Frayed Knot

Verrett's been walking on eggshells since the first batter and I'd have had Niese warming up like four times already in this game and would bring him in at the sight of the first LHB - but by then it might be too late.

So when you compare Teixeira's 8 seasons in pinstripes and 201 (and counting) HRs to Reggie's 5 years and 144 there's really only one question left to ask: When's Teixeira's number retirement ceremony?

For a guy who gets as many strikeouts and as few walks as he does, Syndergaard gets hit for a ton of foul balls which ratchets up his pitch count far too often. Not that I'm saying that's what caused him to go all out of kilter in the 4th, but he worked almost a double inning in the 1st (25 pitches - most w/men on) and neither his 1-2-3 2nd or 3rd innings were particularly quick enough (16 & 13 pitches) to balance that one off. So while Keith was harrumphing about how he wants his starters to go at least seven, Syndergaard effectively had already done between seven and eight innings worth of throwing out there (112 pitches) he just did so while only getting six innings worth of outs. Not that Verlander was a whole lot better, but he's been at it longer and, besides, in those games where the Mets do get the ace starter out of there they seem to have a habit of getting one-hit over multiple innings by even mediocre bullpens so the idea of playing catch-up goes out the window.

I was thinking that if Verrett gets to where he's starting to get into even a little bit of trouble that you have the quick hook ready and bring in Niese, using those two as kind of like tandem starters (3-4 innings each if all goes well) so as not to give the Tigger lineup a crack at either of them more than twice. This Matt Boyd guy is a 25 y/o former 6th round pick by the Blue Jays (2013 out of Oregon State - so he would have been a Conforto teammate) who was sent to Detroit at last season's trade deadline in one of the seemingly annual David Price deals. Splitting time this year between the big club and AAA Toledo, he has 10 ML starts to his name so far this season [4.71 ERA, 1.27 WHIP] He's also a lefty which kind of suxx in that I don't think we have any active and healthy RHBs left on our roster (though I may be forgetting one or two).

Yup ... haven't won two in a row since July 6 & 7, the final game of a series vs Miami followed by the only win in the four game series against the Nats and they haven't gone back-to-back wins against the same team since the four game sweep of the Cubs at CitiField to end June/start July. Had a few losing streaks in that time though.

I'm sure Alex would love to go to his (sorta) native south Florida, but even with the incentive of him as a ticket seller just 4 HRs short of the 700 mark (look at how Miami is embracing Ichiro's quest for 3,000 hits even though very few of the 3K came with the Marlins) no team in the non-DH league is dumb enough to take him (at least I don't think so). I have no idea what Seattle needs on the field but I don't believe that city has a lot of affection for him, or vice-versa. At this point I can't imagine who would take him but yaneverknow. I'm sure the Yanx want to release him and know it's the right move for them but yet see the move of actually going through with it as some kind of public admission that they talked their way into a bad contract when they re-re-upped him way back when (like no one knows that already!!) and for all the talk about how the Yanx can always buy their way out of bad contracts I can't remember the last time they actually did so. It's like the MFY front office wants to avoid a public shaming of admitting a mistake like they're a modern-day version of some of those WWII-era Japanese Generals. And I'm assuming that they can't possibly think that this sitting is going to induce HIM into getting fed up with being the world's highest paid bench sitter and walk away from next year's salary but it's like that's exactly what they're trying to get him to do while they simultaneously make sure that no one else will want him either.

Teixeira to retire effective the end of this season, to be announced in a presser this afternoon. Not a huge surprise, his contract is up, he'll turn 37 next opening week, and he's been breaking down physically for years now (barely 1,000 total ABs since the beginning of 2013). It's obvious that the Yanx aren't going to resign him and he'd probably be getting the ARod treatment right now had 1B-apparent Greg Bird not gotten hurt in ST.

Jordan Zimmermannnnn actually came back off the DL today for his first start in more than a month but got rocked by the ChiSox (didn't survive the 2nd inning) as the Tigers eight-game winning streak was stopped in an afternoon game (at least they will be well rested for Friday's game). Friday is the marquis matchup with Verlander - v - Syndergaard Saturday / Sunday will be Verrett /deGrom for us, still listed as TBD for them but it obviously won't be Zimmermann, nor will it be Cespedes trade bait Michael Fulmer who went on Wednesday. Both Friday & Saturday games are at night and I notice the Tiggers use the odd 7:08 starting time for their night games. 1:08 on Sunday

So what the fuck is Girardi (and/or the Steinbrenners) trying to prove with ARod? Down by three, two runners on base, #8 hitter at the plate (2 career HRs - none this year) and you leave the guy with 696 careers HRs on the bench?!? ... and with his jacket on it didn't look like he was going to hit for the #9 hitter either (23 HRs in >1,000 ABs) if he came up. Yeah I know he suxxx at this point (and whose fault it that?) but this now smells like they've decided to cut him but are intent on embarrassing him first. And I'm sure you all know that this rant is not based on any kind of sympathy for Sir Alex of Rodrigia. But how is playing with a 24 man bench while you're only 5 or so games out of the WC race doing yourself any favors? It's like they don't care if it hurts themselves as long as they make him look and feel like shit in the process. oe: and all of this coming off two games where they sat him against a lefty hurler on Wednesday and vs Colon tonight against whom he had more HRs than anyone - and instead DH'd a just called-up backup catcher who was 0-for-4 in his major league career when this series started. So if I'm a Yanqui fan -- even if not an ARod fan -- I'm on the warpath right now over this game.

Sit down Girardi!!

Nymr83 wrote: Colon continues to amaze me. When he first signed that initial two-year deal, most of us assumed that he'd pitch year one while the baby hurlers developed and then probably phased out and/or dealt away at some point during the second season. And now here we are 2/3 of the way into Year Three of the great Bartolo experiment and the idea that he might be signed for next season is not at all out of the question.

Back to the usual for Reed, the ultra-efficient scoreless inning.

Hey Steven Matz, THAT'S how you follow a run-scoring inning!! 6 pitches, 3 outs for old man Bart.

Ashie62 wrote: I called for a Cespedes DL a week ago but FK shot me down. Ashie62 wrote: Put Cespedes on the DL already. With 5 DH games coming up? Well, if 'asking a question' (one you didn't answer btw) equals 'shot you down', then yes, and it was because I'm not big on DL'ing guys and therefore guaranteeing that they'll miss at least 15 days based on the idea that the injury might progress to the point where they have to miss those games. And I'm especially not anxious to do it when coming up on a stretch of games where there's a specific role for him which would take some of the strain off the leg, keep the best bat in the lineup at a time when they're desperate for offense, and still give playing time to the others in our suddenly crowded outfield.

Wilmer looked like shit on both sides of the ball last night and is hitting barely .200 vs RHP Grandy vs Conforto with the glove? Eh, I could go either way on that one and at least Grandy is familiar with that stadium and even that particular field even if only a handful of times (looks like 11 YSIII starts in LF three seasons ago)

Matz is like the anti-deGrom out there, totally unable to work out of trouble once something goes wrong. Not only was that Teixeira's first RH HR of the year but that whole inning started with 2-outs and none on. He started the 1st inning with a 3-pitch K too but then still managed to give up the 2-run lead. That the lead wasn't bigger was of course not his fault but maybe it got to him. Bottom line is that there was essentially a seven AB span which took the score from potentially plus 4 or 5 in our favor to down 1. Conforto - K, Flores - GiDP. Then, following the 3-pitch Ellsbury K: Single - Walk - Double - K - Double It's like that, in addition to the botched add-on runs, he got mad that the singles -- both the one after the Ellsbury K in the 1st and then the two which followed the first two outs in front of the Teixeira HR in the 2nd -- were kind of dinky and as a result got all flustered over it. -- That late infield hit w/bases loaded is actually the one play I DON'T blame Flores for. There were, however, a couple of early ones that I think a better SS maybe gets to. -- Robles was being stupid but, yeah, it's an isolated incident as far as we know.

I don't think Walker is returning OR turns into a draft pick (you wanna offer him $15-16 mil?), but I also don't see dealing Dilson as being dependent on any of that. Like I said when the trade first went down, you have to give to get and no one is giving you potentially 900 ABs of Jay Bruce for a couple rolls of athletic tape and some low A-ball [crossout]pro[/crossout]suspect. And I don't know that the Mets soured on Dilson, as some here seem to believe, so much as they know he's limited to 2nd base and that there are other candidates -- Reynolds, Cecchini, Flores, Reyes -- that can fill that role and others as well and that there's always a chance that someone else coming up the pipeline later on. Often the worst mistake a team can make is believing that certain players, particularly unproven ones, are irreplaceable.

TransMonk wrote: 18 games against last place teams (ARI, ATL, MIN, CIN) 13 games against below .500 but not last place teams (SDP and PHI). All this optimism forgets one thing: We lose to bad teams!

Re-tweaked his leg in his final AB. So much for the five game DL stint that would allow him to heal. Taking bets on Jay Bruce's DL listing. Will it come before his first NYM hit?

Did we ever find out how Duda injured himself in the first place? It seems to me that all of a sudden there was just an announcement of a stress fracture in his back but no explanation of how it happened ... and now it turns into a year-long thing.

d'Kong76 wrote: Side note, pretty crappy looking infield grass-wise for the mecca-of-all-things baseball past, present and future. I guess that's the soccer they're playing on that field - but maybe they just need the money. Remember when the Yanx, both players and front office, routinely complained about the condition of the Shea infield, like it was beneath their dignity and possibly a hazard to their health just to play on it?

This is now officially the worst-played baseball game in the history of mankind.

Five ABs w/bases loaded (two with none out) and they haven't got a ball out of the infield yet. 1 GiDP, 1 GO, and 3 Ks (2 by Conforto). What a fucking disaster of a game.

We're trying to hit into more DPs but the Yanx defense won't let us.

Part of the problem with the various injuries, both during this season and in years past, is that we STILL don't really know what we have in Lagares: will he ever hit enough to warrant an everyday job, or is he just a guy who'll mostly be limited to facing LHPs and subbing in for late-inning defense? And how they answer that question plays a big role in how they'll construct their OF in the near future. If it's the latter then his escalating contract is about to make him overpaid.