Frayed Knot

One odd note I read the other day was that Rosario had racked up something like six errors in an eight-game span, certainly not what you'd expect from a guy whose defense was said to be ML-ready long before his bat started to catch up but, unless that suddenly signals the start of a trend, I think we can just write it off to 'Shit Happens'

For those not viewing, the Mets caught up, and eventually went ahead, in essentially the same way they got behind: with some timely walks surrounded by every batted ball in an inning finding itself a hole. In the end, the Marlins' six-run 4th and the Mets five-run 7th produced maybe two hard-hit balls combined and many of the hits could just as easily produced rally-killing GiDPs - especially with the Clydesdales out there clogging up the base paths for the home team. oe: and not just a 1-2-3 save for Familia, but a 7 pitch 1-2-3 inning. That's certainly a nice change of pace.

seawolf17 wrote: Flicked over to the Braves/Cards game between innings (Braves are getting kill't) and when StL's Randall Grichik came up the organist played the 'Odd Couple' theme song. He/she has come up with some clever ones in the early going so far. The organist is on Twitter, and he's a fantastic follow because he'll actually crowdsource what songs to play for the visiting teams. It's excellent. [tweet] [/tweet] He had me stumped for a moment because I was thinking that Grichuk's name was Russell and so it took me a minute to figure out the connection.

Nats win just a few seconds after we did so no closer to them, although it does mean 2nd place alone which is ... something I suppose.

THAT was a bigly win!!

Flicked over to the Braves/Cards game between innings (Braves are getting kill't) and when StL's [u:j15iuyqs]Randall[/u:j15iuyqs] Grichik came up the organist played the 'Odd Couple' theme song. He/she has come up with some clever ones in the early going so far.

That's some bad lip-synching right there.

Stick THAT in your Bear Claw and smoke it!

Damn! Gotta score at least the two guys on base. More than that would be gravy.

That was the right call to hold Conforto there. Maybe with two outs you challenge, but they have arms out there.

Were one pitch from getting out of that inning at least five different times. Although the bottom line is that if they're going to be two-hit by Tom Koehler then it's not going to be a win anyway. The only good thing about Koehler tonight is that he's made 1/4 of the Marlins outs so far.

Every hit has been with two outs, every hit with two strikes.

Decent first two innings from Montero with the exception that his penchant for nibbling has him throwing about three innings worth of pitches just to get through the first two.

Any word yet on rescheduling? Officially: "A later date" They considered rescheduling it to an earlier date but, for some reason, logistics got in the way of that plan.

Right, they decided that all post-season games need to be (at least) nine innings to be considered official, essentially making up the rule on the spot during a delay during Game 5 of the 2008 Phils/Rays WS. It became an official rule going forward after that but only for post-season games.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: What's changed is that games that get suspended now get continued. So if the rain came in the sixth inning, the Mets and Braves would have to complete the game at some future date. It would no longer stand as a complete six-inning game. Only if an otherwise official-length game were tied would it be suspended and picked-up later. A six inning game with one team in the lead would still be counted as a completed game.

The forecast is for heavier rain earlier in the day with "showers" listed for game time and beyond. So, depending on their definition of "showers", this one is maybe 50/50 to come off tonight. That means it could turn into a DH tomorrow where the forecast calls for ... wait for it ... showers starting around 5 PM.

[u:2qrxs6pw]KTE - Marlins May 5 - 7[/u:2qrxs6pw] We start the day in a three-way tie for 2nd-4th with the Marlins and the Phillies, and a 1/2 game ahead of the Braves -- so we could basically wind up anywhere after this weekend is over. And hopefully they can chip away at the 6.5 lead of Washington. Braves host Milwaukee while the Nationals are at Philly, which means that there's a good chance that the nine games this weekend involving NL East teams will all be rained out. Friday - 7:10 (Rain Permitting) Montero vs Tom Koehler [1-1 in 5 starts; 5.40; 1.56] We somehow managed to miss Koehler so far this season, a fact which certainly contributes to our sub-.500 record. Saturday - 7:10 (Rain Permitting) Gsellman vs Wei-Yin Chen [2-1 in 5 starts; 4.33; 1.19] We saw Chen twice in the first two weeks of the season. First time he shut us down for 1 run on 7 hits over 6 innings, the second time we smacked him around for 4 runs in the 2nd inning then chased his ass outta there with two more in the 3rd. Sunday - 1:10 (Rain Permitting) Harvey vs TBA This was supposed to be Edinson Volquez’s turn in the rotation, but he got DL’d right after his last outing, a start which produced the stunning pitching line of 4.1 IP, 3 ER on 3 Hits with [u:2qrxs6pw]9 Ks and 8 Walks[/u:2qrxs6pw]!! Martin Prado is back from the DL since we’ve last seen these guys and so probably will continue his .700 hitting and stellar defense against us (actually his career mark vs NYM is a quite normal .283/.325/.424 but I suspect it’s a lot better in just the most recent years) SS Adeiny Hechavarria is also back from his sick bed. This strengthens their bench by sticking Miguel Rojas on it as he was doing well in the fill-in role. Ichiro [.152/.200/.273] not so much. Everyone in their regular lineup is hitting decently well with the odd exceptions of Justin Bour and Giancarlo. Both have low BAs, but even more unusual is just 4 HRs/7 XBHs for Bour and 7/11 for Stanton despite playing pretty much everyday. I mean, shyeeeet, Reyes & Granderson can almost match that. Instead it's been Marcel Ozuna who's been their best weapon on offense this season [.301/.365/.563 w/8 HRs] and is even getting on the hi-light films with more loooooong bombs than Stanton.

Edgy MD wrote: What the deuce is that section in right field? The place where pitches to Jay Bruce wind up.

The big line of thunderstorms now looking more likely for around 8:45-9:00 - so maybe this starts on time but gets interrupted in the middle somewhere.

NWS for the Atlanta region -- "Expect occasional rain to end by 10:00 PM" There's no way they start a game that late on a get-away day (Braves staying where they are, Mets flying back to NYC) so the viability of tonight's game depends on how occasional the "occasional" rain is between 7:30 and 10:00 The future map shows a line of the real colorful stuff running right through that area right at the scheduled game time of 7:30 and then leftover stuff after that. That projection is of course over 3 hours in advance and a lot can happen between now and then, but I think there's a pretty good chance that, at best, it's going to be past the scheduled time before they drop the puck on this one.

Reyes's 5-RBI night moved him head of Kevin McReynolds and into the NYM career Top-10 with 457 Next in line is Keith with 468. Someone needs to alert the booth.

Winning three of four sounds a helluva lot better than finishing up this series two-and-two It is raining now and is expected to rain most of the day in Atlanta (and presumably in nearby Cumberland, Georgia as well) before slacking off sometime this evening. iow, this game may or may not start on time and there's a chance it won't come off at all.

Walker's hitting woes aside, his base running gaffe was simply a brain fart; not that those are good but they happen. He also should have called TJ off on that late-game pop-up that wound up falling in. The error wound up (rightfully) going to Rivera but Walker was far too passive on that play. I was much more pissed at Reyes's goof because it was pure laziness coupled with a trend I've mentioned before where baseball is now being treated as a series of disconnected individual plays where 'Time Out' reigns as standard operating mode between each play where you don't have to be alert because the time between the last out and the first pitch to the next batter has been designated as some sort of worry- free zone - at least mentally even if not officially. I saw a few days ago where Molina caught another guy off base who, just like Reyes, was casually strolling, head-down, back to "his" base as if nothing could proceed until he reached and got set for the next pitch. Yadi pulled off the same thing during this year's WBC, but obviously not all were paying attention.

Perhaps the most over-looked piece of strategy in this game was Terry going to Reed [u:j52sdm2t]in the 7th[/u:j52sdm2t] when it was still a semi-close (9-5) affair. Not sure how he was planning to work the 8th & 9th had the bats not blown it open in the top of the 8th, but it was obvious Terry didn't want this one getting away. I also hope that the late fireworks won't keep Walker & (especially) Reyes from getting an ass-chewing over their base running follies early in the game. Has we NOT held onto this one it could well have been the worst loss of this young season and that's saying something considering how the last few weeks have gone.