Frayed Knot

Turns out this was less than a minor deal because BACK to the IL goes da Judge. This effectively ends his regular season and, with the Yanx now extremely unlikely catch and pass the Rays for a first round Bye*, this puts him in jeopardy of missing the opening round of playoff games which start just 11 days from now.. * Yanx currently a full five games back with ten to play. Now four of those ten are against the Rays but it would essentially take a sweep (plus help) because, while three of four is nice, that wouldn't be enough to give NYY the season series edge meaning they are effectively six games out at this point. So, at minimum, they need to sweep AND play at least one game better than TBR over those five non-H-2-H games. And doing it without Judge just makes it that much harder.

Six active ML'ers have 1,000+ walks: 1) Carlos Santana (1,332); 2) Bryce Harper; 3) Andrew McCutcheon (only sort of active ... hasn't played since May); 4) Mike Trout; 5) Freddie Freeman; 6) Paul Goldschmidt #7 is Juan Soto with 967. But of the top 20, Soto by far leads that group in walk rate. He's at 18.46% which is right about double league avg (8.9%). He's also more than 2% ahead of 2nd place Aaron Judge (16.27%) with no one else as high as 15%. And at age 27 (28 in October) he's not surprisingly the youngest on the list. Only Alex Bregman and Matt Olson (both 33 in March) are within a half decade of Soto's age.

Just out of curiosity, are we planning on catching any balls before this week is over?

Four NYM baserunners so far ... three of them erased.

Well the power hitter is batting leadoff so it all balances out.

Nah! They tanked against the Orioles so as to save it up for ruining the Phils season. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I'm starting to think that we're not going to pull this one out.

Two more HR for PC-A tonight. Now 44 for the year as they start etching his (rather lengthy) name onto the MBP trophy. Cubs 7 - Braves 2 in the 8th Given their positions and ages, this is a bigger loss than Alonso.

Yeah, I always thought Bassett would have been a nice piece to keep around. Not an indispensable piece for sure, but a useful one that wasn't so easy to replace. Probably was tough to gamble on that kind of production from a 34, 35, and 36 y/o (and now 37) so one can understand moving on, but sometimes you need to take gambles and Bassett responded with 33, 31, and 32 starts for the Jays (tonight is his 17th of '26).

Just not one made of sand.

Getting beat by ex-players you refuse to sign is just the most Metsian move ever. I can't believe they let Chris Bassett walk.

I think it's time to take Curry off the menu.

How pissed is ESPN that Pete hit #300 yesterday? They so wanted it to happen on their airwaves. But they're having a Pete-themed show anyway since they've got little else to talk about otherwise.

Guardians win the rubber game of the series this afternoon to drop the ChiSox out of 1st place for the first time since July 3rd. Sox take solace in the fact that they finish out the season with the Tigers (4), @ Royals (3), and Rockies (3) while the Guardians have the slightly harder path of ATH (3), at BOS (3), and KC (3) The Twins led the Yanx 2 - 0 heading into the 9th. ... and then remembered they were the Twins and gave up two two-out runs.. Both teams have been trying to lose the game since. Currently in the bottom of the 13th ... and now the Twins win on an error as I was tying this sentence. George Lombard just whiffed on a slow bouncer. It was just a comedy of extra-inning errors which included the Twins having 1st & 2nd no one out in bottom 12 then going pick-off then an immediate first pitch GiDP -- so three outs on one pitch with the game on your racket (as they'd say in tennis). Oh, and Judge was lifted for a PH in the 6th inning with 'lower leg tightness' less than a week after coming back from a three month long absence (though nothing to do with the leg in that case).

iow, situations where there's a pitcher on the mound.

Speaking of GKR, it says a lot about stadium design when the crew kept talking about how sucky their view is from their cramped and limited view booth compared to where they were camped out last night.

7:10, ESPN* - Robert Stock vs Chris Bassett [7 - 5, 4.88, 1.59 WHIP, 18 G / 16 Starts] NYM bats dented the decidedly below average Baltimore pitching for a grand total of six runs over 20 innings, and two of those were under Clown Car rules so don't really count. So four runs in 18 innings with no more than one run in any frame. Ain't gonna win games that way (even though they almost won both). * Next five games are all on different channels:. Wed: ESPN; Thu: FOX; Fri: Apple+; Sat: SNY; Sun: PIX

And the Mets didn't hit any of the last seven. Five hits off seven pitchers through 7 innings. And in the one inning they managed to get more than one hit they figured out how to wedge a caught stealing (caught wandering is more like it) in between just to make sure no runs were scored. That was one of two outs they ran into last night.

Well this is going to be a bitch to come back from.

Siddown Pete!!!

Guardians down one going into bottom 9th vs ChiSox went: Single, K, Walk, GO, 2-RBI walk-off 2B

And this one goes to eleven.

Four words Francisco: Base. Hit. Right. Field.