Frayed Knot

And just when you thought it was safe to go back to believing they might hit a little ... the pitcher with the near-6 ERA working on a high pitch count suddenly settles in and retires 7 straight NYM batters, most of them on weak pop-outs.

The Nats got their relief help, dealing off LHR Felipe Rivero and minor league LHP Taylor Hearn for ... Pittsburgh's closer Mark Melancon Rivero, 25, has been with the Nits virtually all of this year and last, all of it out of the pen. 3.67 ERA overall, 4.57 this year. Hearn is a 21 y/o currently in Low-A who was their 5th round pick in 2015. They say he's a hard thrower but aren't they all today. Melancon, 31, has been the Pirates closer for nearly four seasons now, racking up 130 saves (incl. a league leading 51 in 2015) on a 1.80 ERA and a sub-1.00 WHiP in each of those four seasons. That's pretty consistent stuff. He'll be a FA at the end of the year.

Ashie62 wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: I don't believe that Lucroy OR a reliever are the difference between this being a playoff team or not. I wasnt sure Cespedes, Clippard, Uribe and such wer the answer last year. Neither was anyone, but when the other worldly production of Cespedes was combined with the return of Wright & d'Arnaud, the promotion of Conforto, and the collapse of the Nationals, it turned out that it was. But that's not a standard that Lucroy and some random reliever are likely to duplicate. Nor is 90 wins likely to win the division this year.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I haven't looked this up but would bet you that Neil Walker has the lowest slugging percentage among guys with 16 homers, maybe ever. Only 7 xbhs that aren't HRs, and only 7 HRs since May. Not even the lowest among guys with 16 or more HRs currently, although he's pretty close to the bottom. Eugenio Suarez of Cincy (I had to look up which team he was with) has 17 HRs with a .413 Slugging Avg is just below Walker's .419 Slugging Avg. And some big name guys are surprisingly close, starting with McCutcheon [15 HRs, .414 SLG], a couple of Nationals: Bryce Harper [20, .449] & Danny Espinosa [17, .422]. Oh yeah, and some guy named Curtis Granderson [16, .436] After Walker hit his 9 HRs in April I remember thinking that there was a decent chance he wouldn't hit another 9 the rest of the year. He'll probably break that mark but not by a lot.

Edgy MD wrote: If Conforto is going to Milwaukee, they'd better be sending Hank Aaron back. Nah. I'd want a true middle of the order hitter back and I doubt the now 82 y/o Hank would hit any higher than 6th in our current lineup.

Maybe somebody can actually invent a RiSP-Watch, it would strap around your arm and tally failures between 7 and 10 PM every night. When the fact of the Mets' comically (though not really all that funny) bad prowess at hitting with runners in scoring position started becoming an ongoing story, common sense told us that it was only a matter of time before 'regression to the mean' took over and those horrid numbers would begin to at least start creeping back toward average-ness, even if that average was nothing more than the overall sucky 2016 team BA. And yet somehow they've managed to defy all logic and things are now regressing from the mean by heading the other way. Over the last five games they're now a stunning 5 for 50 w/RiSP (with only 3 of those 5 actually knocking in a run). I mean sure that level of suckitude is just a small sample, but consider that even our 'normal' level of suck in those games would produce around 12 hits in those 50 ABs rather than five and it's pretty obvious to guess at what kind of a difference that would make over five games (four losses) that were all one-run games in the 8th inning or later. So while the league as a whole tends to hit w/RiSP at about the same rate as they do normally [Lg BA = .252, BA w/RiSP = .253] the Mets are currently hitting 36 points worse than their already league-worst average [bA = .238, BA w/RiSP = .202] and that's before you even bring up the more selective 2-outs w/RiSP number of One Freakin' Sixty Four!! The booth brought up another stat last night showing that the Mets are tied for last (with the Pirates) in the odd stat of having two or more hits in an inning this season without scoring a run - 58 times. The next bit of info I'm looking for is how often they've scored in an inning after getting the leadoff runner on. Digging through the interwebs I've found that overall averages for that stat traditionally hover around the 35-40% range. I'm sure it wouldn't surprise anyone if the 2016 Mets are far lower than that, and then lower still if Granderson solo HRs are removed from the equation.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Lucroy-dArnaud makes sense only if they've become convinced that dArnaud can't be a part of the solution longterm. But he was as recently as last year (when healthy). They gave Schneider and Thole better shots than that so far. It would also be another thing if it was apparent that Plawecki could simply step in in place of d'Arnaud as catcher of the future once Lucroy's time ran out (end of 2017) but I'm not convinced yet that KP is even a major league catcher much less a good hitting one.

I don't believe that Lucroy OR a reliever are the difference between this being a playoff team or not.

Padres opening week starters: Game 1 - Tyson Ross - was DL'd after his start, hasn't pitched since Game 2 - James Shields - Traded June 4 Game 3 - Andrew Cashner - Traded July 29 Game 4 - Colin Rea - Traded July 29 Game 5 - Drew Pomeranz - Traded July 14 When you feel you have to make wholesale changes like that by mid-season, that's a sign of poor planning as much as just circumstances.

Yeah small sample size aside, Cashner's a former 1st round draft pick (19th overall, 2008 - Cubs) who can get it up there near 100 mph but, unless he's suddenly on the verge of some major breakthrough a few weeks shy of turning 30, he ain't all that. Rarely turns in full seasons, now on his third org., mid-4's ERA more often than not. I'd almost bet on him being a future closer candidate than a rotation stalwart. Don't know anything about the minor leaguers involved, but it's not like he's a huge step up over over the 3+ years younger Cosart. Cashner also a FA at the end of the year. And he'll have to chop off that huge bird's nest of a beard as per Miami rules (was that strictly a Mattingly import or some front office thing?), that alone could take a couple of days.

Wow, other teams 'Do the 'Strand' too!! (1st & 3rd / no one out - no score) [youtube:2r4ewq33]ykMdLEXQ4fQ[/youtube:2r4ewq33] Now the only problem is that Matz once again has thrown four innings worth of pitches just to get through three innings even though he's allowed just the one run.

Single, K, Pop-out, Walk, Walk, Pop-out The pattern is familiar.

Oh dang! I guess I had him too much confused with Michael Taylor.

And then there's Roger Bernadina who's doing OK (.302/.388/.470) although, as with all these guys, you have to remember that, yeah, it's the minors and, yeah, it's Vegas. He's currently playing a mixture of CF & LF and would have to be added to the 40-man as well. As I remember from his Nationals days he was uber-athletic but those talents didn't always translate themselves into baseball skills. Enough pop and speed to intrigue you but also too many Ks to ever work into a full-time job, kind of a like an earlier version of current National's OF Michael Taylor who essentially replaced Bernadina on the 4th/5th/6th OF shuttle system.

We also now have ONE RH-hitting OF to go with four LH hitters, and the RH guy is at least partially injured.

Terry's moves: - as I said at the time, although I didn't want to PH for deGrom, it was the right move. It was a major situation run scoring opportunity (2nd & 3rd/none out) and, for all the talk about what a good hitter JdG is, he has 3 hits this entire season and has K'd just under 1/3 of the time. - using Cespedes there was the right move too. Yeah you pretty much knew he was going to get walked but that's OK too since it uses him without taxing him. Then I also liked that it was a pitcher PR'ing for him so as to not waste a player on a day with a short bench. The alternative there is saving him for some other PH situation that might never come up - and what are the odds that there was going to be a better one than that: 2nd & 3rd/no outs and already the bottom of the 8th?? - I was less OK with PH'ing Johnson for Lagares but mostly for the defense it might (though didn't) cost us later than the move itself. But I understand the thinking; with the team hitting as poorly as it has lately leaving Juan in there vs RHPs (where he's hitting .224) is not going for even the smallest edge you can find. And I'm certainly not buying the logic that because the black cloud is so thick right now that it's all going to fail anyway so let's all just throw our hands up and not bother trying. - I would have gone to Robles to start the 8th with the idea of going to Reed in the 9th. And not just because Familia blew the save the night before (in a way I was almost glad the streak is over) but for the several games he had pitched in a row and for the thing that's kind of gone unnoticed this season with all the emphasis on his streak ... that Reed's been the better pitcher all year: lower ERA (by a full run), lower WHiP (by almost 50%!!), fewer batters faced in the same amount of innings. What's saved JF has been that he generates more ground balls (9 GiDPs) and that he keeps it in the park (0 HRs). He probably needed the break and I don't feel like you're losing much (if anything) replacing Reed/Familia with Robles/Reed That said, Jeurys was actually was more unlucky today than bad after so many games lately of it being the other way around. Broken bats hits, seeing-eye hits, bunts that didn't roll foul, etc. The walk killed him but it's not like that's a rarity with him. Not blameless, but also not terrible. - Once Reed was in I would have been tempted to let him finish the inning on just about anyone except maybe Carlos Gonzalez when one swing ties the game. But CG hits 50 points less vs LHPs and was 0-3 w/2 Ks vs Blevins ... and now he's 0-4 w/3 Ks All IMHO of course. oe: and lest we forget where the real problem lies: we scored one run today and 15 over the last 6 games, that's not a formula for winning under any strategy.

I assumed SS Trevor Story and his six HRs in his first four games (or whatever it was) while replacing Tulowitski and filling in for Reyes was going to be the classic 'Flash in the Pan' story - and it looked that way briefly, but now he's still banging them out and his 27 HRs leads the league. Arenado is one behind in second. This David Dahl guy starting LF today was just called up 3 days ago. Their 1st round draft pick in 2012 (#12 overall - two picks ahead of Cecchini) out of HS in Alabama, he was their top position player prospect (top 40-ish overall) and his call-up has sparked rumors of Charlie Blackmon's possible availability on the trade market. He's 3 for 12 so far w/1 HR

What's next, a balked-in run? This entire inning has been seeing eye singles, walks, bunt singles, broken bat infield-single/error, SBs, WPs

DAMMIT, another leadoff man on!! This inning is fucked.

1 for 9 today -- IF 1B (no RBI) FO, K, GO, K, IF PO, GO, K, FO, so only 2 balls out of the infield and both of them shallow flies w/2 outs -- and 5 for the last 42

This isn't an offense, it's a fucking Russian novel.

I've seen this movie before and I don't like how it ends.

Not sure I loved PH-ing Johnson for Lagares - even before he grounded out.

Lefty Specialist wrote: So was he a decoy because they knew he'd get the IBB? Yes and no. If they IW him then he gets to rest his leg, and if they don't then he's in the best PH situation the Mets are likely to get this afternoon So it's a kind of a lower-case win-win.

Hate to yank deG but it's the right move by Terry to PH for him and specifically to PH Cespedes. By the same token it's the right move by Walt Weiss to IW him. And I like the move to PR with Matz!!