Frayed Knot

Yelich walks; 1st & 3rd; William Contreras up. Blake Treinen in to replace Sasaki Stonlen base, now Winning run on 2nd

Ground Rule Double (Bauers) -- 2nd & 3rd, tying run on 2nd, still one out, Lineup turns over to leadoff hitter Jackson Chourio Sac Fly, both runners move up. 2-1 Dodgers (they had a tack-on run in top-9), 2 outs, Yelich up.

Blake Snell faces the minimum thru 8 innings [one single - pickoff] Roki Sasaki (the guy we lusted after last off-season) comes on in the 9th to protect a 2-0 lead. GO - BB So tying run on with one out.

Right around this time last year I speculated (somewhere on this thread) that the Mets would hold off on anything north of four years for Pete and be willing to walk away if some other team went to five. Turns out it seemed like nobody even went to four. So now you can just take that same mindset only maybe holding the line at anything over three years given that he's a year older. That gets you his age 31, 32, and 33 seasons. Would they swallow hard and match a fourth year if some other suitor offered? Maybe. OTOH, three years is a tricky length for camp Alonso/Boras to accept as it's not like going into age 34 season is an inviting time to be a FA for a 1B/DH

During the discussion on this thread a year ago I was saying that if someone offered Pete five years then the Mets should be willing to walk away. So now that it's a year later, the same argument applies except that the number should revert to four years as opposed to five. Pete had a better '25 season than he did in '24, but he never got an offer close to seven years then and I don't know he'll get one now.

Mariners, who played 15 innings on Friday night and then needed to cross the country in order to face the Blue Jays on Sunday, close out Game #1 3-1 on exactly 100 pitches combined. Jays scored on the first pitch they saw in the game (Springer HR) but never again.

So we're down to the final four. - all are division winners, no wild cards. First time that's happened with the expanded WCx3 format - in both cases the surviving teams finished with the best (MIL & TOR) and 3rd best (LAD & SEA) season records in their league and all won 90+ games (90, 93, 94, 97) - one team has neither won a WS nor appeared in one (SEA) over 49 seasons - one never won a WS and only appeared in one 43 years ago back when they represented the other league - one last won a WS 32 years ago. It was their second of two in a row but they haven't been back to one since (TOR) - and one won two of the last five including just last year (as you may recall) Pulling for MIL & SEA

George Springer HR'd on the first Mariner pitch of the game (bottom 1st) and the Jays' lead remains 1-0 as the bottom of the 4th begins. btw, Cousin George, who turned 36 a few weeks back, had probably the best season of his career in 2025, built largely on a ridiculously hot second half. He finished the season at .309/.399/.560 // 959 (165 OPS+) including a scorching 1121 OPS since the ASB 2026 is the final year of the six year contract he signed with/Toronto which had seen him fall to a sub-100 OPS+ (91) in 2024 making it look like the final half of that contract was going to kind of suck. The Mariners threatened in top-2, including having a runner thrown out at the plate 5-2, but 14 straight have now gone down thru top-5 Kevin Gausman doing the twirling for Toronto

Except that simply deciding to swing more often won't necessarily produce the same results in greater quantity and could very well result in a declining output. I had never heard the 'treat it as a 3-1 pitch' analogy before but it sounds like a good benchmark to me. There the attitude is, "I'm going to swing if it's MY pitch where I want it". But once that flips to, "I'm going up there a'hackin' cuz the numbers show I'm 'good at this' " then there's a good chance that you're no longer going to be good at this, or at least as good at this. cross-posted with above And, of course, there are always various game/score/inning/runners/outs/pitcher circumstances dictating that 1st pitch swinging isn't (or is) the right move at that time.

I had a lot of day yesterday and so couldn't hang with this game; I cashed it in after 8 and taped the rest hoping to catch up this morning. Except that I didn't plan for far enough out so my recording ran out after 12 and I had to 'read all about it in the papers' as they used to say. Was kind of pulling for Seattle so it's all good. So my current brilliant idea (just the latest in a long string of them) is if this winds up Seattle/Milwaukee, not only will it be a match-up of two never-winners but, in a nod to the birth of the Brewers franchise, for the games played in Seattle the Brews need to be dressed in road Seattle Pilots unis. This, in my mind, is non-negotiable.

I know he's a Phillie. And next year I'll root against him whole heartedly. But I feel bad the kid has to live with this now. Especially the awful takes that somehow he forgot the number of outs or that he was unprepared. Well at least Philly fans aren't the type to go scorched earth on the guy. But he should probably move his kids into an unlisted elementary school just in case

Brewers, who led the NL in BA this season, have one hit thru four innings oe: ... now two with a (soft) leadoff double from Sal Frelick in the 5th ... followed by a walk.

[bIGPURPLE]DODGERS ADVANCE ON AN E-1 !!!!!!![/bIGPURPLE] Simple come-backer was bobbled by Kerkering who then seemed to panic and chose to throw home instead of 1st (where he had plenty of time) and the throw was both late and about seven feet off target.

Kike Hernandez, who has like six big ABs in the post-season for the Dodgers every year it seems, has the game on his racket with 1st & 3rd/2 outs in the home half of the 11th. Orion Kerkering has brought his belt and sword to the mound to fight off Kike (and Taurus if he acts up again). ... but he walks him. So now bases loaded and Andy (my back) Pages to win the game or throw it to the 12th. The Dodgers got their only run tonight when the Phils intentionally walked Ohtani and then UNintentionally walked Mookie behind him.

Well the main conclusion in the study I referenced -- one which came from a book both you and I (IIRC) read [sCORECASTING] -- was that officiating was the main reason home teams enjoyed an edge in games based on a bias from officials, conscious or otherwise, of not wanting to be the bad guy. Those advantages differed between sports and they found basketball, with the large number of calls/game, almost all of them subjective; and soccer, where a single call (PK or no PK?) can have such an out-sized effect on a game's outcome, were the games with the largest edge for the home team. Baseball as a sport, where really only B/S calls remain as subjective, holds one of the smallest HF edge and, like in all sports, that edge remains fairly consistent within the sport. So MLB HF edge was right in line with minor league ball, with NPL league, and with KBO, etc. Specifically what I was getting at here was that the authors did NOT find that those teams in traditionally loud or enthusiastic or fuller houses enjoyed a larger HF advantage over teams that normally don't fit those conditions, despite popular assumptions to the contrary.

So the AL champ and WS representative this year will come from one of three franchises that ... - Last won a WS 41 years ago and last appeared in a WS 13 years ago (got swept): DET - Last won a WS 32 years ago and last appeared in a WS 32 years ago: TOR - NEVER won one and NEVER appeared in one: SEA

Aahhhh, I obviously first conflated and then combined the two games in my head. Mainly I just enjoy the notion that folks think that the road team is somehow going to be even more intimidated based on what the spectators are wearing. We now return you to the regularly scheduled NL Playoff thread, already in progress.

The above post was the last I saw of that game. Still up 3-1 entering the 7th, the Dodgers played their 'Kershaw out of the pen' card ... and it blew up on them. He actually had a scoreless, though shaky, 7th, but then got tagged for five in the 8th to make it an 8-1 game 8-2 was the final as the Phils live to phight another day. Kershaw: 2 IP, 5 runs (4 earned), 6 hits incl. 2 HRs, 4 BB Day game in LA today, so 6:08 EDT first pitch Brewers @ Cubs at 9:08

Yeah, IIRC, Cox had gone from managing the Braves, to managing the Jays, to GM'ing the Braves, to his second stint as managing them starting in 1990 ... and basically ran that gig straight through to retirement. He's recently had a stroke but is apparently doing reasonable OK.

Former managers David Ross (Cubs) and Walt Weiss (Rox), along with former ATL catcher Eddie Perez, and Mark DeRosa (came up with the Braves and, more recently, Team USA coach in WBC) are said to be leading candidates to helm the Braves going forward. Since Bobby Cox was named Atlanta Braves skipper 66 games into the 1990 season (replacing Russ Nixon), the Braves have had only three managers: Cox (1990 - 2010), Fredi Gonzalez (2011 - 2016), and Brian Snitker (2016 - 2025)

So I figured I'd revisit this thread with the second half of the season in the books. As expected, the Mets weren't nearly as un-clutch in the second half as they were in the first: regression to the mean and all that. It wasn't quite enough to make the year as a whole 'good' in that sense, but it was at least less bad. When we looked in June, the Mets were 6th (of all 30 teams) in OPS but 14th in runs scored, the second highest gap between expected RS rank and actual RS rank (only ATH had a wider gap). By the end of the season they were still 6th in OPS but had jumped to 9th in runs scored. Still not quite where you'd like to be, but a much smaller deviation from the expected. Several teams were as many as five or six slots lower (MIN, HOU, KCR). Looking at how the Mets compared to the teams closest to them in OPS (as we did back in June) they averaged some 15 fewer runs scored (or about 1/10th of a RS/G) as compared to the three teams above them and the three below. The average would have been closer to 25 runs fewer except that West Sacramento was even worse than the Mets so they dragged the average down. Back in June the Mets were right around 2/3 of a RS/per game below what their most similar OPS teams were scoring which put them around -50 runs scored. As far as individual players went, all the regulars except for Alonso were significantly worse across the board when hitting with runners on base vs bases empty. Vientos, Alvarez, Nimmo, and McNeil all were around 100 points worse with runners on and w/RiSP than w/bases clear. Meanwhile the big boys, Lindor & Soto were considerably worse, Lindor around 300 OPS points worse, Soto a stunning 500 points. Final numbers Lindor: 862 (OPS w/bases empty) 720 (men on base) 750 (w/RiSP) Nimmo: 765 - 754 - 888 (no wonder he set a personal RBI high) Soto: 1027 -- 786 -- 859 (still bad, but compared to where he was ... ) Alvarez: 714 -- 879 -- 800 Vientos: 685 -- 726 -- 747 Baty: 740 -- 759 -- 810

3-1 Phils as they bat in top 6 with bases loaded/two outs. Marsh up. [bIGPURPLE]K[/bIGPURPLE]

Judge singles (off the walll in LF?!?)* to make it 5-2 but the tying run still on deck. Bellinger up. * yeah, right move by not trying for 2nd And now he K'zzzzzzzz!

Bottom 9: leadoff double, followed by a FO. Gotta load the bases before the tying run can even come to the plate. And now a very funky looking 3-1 for out #2. Runner on 3rd, Judge at the plate. Tying run still two spots behind him.

Two on/two outs, bottom 8th. Ben Rice is PH'ing for Goldschmidt (lefty-righty thing) in the six hole. If the Jays can end it here not only will they take a four run lead into the 9th but will face 7-8-9 which, if they play it without any drama, will spare them facing Judge. But he walks. ... but then a FO to LF on the very next pitch ends the inning. So the Jays need to go 1-2-3 in the 9th to avoid Judge.