Frayed Knot

5 ER in 5.2 innings - and so the league's worst starters ERA ticks up a couple more notches.

Would have been better had Curtis done that in his last AB when the sacks were drunk, but we'll take it.

Oh good, another XBH!

Either Walker OR Duda coulda/shoulda had Goldschmidt out ... but neither did.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: From Virginia Beach ... Same HS as DJ Dozier

I don't believe that this issue has already been decided and especially not to the point of being pre-planned.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I think so! Those numbers look pretty good to me! Compared to the last five days of the pen, they almost do: NYM Pen since Wed May 10th: 15 IP; 74 Batters (so they've retired 45 of the 74 batters they've faced); 24 Runs (23 Earned)*; 28 Hits; 7 HR; 9 Walks; 1 HBP; 14 K; ERA = 13.81; WHIP = 2.47 THAT, my friends, is truly HOLY SHIT!!! territory. * and that doesn't even take into consideration the inherited runners they've allowed to score ... too lazy to look it up

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: He's been released by Toronto and San Francisco already this year, where he coiughed up 15 earned runs in 10.1 innings. So he's an improvement then?

Just two games out of 38 at 3B (acc. to BB-Ref) maybe 3 if he played there last night and they've yet to fully update all the stats. Been at SS every other time. Rosario's going to be a ML SS, of that there seems little doubt. If he fails at the big league level it's going to be because, for whatever reason, his bat doesn't translate, not because of sub-par defense. I suspect this plan is more a case to keep Cecchini's SS glove from rusting than anything else as he's the one who's played the few games there that Rosario hasn't. According to Gary last night, Asst GM John Ricco said that if Cabrera does need to be DL'd over this thumb issue then Rosario is NOT going to be the call-up. Not sure that Cecchini will be either as some arm, probably Smoker, is more needed right now but if they do need Cecchini at some point or want to be able to flip him as a SS then it's worth their while to keep his SS skillzzz from atrophying.

Anyone else want to come out of the stands maybe to hit a HR? The beer vendor? Ball Boy? Ticket Takers?

A rare sighting of the Curtis Granderson assist. Big Foot or Jimmy Hoffa may be next. Now we just have to avoid the increasingly less rare sighting, the Hansel Robles first-pitch XBH.

Yup, three full innings needed from the pen, plus they're starting out with a runner on. And that's all if this doesn't go extras.

So tonight we're getting good starting pitching for the first time in a while ... but are getting one-hit. And we're going to need the bullpen to cover at least three innings.

Amazing how Godley is the one who's issued five walks (one of the no-pitch intentional variety) and yet it's Wheeler with the high pitch count despite hurling a shutout so far.

btw, that plaque doesn't appear to look a thing like him. That was my first reaction seeing it from a distance yesterday and now that this shot shows it closer I'm doubling down on that assessment.

LF - CONFORTO 3B - TJ RIVERA RF - BRUCE 2B - WALKER 1B - DUDA SS - REYES CF - GRANDERSON C - R. RIVERA P - WHEELER CF - REYMOND FUENTES (Carlos Beltran's cousin - replacing AJ Pollack as he's been DL'd) RF - CHRIS OWINGS (came up as in infielder) 1B - PAUL GOLDSCHMIDT 3B - JAKE LAMB LF - YASMANY TOMAS 2B - BRANDON DRURY SS - NICK AHMED C - JEFF MATHIS P - ZACK GODLEY

Nice to see that Carlos Beltran used the occasion of yesterday's circus to pass the honoree in career numbers of doubles ... in fewer ABs. He also has more career triples, and about 1.5x as many HRs Just sayin'

Edgy MD wrote: [*]Special Assistant to the GM Craig Shipley So we've gone directly from the Brewers to Shipley? MNKL9onYB_8

Arizona Diamondbacks: 22-17; +28 Run differential, 3rd place NL West 3 games behind 1st Colorado?!? The surprising part about the 2017 DBacks is that they’ve gone from worst pitching in all the NL in 2016 to top half (6th best) this season without making a lot of changes (NYM pitching is now officially DFL, btw). Their big off-season move was to import RHP Taijuan Walker from Seattle for a package of players around SS Jean Segura but Walker's been merely OK so far and they've since lost Shelby Miller to TJ surgery (although that might be an improvement given how he's pitched). Also nominal closer Fernando Rodney has just plain sucked [9.22 ERA, 1.89 WHIP]. As usual they hit: 2nd in the NL in RS/G On the injury side they lost 3 position players in the last two days which I previously thought was something only we could pull off. CF AJ Pollack went down on Sunday with a pulled groin and it’s sounding like that one may be a while, and this is after he missed virtually all of 2016 and he’s easily their best player after Goldschmidt so this one’s gonna leave a mark. RF David Peralta also left Sunday’s game with the always popular “glute tightness” which, coincidentally, is a box you need to check on a HOOTERS job application. And on Saturday part-time catcher Chris Ianetta took a pitch in the face and is now on the concussion DL C - Jeff Mathis: .154/.179/.292 1B - Paul Goldschmidt: .314/.450/.584 (10 HR) … IOW, his usual under-publicized awesomeness 2B - Brandon Drury: .322/.364/.496 SS: Nick Ahmed: .267/.321/.467 3B: Jake Lamb: .273/.358/.482 LF - Yasmany Tomas: .248/.299/.487 Not sure who we’ll see in CF & RF as Pollack & Peralta were pretty much everyday guys Mon 9:40 - Zach Wheeler vs Zack Godley [1-0; 2.25; 1.00] This will be the 27 y/o Godley’s 3rd start of this season and the 8th of his ML career having pitched parts of 2015-16 w/the DBacks Tuesday 9:40 — Tommy Milone vs Zack Greinke [8 GS, 4-2; 2.79; 1.03] Greinke seems to alternate between good seasons and (relatively) bad. Right now he’s in the midst of a ‘good’ as his 58 K / 9 BBs ratio suggests. Lots of Zack(h)s this week. Wednesday 3:40 — the starting pitcher will be this guy: [fimg=150:2qwx43v3]http://www.onlineseats.com/upload/concerts/2307_con_Harvey_Korman_2.jpg[/fimg:2qwx43v3] Oh wait, it'll actually be Harvey [u:2qwx43v3]vs[/u:2qwx43v3] Corbin ... my bad. Patrick Corbin (L) [3-4; 4.17; 1.39] We’ve faced him a couple times over the years and have usually beat him up pretty good (5 games/4 starts, 6.04 ERA)

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: The hype around Judge is less "next Jeter," and more "next Stanton." Which is actually somewhat reasonable, if you watch him. Which I'd agree with if I hadn't heard the phrase "next Jeter" about 100 times already. Also, as if on cue, Judge is on the cover of this week's SI - which is mainly a surprise in that I didn't know if SI still covered baseball. And my point in bringing up this comparison wasn't to tear down Judge. He was a high draft pick, a decently regarded prospect, is off to a great start this season and looks like he could have a nice career in front of him - at least he will as long as one treats this 138 PA run as real and the 98 he had last year where he struck out in 50% of his ABs as the outlier rather than the other way around. I just happened to notice yesterday that Conforto, with a fraction of the notice, has nearly matched Judge's start and that's after being mostly a bench player for the first three weeks of the season.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I'm surprised that any of you were actually watching. Skipped the ceremony, picked up the game in mid-1st inning. By the end of the inning I was so giddy I had to stick with it. Freakin' Yanx actually wound up getting the tying run to the plate in the 9th in a game they once trailed 8-0 as Houston's pen was almost as bad as ours yesterday, but they at least stopped one hit short of making it the worst day in recent baseball memory by holding on to the 10-7 win. The problem with the early blow-out is it did give the booth even more of an opportunity than usual to yap about anything other than the game and yesterday that could only mean one thing. I mean, hell, their advertising was building all week as if the night was a coronation which, for some odd reason, also involved some invitees from east Texas who then rudely went stomping in the fruit salad before the main course could even be served. 3 HRs in the 1st inning including a GS will do that to you.

Fman99 wrote: I'll be happy to get to the 4th or 5th inning today. Funny, that's what the Mets' starters usually say

At least it's not like games regularly last 3-1/2 hours or more these days ... oh wait, that's exactly what they do. 7 of the 17 games played yesterday (two DH's) ran north of 3-1/2 including two that were 4-plus (one needed 10 innings). By contrast only 5 of the 17 clocked in at under 3 hours. IOW, we could be in for some late ones over the next two nights.

One plays for a team that is hurdling towards being sellers at the deadline and the other plays for a team with the best run differential in baseball. it also doesn't help that the Mets have so many other stories - injuries, suspensions - to write and the papers will almost always choose to go negative when given the choice. Sure, that's part of it - although four days ago the Mets were a .500 team on a winning streak (so don't start your fire sale quite yet) And part of the Judge-mania was from earlier when his HR-rate was higher than it is now, he hadn't HR'd in 11 days prior to this afternoon. But also there's an element of Yanqui-stroking to this all -- is he the next Jeter?!!?!?!! -- combined with the ridiculous notion of 'projecting' season HR totals two weeks into the season ... he's on pace to hit 126, do ya think he'll do it !?!?!?!! And then there's the fascination these highlight geeks have with their new video game toys of "exit velocity" and distance guesstimates, as if those HRs are worth more than a regular one.

Drew Pomeranz left his game today after 3 innings [2 R, 3 Hits, 3 Walks, 3 K in an eventual 11-2 Boston loss] with "triceps tightness". As of now he's not expected to miss his next start (according to himself anyway) but we may have to WATP ourselves a different target for Harvey.