Frayed Knot

Marlins - Caught and passed Pirates - Caught and passed Cardinals - Caught ... Giants - ????

He's never been Mr. GoodBody, even as a teenager, and the prospect boards that follow this stuff have often commented that he/the Mets need to keep an eye on his weight and conditioning. That said, 250 seems awfully high in the same way that the reported 185 at draft day does too low and it would seem to me that a 1st round pick gaining 65 pounds between age 18 & 21 would set off alarms bells all over the baseball world. Keith was talking the other day about how the 175 he weighed in at when first breaking into the majors as a 19 y/o followed him around for years afterward to the point where he had to specifically request a change to the 195 or so that he had become and played at during the bulk of his career, so weights listed aren't always accurate. Problem is, that 250 figure for Smith had to come from somewhere.

Edgy MD wrote: The Mets are Kings of the Pinch Homer, aren't they? Flores's shot today was the team's 12th. The Cards have a ridiculous 15 (including last night's 2-out/2-strike game-tying blow) and are getting an even more ridonculous .347 BA from their PH's NL league BA from PH's = .221; Mets = .202

The film of this game ain't headed for Cooperstown ... but it's a sweep and that's all we needed. Suck on that scoreboard watchers in StL & SF!!

So between the HBP, the Reds checking their video guy to check on the HBP, manager Price going to the umps to talk them into a crew review so it'll be a challenge while not really being a challenge, the umpires convening to decide whether they want to go to the headphones, the umps going to the headphones and waiting to hear from headquarters in NYC to decided whether the HBP actually was HBP, the confirming of the call which led to the Reds changing pitchers (which likely would have happened anyway but, for some reason, wasn't done simultaneously with the review), and finally the warming up of the new pitcher (who should have be warm already), ... we're looking at, what, maybe seven, eight, Ten?, minutes between pitches thrown? So, just like it's not the heat but the humidity, it's not necessarily the length of the game but the pace of that length.

I know that Gary gave the other side to the story on the last Cincy win during Tuesday night's game, noting that a bunch of guys no longer with the Reds were the main actors: Johnny Cueto with the win, save to Aroldis Chapman, HRs by Todd Frazier & Chris Heisey. The really sad part from a Reds viewpoint is that I don't think they got very much in return for dealing away all those guys - although Finnegan and some others may pay off down the road.

The Pirates are just a train wreck right now. I saw a couple innings of their game on Monday and they were making mistakes, errors, bad pitches all over the place. And while everyone can look just as pathetic in such a small sample when it's in the middle of a seven game losing streak you tend to think that's what they look like all the time. Then they go out today and give up a 1st inning GS. But when they fought back to actually take the lead after that disaster of a beginning they must have thought that things were turning for them ... and then came those four consecutive batters in the 9th. Pitt came back with a solo HR in the bottom of the 9th but it's a case of T-L-T-L

And now a double & HR later (Molina & Grichuk) and it's 8-6 Cards. oe: And now another HR !!! (Peralta) So how's that Melanin trade working out for you Buccos?

And Matt Carpenter ties the game in Pittsburgh with a pinch-hit solo HR with 2 outs on an 0-2 pitch in the 9th

Pirates served up a Yadi Molina 1st inning Grand Slam and were down 5-0 to the Cards early, have come back to take a 6-5 lead and are still batting in the 5th

metirish wrote: and now with his arm Speaking of delays, I was just reading this quote thinking, 'what about whose arm?' ... and seconds later the play happened and I could pretty much figure out how it was going to end before it did.

Mets Guy in Michigan wrote: Not a great at bat by Conforto there. Too many of those for him. It's gotten to where the hits look like the exception as opposed to the beginning of the year when you almost expected him to hit the ball hard somewhere each time up.

Ceetar wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: P.S. the strangest stat of the year has to be Neil Walker's total of just 9 doubles. This from a guy who had averages just shy of 29/per over the previous six seasons. There's an idea, worked into xFIP for instance, that FB/HR rate is somewhat random. So Walker's HR spike is probably tied to his low double rate. Sometimes they carry over, sometimes they don't. It's something to think about when projecting Walker for next year anyway. Or perhaps there's something to the juiced ball theory this year,and guys with solid 'warning track' power that were blasting doubles are getting more and more over the wall (Daniel Murphy?) Yeah, but it's not like Walker's HR-rate is crazy high. His 23 this year merely matches his previous peak (albeit in about 85% of the ABs) while his non-HR XBHs went from averaging over 30/year to just 10 this season (9 2B + 1 3B). So while maybe a handful of his doubles became HRs, the rest simply disappeared. Quite different than Murphy's case where his increased HR clip has been in addition to his usual bushel-load of doubles as he's both leading the league in two-baggers and will likely meet or pass his previous high of 40 (has 38 now).

Neil Walker may or may not be a Met next year but, even when they're coming off back surgeries, I don't tend to see 31 y/o (31 this Saturday to be specific) middle infielders coming off 23 HR / 823 OPS seasons opting for cheap-o one year deals. P.S. the strangest stat of the year has to be Neil Walker's total of just 9 doubles. This from a guy who had averages just shy of 29/per over the previous six seasons.

Edgy MD wrote: I was waiting to see if somebody got transferred to the 60-man DL to make room for Cecchini. I imagine Niese will get that honor. I think Walker did. Or maybe he was already 60 day'd for someone else, hard to keep track. Cecchini, I believe, needed to be put on the 40-man this winter anyway so this late call-up is pretty risk free and adds only a scant amount of days to his ML service time.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Interesting. I thought his policy was to rest the guy with the hot bat. (Or maybe that only applies to guys named "Wilmer Flores.") Well, Finnegan is a lefty which makes today 'All LHBs grab some pine Tuesday' - except of course in the OF where the choices are like nine different LH-hitters plus Yoenis.

Finnegan, you may recall, was the guy who went from the College World Series (TCU), to a 1st round pick in the draft (17th overall by KC), to the majors (debut two years ago today), and to the ML World Series all in a five month span back in 2014. The Royals then dealt him to Cincy at the 2015 deadline as part of the package for Johnny Cueto. He's probably been Cincy's best starter this season and certainly their best over this 2nd half of the year during which the Reds as a whole have been an over-.500 club (25-22)

Chad Ochoseis wrote: Giants manage to get themselves shut out at Coors, 6-0, and are now only half a game ahead of St. Louis for the first WC spot. And with the Dodgers in the process of winning big (against Greinke) the SFG are seeing the NL West odds sinking by the minute as well; they'll be a full four games out after tonight barring a miraculous Snake comeback. And the Dodgers are starting Kershaw this Friday, conveniently for us it'll be vs the Marlins.

Philly stepping on the Marlins, 6-2 so far, top of 7th

I think one of the things that soured folks on this deal (turns out I never voted on it so I can't quite remember how I thought) was that it was written and henceforth repeated and re-repeated and therefore accepted as fact, that Asdrubal couldn't play SS anymore. Not that I'm nominating him for a Gold Glove this year but his defense has been a very steadying factor in a year when the rest of the infield has been a revolving cast of often not very good fielders and/or out of place ones. IIRC, we were also told that De Aza couldn't play CF either.

And the team is 10-4 since my proclamation that we'd need to go 25-13 - which leaves us having to go 15-9 over the final 24 to get us to the theoretical 87-win WC threshold.

And there was much rejoicing.

Mets Guy in Michigan wrote: That's a big, old-fashioned windup on that Reds reliever. He used to do that on his first pitch of the game only. Now he seems to do it all the time (provided, of course, that no one is on base).

Why, with the expanded rosters, is Gsellman pinch-running? And, on an unrelated topic, why does my auto-correct keep changing Gsellman to Gs[u:2xkmo4dt]v[/u:2xkmo4dt]llman?

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Wilmer trying to get thrown out for the cycle. I'd imagine that the HR is the triple of being thrown out for the cycle. And now he's been doubled off of 1st Home plate doesn't need to be an inside-the-park attempt. He can be a runner on 2nd and get tossed trying to score. Still unlikely, but a guy can dream right?