Frayed Knot

Seven baserunners allowed over 5-2/3 for Gsellman but none scored largely thanks to three being erased via DP, 1 GiDP plus the two K/CS type.

Right move IMO pulling Gsellman here with Murph and Harper coming up. Now let's see if it works out.

dinosaur jesus wrote: Could they switch off against lefties and righties and camp out in right field when they're not pitching, like McDowell and Orosco that one time? That would be awesome. Sure, but since it'll be the (currently 54-91) Twins, Terry's going to have them switch off so as to pitch to their opposites (deGrom vs LHBs and Matz vs RHBs) y'know, just to make the game more fair.

From a recent IGT: FMan wrote: I want deGrom and Matz to go into some kind of time share for a rotation spot. Well you may just get your wish. Depending on the outcome of Matz's throwing session today, Collins et al are thinking about a situation where deGrom starts and Matz comes on as the 'piggyback' reliever after a set number of innings/pitches. The conditional target game could be Sunday afternoon vs Mini-Soda http://m.mets.mlb.com/news/article/201172064/jacob-degrom-steven-matz-could-return-sunday/

^ Must be nice to write the same lineup in day after day after day. We're Met fans, we don't know what that's like. ^ ^ ^ Rene getting the day game after the night game. Interesting. Meanwhile, Kevin Plawecki was recalled nearly two weeks ago but you'd never know it because he's yet to have even as much as a pinch-hit appearance much less a start. Not that I'm suggesting he should be getting a start anytime soon, but it's quite a reversal from early in the season when he was starter 1A and Rivera was Rene Who?

Edgy MD wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Unbelievable how many 9th inning leads the Giants have blown this year, and particularly lately. Just giving up on the idea that a team needs a closer can really get a manager a whole lot of freedom. Yeah, but it hasn't helped Bochy lately. In September alone they're 5-7 and lost 4 of those games on account of giving up late runs (including 3 in the 9th to lose by 1, and now 5 in the 9th to lose by 2). They even pulled out a couple of wins despite giving up late runs. In all it's pretty much been an across the board disaster for their pen even after Castilla had his closer's card taken away from him. Team is now 20-34 since the All-Star Break. Put another way, pre-ASB they were 57-33 and on pace for 103 wins. Since then they've been playing at the rate of a team destined for 102 losses over a full season. That's just a stunning reversal.

Unbelievable how many 9th inning leads the Giants have blown this year, and particularly lately. Santiago Casilla was the latest to get demoted from the closer role so they trusted last night's four-run lead to Hunter Strickland. It looks by the game descriptions like he was getting mostly dinked to death but when he walked in one run and allowed another on a ground-out Bochy went to rookie lefty Steve Okert for the final out ... and that's when SD rookie lefty Ryan Schimpf hit a 1-2 pitch for a 3R HR. Posey, Hunter, and Crawford then went down in order in the bottom 9th without getting the ball out of the infield. We saw this Schimpf guy during our recent series with the Padres and Gary kept remarking about his power for such a small-ish guy (5' 8" / 180). Well that was his 19th HR in less than 1/2 season (236 ABs) and of his 54 hits this season (and therefore in his ML career) [u:mz6kubj7]39 of them[/u:mz6kubj7] are for extra bases!! [15 doubles, 5 triples, 19 HRs] I mean sure the guy's not your classic rookie phenom seeing as how he's already 28 y/o, is hitting .229, and strikes out a ton (84) but he has as many doubles as he does singles and more HRs than either and that's some pretty freaky stuff right there.

Also lots of daytime scoreboard watching this afternoon. Cubs - Cards gets going at 1:45 EDT Padres vs Giants at 3:45 Dodgers @ Yanx at 4:05

Gsellman vs Tanner Roark. Remember that it's a 4:05 start, last weekday day game of the year. Same matchup as eleven days ago. Mets won that one 3-1 with Gsellman giving up just 1 run over 6, Roark 2 runs over 5. Chance for the second straight series win vs these dudes even if none of it involved Strasburg or Scherzer (not that I saw them facing Harvey or deGrom either). t'would be nice if we could make Muffy go hitless for [u:22lyywhe]ONE[/u:22lyywhe] game this season, something we haven't been able to do for the first 18.

Tonight turning out to be just the opposite of last night: Pirates win, Marlins win, Mets win, Cardinals win Giants are still scoreless in the 4th inning. Dodgers lost which pulls them back a game to the WC pack regardless of what SF does and with SF & LA still having six games vs each other, not seeing the Dodgers run away with the West might matter later on.

Fman99 wrote: That game was fan fuckin tastic. These guys make it hard for me to maintain my weeknight sobriety, some days. [fimg=300]https://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/57457139.jpg[/fimg]

Frayed Knot wrote: Not sure I like this. But it was the right move. That was the one AB -- Maybe all year!! -- that Murph has looked overmatched.

Not sure I like this. And are the Nats actually going to hit a ball hard tonight? Shit, they're getting their runs from nothing but dribblers and bloops. Hit the fucking ball at someone for a change!!!

We got ourselves a 5-hit Rivera night (almost 6 right there): 3 from TJ, 2 from Rene That's gotta be a club record.

Tough to kill Familia for that inning as the game was tied by essentially four ground balls, only one of which left the infield.

I was hoping that Gott and Teufel would get into a scrap as they passed each other near the 3rd base line. They finally could have settled that ancient struggle once and for all.

Another gem from the (almost) always dominant AND efficient Addison Reed.

Hell, I'd be tempted to let him start the 8th.

I thought Rendon got enough of that one at the end of the 6th inning. < 90 pitches is fine for 6 innings ... so of course Syndy starts the 7th would be nice to have more than a 3-1 lead considering the 10-4 lead in hits

Ashie62 wrote: The Mets look beaten. I'd can TC and Sandy after the season and start semi fresh 10 wins in the last 14 got you down? not to mention moving from 5th in the WC race to 2nd

Where he can pal around with Tebow!!

John Harper in the Snooze sums up, perhaps unintentionally, some of the Backman allure by passing off speculation as if fact that needs no explanation: "Suffice it to say that Backman would have made the Mets a better ballclub this season, either as third-base coach if management wanted to move Tim Teufel into the role as bench coach, or as the bench coach himself." And we know this how, John? Harper goes on to admit that his views are colored by a fondness for Backman from his days of covering him as a ballplayer -- and, as usual, reporters are fond of those with loose lips which fill up their notebooks -- which is pretty much the same logic fans use to assume that he'd be a better manager than [insert random guy without 1986 NYM ties].

Plus there's always a certain percentage of fans who pine for a manager who they believe will small-ball his way to success and they see Wally as that guy. This is particularly true when you've got the kind of HR-dependent offense like the Mets have now. I know Yanqui fans were forever busting on Torre for not bunting more often (as if THAT was the path to success when you have 12 different 20-HR guys on your roster) and it's probably still their main complaint about Girardi, misplaced though those sentiments may be.

Syndergaard vs AJ Cole This one sounds like the matchup is in our favor but we lost the last time these two faced each other 11 days ago as we wound up with just one run on four hits for the night. Cole's other three starts this year weren't nearly as good making him seemingly the latest in a whole line of hurlers who have either their only win or the best start of their season vs the Mets. And while it's easy to say that this is not a MUST win game or series because of the schedule which follows, remember how well that 'easy' sked worked out back in 2007 where shirley those final six games vs the 90-loss Nationals & Marlins would save us. Then one win and five losses later we were cooked. So while it was nice of the Cardinals and the Giants to combine for a total of just one run and six hits last night, we can't count on that continuing and I'd prefer that we NOT put ourselves in the position where we go into these upcoming series with the notion that we should and need to sweep them. Things don't always go according to script in baseball, the sport is kind of funny that way.

Cards lose, Marlins losing 12-7 in the 8th, Pirates lose, Giants just getting going Cubs magic number for clinching the Central is down to 3. But maybe more importantly, the Cubs magic number for NOT matching the '86 NYM is 4. They would need to go 16-3 or better over their final 19 games to match or surpass the 108-54 record.