco is destined for the same fate as he's still just 25 y/o. But he was a top-10 prospect pre-2014 who is still doing just eh. Brown,now 29, hasn't played in the majors since 2015 and is now toiling in the Colorado system at AAA Albuquerque with only mediocre results.

I think Duda just hit it in the same seat as before!!

I think that's the first time we've ever retired Harrison in a run-down play.

Not content with merely walking every leadoff man he faces, Harvey decides to change things up by plunking the leadoff man in this inning.

I heard she's blaming Trump, the Russians, the vast right-wing conspiracy, and the DNC.

41Forever wrote: The stadium as a reputation as one of the most expensive in the game, right? At some point, a middle class family can only do this once or twice a season instead of once or twice a month. That's gong to affect the bottom line, I think. When the Yanx first built the new place they assumed that their run as the hottest ticket in town was going to continue forever just as the Mets assumed that 2006 was merely the start of a lengthy run at the top with ticket demand to match. So the Yanx priced their top seats at something like $2,500 per and just figure that the bandwagon celebrities would keep piling in. But tune into any MFY game and the first thing you notice is that the best seats are the emptiest. It also didn't help when one of their execs told those seat holders not to give away or re-sell their ticket lest it upset those who did show up by having to sit next to any undesirables who don't normally run with such a crowd. But none of the NYC sports teams who got new cribs around that time were prepared for what the recession was going to do to their revenue stream dreams and so all wound up cutting ticket prices off their original plans, or, in the case of the football teams which saw their season ticket waiting list fall from tens of thousands to nil, their PSL fees. Hence the large fall in revenue stream mentioned in that article.