Frayed Knot

I haven't been in a movie theatre in at least six months but was seeing previews for this HACKSAW RIDGE movie at least as far back as the last time I was at a flick and maybe even a couple trips before that ... and it's still not out yet!!

Zvon wrote: [tweet]https://twitter.com/Crawford_MILB/status/792558151950225409[/tweet] That's pretty good.

I rarely surprised by the outcome of series - but I am totally shocked by how inept the Cubs look while they're in the process of losing.

metirish wrote: Webby is the FOX?Mets director Bill Webb? Yes, he's long been a director for network sports as well as SNY.

metirish wrote: Lackey looks pumped , I mean he always does though. Lackey always looks annoyed to me.

Mets Guy in Michigan wrote: Did Familia get robbed here? I'll repeat here what I spent much of the second half of the season saying, I don't think Familia was the best reliever on the Mets this year.

So with the more radical 'never let 'em hit' theory in place, Kluber tonight would have been removed after pitching two innings. Not sure the Indians would be best served by that move.

Ashie62 wrote: If one of the HPAC panel members has evidence that a player has used .... Who or what is HPAC?

MFS62 wrote: Do you think that Andrew Miller would have emerged as a multi-situational asset if Terry Collins had been his manager? Of course the playoffs are a different animal. During the regular season just six of Miller's 26 appearances for Cleveland following the late July trade were for more than one inning and only once during that time did Francona bring him in prior to the 7th. But now in October they're quite obviously leaning on Miller more often, for longer, and starting earlier in games than they did in more than two months of regular season use.

MFS62 wrote: Kluber is probably an unknown to many of the Cubs hitters. On account of them not having faced him since ... Tuesday.

86-Dreamer wrote: This is what I was afraid of with the pinch runner. Funny how it came down to that spot in the order, huh? Although it's not like Soler and his .238 season BA (.224 vs RHP) is a clear better bet in that situation than is Heyward and his .230 (.238 vs RHP). Soler is the better power threat but they just need a single in that spot so at worst it's probably a wash. Also, as mentioned earlier in this thread somewhere, Soler has only a handful of ABs (about 20) since mid-September himself. Might Maddon have yanked Soler for not busting it out of the box on that fly ball/triple?? Supposedly his only team rules are that you play defense and run hard. I don't think he circles the bases on that hit anyway but yaneverknow once the ball gets into those funky corners at Wrigley. In the end I think it was just a speed and defense move and things did wind up as Heyward on 2nd base as the winning run.

Zvon wrote: Is it too late to start a petition to have one of these next two be a day game @Wrigley? Several decades too late.

Chad Ochoseis wrote: Yeah, I've lost track, but I think the pitcher's spot is fifth or sixth up in the 9th inning. And I'm almost certain that Terry F. just burned through his last position player. I had no idea Yan Gomes had been reactivated, but here he is making his first post-season appearance. Kind of like Schwarber, he's had all of 2 ABs since mid-July.

The last World Series game the Cubs won came via a walk-off (12th inning, Game 6, 1945 WS) ... just sayin' Of course the fact that everyone on both teams from that game are dead at the current time (and you could look it up) probably means that it has little or no meaning for tonight's contest.

Wells Fargo Bank buts time to say that they're going to give back all the money they recently stole from their customers. That's really nice of them, don't you think?

The almost automatic use of the double-switch seems to be a thing with AL managers. But unless you're going to want to get more than an inning out of the reliever you're bringing in, it's really a senseless move.

Butvthey are losing You're free to disagree with the move, I'm just saying what Maddon's reasoning is on the deal. Plus, now that Miller is gone, if Heyward does have to bat it won't be against the nasty lefty thus negating at least some of the diminished offense part of the equation.

86-Dreamer wrote: With two outs - why pinch run Heyward there? seems like an unecessary waste of a bench option and a lessor hitter substituted for a good one Because they were going to bring him in for defense anyway.

Cubs have lost four games in this year's post-season ... and they've been shutout in all four of them. SFG = 1, LAD = 2x, CLE = 1

Zvon wrote: I don't think there's enough to reverse that. I don't reverse this one either (Kipnis at 1st) if left up to me. ... and they don't!!!

And a crisply delivered single (see what I did there?) breaks the scoreless tie ... but the seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians" get another runner thrown out on the base paths ... and they almost had another just before that.

Chad Ochoseis wrote: Bunting. Bunting ahead of your worst hitting position player and your pitcher. FIRE TERRY!!!! It also means Terry got no benefit out of double-switching when he brought in Miller. Now I guess he could argue that he wanted to sub for Santana defensively anyway ...

Well, considering that they just signed Heyward to a 95 year contract last winter (well, eight years anyway) it's not like blocking Soler, or at worst playing alongside him, wasn't part of the plan. Heyward's just been so awful in this first year that it's 'Plan B' time.

Zvon wrote: Jason Stark tweets: [tweet]https://twitter.com/jaysonst/status/792183370839130112[/tweet] This can't be true, right? He's not an everyday player. Mostly right now he's taking the ABs that would normally go to Heyward.

I'd start out by questioning the equivalency the author is expecting to get from starters & relievers. Reliever WHiPs are sometimes as low as they are because they occur during specific match-ups, where in this case of starters going shorter and relievers going longer, there'd no longer be the ideal match-ups or the short stints. His projections assume that altering the way pitchers are used would not at all change the output you'd get from them. Seems to me also that the plan would tend to get fouled up by the inevitable hurler who gets bombed at which point you're either getting lots of runs scored against you while waiting for his turn to come up in the batting order before you replace him or, by quickly replacing pitchers who are pitching well and replacing even more quickly those not pitching well, you're forced into using most of your staff just to get through one game and then needing most or all of them to do it again the next day. I've long thought that those advocating for this sort of revolving staff are too quick to assume only the upside of the outcome, a bit ironically in the same way that sac bunting advocates do. MLBN host Brian Kenny is a big 'Kill the Starter' guy (along with wanting to kill the 'Win' as a stat, kill the 'Save', etc.) and talks about this sort of stuff in a recent book. He didn't tie his plan specifically to never hitting the pitcher (which IMO would just play right into the hands of the universal DH crowd) but more as a way to proactively remove starters prior to their inevitable decline due to elevated pitch count and/or their 3rd/4th time through the lineup. [fimg=150:36i4es3l]http://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/50/110/633/1501106333.jpg[/fimg:36i4es3l]