Frayed Knot

Met announcers -- All of them! -- need to stop citing RiSP stats as if they're a reliable indicator of future prowess.

Do you want to tell him that there's only three Ms in MarsmallowMilkshake or should I? Met bats rattle the Sox' opener ... but they didn't nuke 'im.

And the game is over in a tight 3:34 !!!

Throw a strike Kodai. Even if he cranks it outta here you've got a two run lead!!! But he sticks with the Ghost Fork and now it's two outs.

ChiSox have had two men on in so many innings in this series, yet have a total of 15 hits in 18 innings.

That was Torrens's 35th career HR. Six of them (approx 17%) have come since August 4th.

It's Luis Torrens's world and we're all just renting space in it.

Runner on 3rd no now one outs. We could use this run and I don't care that it blows a Kodai save chance.

The last 1 - 2 - 3 half-inning here was the bottom of the 4th

I have very little confidence in the Mets holding the ChiSox to two or fewer runs over these final three innings. iow, we still need more runs, maybe lots of them. ... although getting an actual leadoff batter out for a change is a nice start

Six innings = 2:28 The Mets have played 27 games this year that ran 2:28 or shorter. So about 1/5 of their games so far this season were over by this point.

That sac bunt was the first time the White Sox have put the ball in play in ten batters. And yet they've had six baserunners in that time. All nine previous ABs ended in walks, an HBP, and Ks. And now it's 11 ABs with no ball leaving the infield ... but the Sox have two runs (and counting?)

5 innings > 2:00

Second HR of the day for Benge. Ooooh, that's harsh!

The 3rd inning must have lasted at least 3x as long as the 4th

Last night reminded me of a Yanqui game. The Sox totaled just six hits but four were HRs and those accounted for all their runs. Apropos of that, they're currently in the 9th today in the Bronx with the Jays outhitting the Yanx 15 - 3 ... and enjoying a whopping 4-3 lead.

Seattle, currently sitting 4.0 games behind Houston in the West and one of six within two games of each other for the final WC slot, will bring up Kade Anderson for tonight's game vs the Cubbies. The 22 y/o 6' 2" lefty was the 3rd overall draft pick just last year from LSU, In 2026, his only pro season, Anderson has pitched to a 1.06 ERA with a 0.64 WHIP (47 hits + 13 BBs in 93 innings) across 18 starts at AA Arkansas. Is that a pitching line I could interest you in?

Tonight the Yanx (Spencer Jones) hit one high and down the line which was ruled a HR despite the booth and Jones himself (he stopped halfway towards 1st) thinking it was probably foul. The call stood after an extremely short review. Now I don't know what replays the ump center saw. We watching YES saw basically nothing, just the same wide angle shot as was shown live over and over again (which wasn't definitive either way) as if there was no second (or third) angle*. Kind of ironic that HR replays, the first one MLB used (and instituted a rule mid-season) because they thought it was so important, is now the one which probably has the biggest error rate due to the lack of, or poor placement of, cameras. * Would I put it beyond YES to withhold an angle which indicated the ball was foul? ... no., but of course there's no proof of that.

Series of interest for the weekend: Braves @ Brewers Cards @ Phils Jays @ Yanx Nats @ Marlins Rays @ Orioles I include that last one because it's possible -- not like.y, but possible -- for the AL East to send four teams to the playoffs. Baltimore is currently last in the East at 6 games under .500 and the Jays 1.5 G ahead of them. But the 3rd WC right now (tie between MIN & TEX) sits at 2 games under so almost no one has been eliminated. Essentially 12 teams are fighting for six spots and there's 8.5 games between slots 3 and 12.

My guess is probably yes. Those who question it are going to cite the career totals, or lack thereof. His 272 starts barely ekes him into the top 450* and he only recently notched his 100th win [105 - 73]. The model to link him to is the short-but-great-prime of Koufax: just 12 and 13 (so far) seasons (not all those years were full or close to it) and both had the most dominant primes of their era. But even Sandy has deGrom beat by 125 games, some 700 innings and 60 wins all despite exiting the game at age 30. There are parallels but JdG wasn't Koufax so he's going to have to settle for Sandy lite. Not everyone will think that's good enough. He's currently in the midst of his worst statistical season of his career even if it is still a pretty good year, but he's certainly unlikely to get better going forward. There's one more year on his contract plus a mutual option for '28. He'll turn 39 & 40 y/o in mid-season of those years. Two good ones would go a ways towards removing doubt and even two decent ones will help a lot as well. It's possible he could pitch past 2028 (we re-built him stronger, faster, and paid him a lot more than $6 million $$) but you can't count on it. * Currently tied in 449th place with Steve Barber, a guy who was featured prominently in BALL FOUR as the pitcher taking up a spot on the roster due to his big salary (like $75,000) despite never being able to get out of the trainer's room and onto the field.

There are also rules in sports leagues as to how much debt an owner can take on. So at some point a theoretical numbskull of an owner wouldn't be able to borrow here to pay there, or owe X million $$ a decade from now without a certain portion of that invested/set aside to cover it, etc.

JdG notched his 2,000th strikeout Thursday night vs the Nationals. It was his 272nd game and 1,661st inning pitched in MLB. Only Randy Johnson (262 games pitched) and Chris Sale (1,626 innings) reached the 2K mark faster.

Cincy CF Dane Myers dropped the 27th out of the game (hit him right in the glove) allowing two runs to score and the Cardinals to take a 6 - 5 lead. But it didn't end there. StL sent on to score four more times to run up a 10 - 5 lead in a game which should have been over. But wait, it gets better. The Reds counter with four runs in the bottom of the 9th ... but then Matt McLain lines out with the bases loaded to end the game: 10 - 9 StL That one's gonna leave a mark. Cincy was already 6.5 games out of the 3rd WC spot (SDP at the moment) so need every W they can get.

Yeah, that seems a matter of when, not if. He's also got his paws in a ton of other sports properties: LA Sparks (WNBA), women's pro soccer and hockey leagues, various motor sports, minority shares in the LA Kings hockey and in the arena where the Lakers/Kings play, Ligue 1 team Strasbourg, and, why not?, a pro Squash league.

The Ohtani deal is the Bobby Bonilla deal writ large. As GWreck points out, it's not like the Dodgers are paying Shohei his $2 mil/yr and plan to figure out the rest later. They're investing some version of what they would pay him under a normal contract and will pay his post-career money off of that. The Wilpons did the same with Bonilla, which would have been a good deal for them -- put a small amount aside in the 20-aughts and pay him off the compound interest from that in the coming decades when what seemed like big numbers in the GWB era would later look puny by comparison -- had they not been investing with a crook whose stated growth via interest rates they were seeing on paper were as real as Sidd Finch's fastball.