Frayed Knot

Bah-Dum-CHING!

Wow, Henry VIII drank Schaefer! Whoda thunk it?

bmfc1 wrote: Even the "get away" game in LA is at night. Those might be mandated (or at least 'encouraged') to be a day game if the visiting team's trip is a long one - but I guess LA to Denver doesn't qualify.

Nothing against the 4:00 starts. I just wish these west coast teams would mix in a day game every once in a while (SF usually does). But the So-Cal teams flocked to Sat nights even before they were popular (or mandated) elsewhere. Plus early May is still a risky time of year to go all night games in Denver; I think it snowed there just in the last day or two. It's also a shame how MLB has all but abandoned Saturday afternoon baseball in all time zones. Nice to hear Keith railing about that recently, especially as he was saying so through the mikes of the guys dictating those decisions. As it is, we'll have 18 Pac time or Mtn time games this year [4 in SD, 4 in LA, 3 in COL, 3 in AZ, 4 in SF] and 14 of them are at night local times meaning late at night our time. Only the three Sundays and a Saturday in SF are day games. And then in 2017 we get to throw in another couple of AL West teams visited which could push the late night starts to around 25% of the road schedule.

Now that the Braves are out of the way, the month of May quickly gets a lot tougher. - Yeah SD (4 games) isn't particularly good and even the Dodgers (also 4) & Rox (3) are currently sitting just a notch above & below .500, but eleven-game/three-city west coast road trips with no days off are never an easy thing. - we then come home for our first series with the Nationals. - a quick breather as the Brewers visit next, but that's followed by a series [u:2v1neizt]in[/u:2v1neizt] Washington - then a day off to travel back to NYC just to see the Dodgers again followed by the surprising ChiSox which takes us to June 1st. I guess mainly it's just a lot tougher as compared to our slate so far which, aside from that opening series in KC, involved neither a lot of travel nor any top teams.

A-Rod officially to the DL. In trying not to put the destruction of the Yanquis’ cart in front of the horse while enumerating our pre-hatched barnyard fowl ahead of time (or some such analogy), I went checking for other MFY slow starts over this 23-year span of no losing seasons to find if there was any spot even semi-comparable to where they are now (8-16 - though threatening to make it 9-16). Nothing quite this bad, but a couple that were sorta close. 2004: 8-11 in a season where they’d go on to win 101 games and the division meaning they went 93-50 afterward 2005: 11-19, went on to win 95 games (so 84-48 from that point on) and the division 2007: 8-13 (worst start by pct until this year), went on to win 94 games (86-55) and the WC 2008: 20-25, this was the first missed playoff year since ’93 with 89 wins (69-48) 2009: 13-15, won 103 games (90-44) and the WS Now it's easy to say that, yeah, but those were better teams than this one is and there's no way this sub-.500 crew is going to play .600+ ball from here on out like all those other squads did. Sure, but of course such things are only known to be true in hindsight.

Cards score twice in the 9th for a walk-off win and the series win vs Phils

This is gong to be a tough road trip (on us anyway) -- 11 straight PDT or MDT games, all late at night* except for the two Sunday games. Geez, west coast dudes, throw in a day game for us every once in a while, huh ... a Saturday how'boutit, or maybe one of the weekdays, something!!! * Five 10:10 starts, [u:25tcqg7b]one 10:40[/u:25tcqg7b], two 8:40, one 8:10, and then the Sunday games at 4:10 & 4:40

Ashie62 wrote: Is Matz ahead of Harvey? Not alphabetically.

Six game losing streaks early in the year tend to skew projections -- right now it puts them on pace to lose 108 games -- so you wouldn't figure they're going to be this bad through the entire season. But it's going to be interesting to see how they react if mid-season comes without them appearing to be even close to a race. The most 'dump-able' guys they've got are Teixeira & Beltran on account of them being only signed thru this season. Both could be useful for a team looking for help down the stretch although the Yanx would probably have to eat a bunch of the remaining money (Teix = $22.5 for the year, Beltan = $15) and, despite their rep for big spending, eating money is NOT something the Yanx do very often. Nor, unlike Beltran of four years ago, is dealing either of these guys going to land them this year's version of Zack Wheeler. Nathan Eovaldi & Aroldis Chapman are also only signed for 2016. With three closers being a luxury for even a good team, Chapman could be dangled in front of a contender (how funny is it to be talking about flipping Chapman before he even throws a pitch for them?!) and, although they're certainly intrigued by Eovaldi's talent, you wonder how long they'll wait for him to harness it particularly since they'd have to bid on him like everyone else come next off-season. And then there's C.C. who has a vesting option for next year which kicks in as long as he makes enough appearances this season without his shoulder falling off. But, even absent that obligation, he wouldn't be attractive in a deal anyway without somehow shaving off about 8 years and 60 pounds. But then they're still 'stuck' (for better or for worse) with: ARod - thru 2017 Ellsbury - 2020 + option Tanaka - 2020 McCann - 2018 + option Gardner - 2018 + option Headley (whose next XBH this year will be his first) thru 2018 Miller - 2018 Castro - 2019 so there's only so much restructuring they can do.

May the 4th was with us!

Watch MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, then you'll spend the rest of your life trying to Un-know what goes on in a Turkish prison.

Since I went and declared Conforto to be the next coming (after Saturday's game IIRC) he's gone 1/15 w/9 Ks since. Oh well.

Nats keeping pace with us this afternoon. "Only" 5-0 out in KC but they're still batting with no outs in the top of the 1st.

Mets Guy in Michigan wrote: Was that homer in Rivera's first Met at-bat? First AB this game but it's his second start.

Edgy MD wrote: REN� RIVERA, SISTERS! [fimg=350]http://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/images/jimmy-durante-4.jpg[/fimg] Everybobdy wants to get in on the act

soupcan wrote: d'Kong76 wrote: SportsDirect Inc. New York dropped two of its last three games... This is interesting. '..dropped two of its last three...' sounds bad, and if they lose today its 'three of its last four'. If they win today though, it changes to '...has won its last six series' Just shows you how much the perception changes based on one game. And whenever you hear/read that a team has lost 'X of its last Y' you know that really means 'X of its last Y+1' otherwise they would have upped the sequence. In this case '2 of their last 3' sounds more interesting than '2 of their last 4' and thus the change of perspective of which you speak. He's reached base safely in six of his last eight games, Jim ... Yeah, but that means six of his last nine and, unless there's some 3 or 4 hit games mixed into that sequence, you're just reciting some worthless stat in front of you that's been made to sound interesting even though it's not.

I shut baseball out of my mind the second the final out fell in Markakis's glove last night, so at least most of the rest of the baseball news I didn't get this morning turned out to be good. - the best of it all was Papelbon coughing up 3 in the 9th to finally give the Nats a loss on their tour de Missouri. Nats though continue to get good pitching, Roark this time. Harper continues to slump (0-5), Murph hit his 3rd HR - Cubs continue to wreck everything in their path (and maybe even their past) as they thumped Niese & the Pirates again. They now have a 5 game lead over Pitt and 9 over StL. They also already have a bigger run differential this season (+89) than the +83 they finished last season with when they won 97 games. Not sure if anyone else in either league is even half that good in RS/RA (Mets = +36) - Phils continue to get surprisingly good pitching as Aaron Nola & friends shut out the Cards 1-0 - and the Yanx (8-16) lost their 6th straight which is always a good thing to know.

MFS62 wrote: One hit, and they struck out (only) four times. Doesn't seem like they were overpowered. Who is he, the second coming of Greg Maddux (shudder)? I didn't see the game. What was this guy throwing? He was good (obviously) but also a bit lucky in that the Mets hit a bunch of at'em balls.

NYM HRs for a career Wright projected to end the season -- 255.25 1) Darryl Strawberry -- 252 2) David Wright -- 238 Wright at start of year -- 235 3) Mike Piazza -- 220 4) Howard Johnson -- 192 5) Dave Kingman -- 154

-- Nats now 4-0 on their tour de Missouri Doing it mostly with pitching right now (RA = 4, 1, 1, 0 over their last 4 games) and not with Harper (1-17 w/9 Ks) -- Cubs keep-a-rollin' with a 7-2 win over Pitt. Arrieta vs Niese tonight. -- Phils behind Jeremy Hellickson jumped out to a 3-0 lead ... before giving up 10 unanswered including a 3R HR by Wainwright (9th of his career)

soupcan wrote: I want that shirt. Available only in XXXL

He leads the league in syllables.

Eight more Braves transactions today: 4 called up [Reid Brigand, Chase d'Arnaud, Mike Foltynewicz, Matt Tuiasosopo], 3 sent down [pitchers Chris Wisler & John Gant, plus 2B Jace Peterson] and they designated Drew Stubbs for assignment. That's now 20 roster moves for Atlanta in just the last 12 days - and none of them were DL related. Just trying to find a mix that'll work better than the alignment.

And the game checks in in a tidy 2:31 The shortest NYM game this season by a full 13 minutes and only the 2nd one under 2:50