Frayed Knot

Just making sure this doesn't get lost in the back pages of never-seen-again-land. DATES OF SERIESSWORN ENEMYVOLUNTEER EXPERT[crossout]4/3-5[/crossout][crossout]@KCR[/crossout]LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr[crossout]4/8-10[/crossout][crossout]PHI[/crossout]Frayed Knot[crossout]4/11-13[/crossout][crossout]MIA[/crossout]Edgy[crossout]4/15-17[/crossout][crossout]@CLE[/crossout]Chad Ochoseis[crossout]4/18-20[/crossout][crossout]@PHI[/crossout][crossout]4/22-24[/crossout][crossout]@ATL[/crossout][crossout]4/25-27[/crossout][crossout]CIN[/crossout]The Old Mole[crossout]4/29-5/1[/crossout][crossout]SFG[/crossout]LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr[crossout]5/2-4[/crossout][crossout]ATL[/crossout]5/5-8@SDPSeawolf5/9-12@LAD5/13-15@COLLefty Specialist5/17-19WASG-Fafif5/20-22MILTransMonk5/23-25@WASG-Fafif5/27-29LAD5/30-6/1CWSSeawolf6/3-6/5@MIAEdgy6/6-6/8@PITChad Ochoseis6/9-6/12@MILTransMonk6/14-6/16PITChad Ochoseis6/17-6/19ATL6/21-6/22KCRLeiterWagnerFasterStrongr6/23-6/26@ATL6/27-6/29@WAS6/30-7/3CHCFrayed Knot7/4-7/6MIAEdgy7/7-7/10WAS7/15-7/17@PHI7/18-7/20@CHCFrayed Knot7/22-7/24@MIAEdgy7/25-7/27STLLunchbucket7/28-7/31COLLefty Specialist8/1-8/2NYYFMan8/3-8/4@NYYFman8/5-8/7@DETMets Guy in Michigan8/9-8/11ARIGwreck8/12-8/14SDPSeawolf8/15-8/17@ARIGwreck8/18-8/20@SFGLeiterWagnerFasterStrongr8/23-8/25@STLLunchbucket8/26-8/28PHI8/29-9/1MIAEdgy9/2-9/4WAS9/5-9/7@CINThe Old Mole9/9-9/11@ATL9/12-9/14@WAS9/16-9/18MINTransMonk9/19-9/21ATL9/22-9/25PHI9/26-9/28@MIAEdgy9/30-10/2@PHI

Arietta's last 11 reg season starts (running from Aug 30, his first no-hitter, thru yesterday's no-no): 86 IP (7.8 IP/game); 6 Runs; 37 Hits; 10 BBs; 84 K. 10 Wins, 1 ND

'Isolated thunderstorms' this afternoon and early evening for Atlanta. Steadier rain later on although that may hold off until after game time.

[u:2rf3oyvi]KTE for series April 22-24[/u:2rf3oyvi] Mets hit Atlanta for the first time in this city's final season of ML baseball to find our hosts 4-11 overall, 7.0 games out of 1st, 1.5 out of 4th. 
Losing your first 9 games out of the blocks will tend to do bad things to your early season although they followed that up with a three-game sweep of Miami, then hung tough hung tough this week during a 3-game series with the Dodgers, bracketing a comfortable 8-1 win between two extra-inning losses. As noted above, this is a team in transition to the point where a bunch of transitioning has gone on even since ST. - Projected starting CF Ender Inciarte hit the DL after just 8 ABs One would think that this would be good news for projected backup CF Michael Bourn but he was released while still being owed $14 million (much of it paid by Cleveland) on the deal the Mets just “had to make” 3+ years ago. So the current CF is call-up Mallex Smith. The former 5th round pick by SD who came over in the Justin Upton deal, is fast as hell and had decent numbers in the minors but, so far, isn’t ‘cutting it’ on the ML level unless you count the cut that caused him to leave his ML debut after 5 innings when running into his own helmet earned him 5 stitches in his face as the welcome to the big leagues door prize. [fimg=250:2rf3oyvi]http://a.fssta.com/content/dam/fsdigital/RSN/South/2016/04/11/PI-MLB-Atlanta-Braves-Mallex-Smith-041116.vadapt.664.high.92.jpg[/fimg:2rf3oyvi] - LF Hector Olivera is on “administrative leave” whilst MLB investigates a women’s complaint of assault against him which occurred during their series in Washington. - ex-NYM Jeff Francouer made the club off a spring invite. So far his year has been very Francour-ian in that he’s hitting .200 and the one time I saw him this year he was throwing a guy out at the plate. - All-purpose IF Gordon Beckham is on the DL I said in the intro here that I thought this team could score some runs if things broke well for them (like both Cuban imports hitting). But now with half the Cuban connection missing plus all the other parts listed above, Freddie Freeman also isn’t hitting, AJ Pierzynski isn’t hitting, 2B Jace Peterson isn’t hitting, SS Erick Aybar is REALLY not hitting, and Kelly Johnson isn’t hitting. RF Nick Markakis IS hitting, but he and backup catcher Tyler Flowers are about the only ones so, no, they’re not scoring many runs a'tall. They’re above only Philly in R/G (although they’re miles ahead of Philly). But at least their pitching makes up for it … except it hasn’t. Now granted they had two of their first three series vs the Washington Harper-Murphys (and got their asses kicked) and yesterday Matt Wisler pitched Kershaw to a draw for 7 innings, but pitching overall is 5th from the bottom in runs allowed/game at exactly 5/per and at the moment they don’t seem to know who’s going to start on Sunday. Friday - 7:35 Harvey vs Bud Norris [1-2; 6.23; 1.67 WHiP in 3 starts] Norris lost twice to the Nats, then beat the Marlins. Saturday - 7:10 Matz vs Joulys Chacin [0-0; 2.38; 0.79] The ex-Rockie/DBack shut out the Nats over 6 innings (Braves lost anyway) then gave up 3 over 5.1 vs the Marlins in his 2 starts this year. Sunday - 1:35 deGrom vs TBA Teheran pitched Wednesday, Matt Wisler on Thursday, and Williams Perez is back in the minors so we could see a ML debut here. We have a mixed record compiled over the years vs TBA. In the pen they’ve already used 11 different guys with Jason Grilli closing seeming to be the only sure role. Funny-pitching John Gant (see link up the thread here) is back in the minors while brief-NYM Eric O’Flaherty is lighting more fires in Georgia these days -- 4 BBs + 4 hits including 2 HRs in 2 innings pitched over 8 appearances -- than anyone since Sherman. (that's right, I stooped to the Sherman burning Atlanta analogy).

I remember it as Sosa.

Originally a 5th round pick by Baltimore out of TCU in 2007, it's not even three full years (July 2013) since the O's got tired of waiting around for Arrieta and dealt him* to the Cubs after 3-1/2 up and down seasons which produced a 20-25 record with a 5.46 ERA over 60 starts. Since hitting Chicago he's 40-13 with a sub-2.20 ERA plus a CY award and 2 no-hitters to his credit. The biggest blemish on his record since hitting the windy city? ... probably the three-spot we hung on him in the first three batters [1B - 2B - HR by Grandy - Dabid - Murph] en route to a 4 ER / 4 Hit / 2 BB in 5 IP (L) performance in Game 2 NLCS last October. * traded [u:2plsjxsc]with[/u:2plsjxsc] reliever Pedro Strop for Steve Clevinger & Scott Feldman. Neither Clevinger nor Feldman remain w/the O's while Strop's been the Cubs' main set-up man ever since the deal. Think Baltimore might want a mulligan on that one?

Schilling always liked to talk and would rarely pass on the opportunity to do so. Remember that he's the guy who'd show up, willingly and un-announced, at 'Sons of Sam Horn' to talk baseball with on-line Red Sox fans. And, like celebrities in a lot of fields (particularly in this day & age), I suspect that he lost sight of the idea that this tendency to share his wonderful self has its limits. One would think he'd have realized that two or three or four suspensions/admonishments ago ...

smg58 wrote: ... and while Schilling is more of a public figure than most people, I don't see why that matters. It's the public figure working for a very public company thing in this case. That and that this is like the 57th time he's done something along these lines in the last year or three.

I was watching parts of this game, at least until the MFYs made a different kind of joke about it, but didn't see [the costumed folks in the front-row seats]. I believe they were strategically cropped out of the center field camera's view on Al-Yankazeera. Kind of like Don Zimmer was for a while as per Steinbrenner's orders. So what better to talk about on an off-day following a shitty four-hour-long loss but Your Last Place New York Yankees!! Sure it's too early for panic time (at least now that George is gone) and that they're merely 5-8 and just 4 games in back of 1st place Baltimore and 1/2 behind 4th place Tampa. The bigger problem is that they started 4-2 but have lost 6 of 7 since and things don't sound happy in yanqui-land right now. Ellsbury isn't hitting, ARod isn't hitting, Teixeira isn't hitting, and Headley isn't hitting; all the guys, except Teixeira, who are signed beyond this season at big buxx. Brett Gardner is hitting but to play him they'd have to sit Ellsbury because they already have six DH's. And while their new, young middle infield duo of Gregarious & Castro are doing OK, the high up-side former 1st round picks they brought in hoping to catching lightning (Dustin Ackley & Aaron Hicks) have a combined 1 single in 27 ABs. And then there's the pitching. Outside of Tanaka, the starters are all putting up ERAs well north of 5.00 while averaging barely over 5 innings/start. So while their vaunted back of the bullpen is dominating: Bettances & Miller have combined to allow no runs on 7 hits over 13 innings and struck-out 30 of the 49 hitters they've faced (with Chapman due back at the end of the month) the soft underbelly of the pen hasn't been able to get those guys leads which is, of course, the problem with building the pen at the expense of the rotation; you can't guarantee that your best guys will be put into meaningful situations.

I didn't see that WP/PB (however they scored it) as d'Arnaud's fault. He was lucky just to get the glove up there without it going straight back to the screen. Strange how that run taken off the board in the 1st inning wound up being the difference (two runs actually but one came in later anyway). Kind of a weird call. I'm reasonably sure that they got it right but, unlike Ron, I don't know that that kid's glove ever touched the ball as it was coming down. But then, even if it didn't, the ball bounced straight up and then was gloved by the other guy and it looked like he was reaching over the rail. Mostly it's just a shitty design but the easy solution seems to be to move the wall in a foot or three and that's the last thing that stadium needs.

Geez, 9 Ks in just half a game (4.2 inn.) after getting the starter out.

Another 3-hour-plus game ... and now extra innings tacked on.

In other NYM HR news: - Neil Walker's next HR will be the 100th of his career. There's quite a little log-jam around that number on the roster right now: Walker = 99; Cabrera = 102; Duda = 103; Cespedes = 110, although obviously only Duda hit them all as a Met. - David is now 15 HRs short of tying Straw for the NYM career record (252). The partial seasons he's had over the last few years have pushed him getting the record past where it could have been, but now 17 for the season certainly seems doable.

TRADE HARVEY WHILE YOU'VE GOT THE CHANCE !!!!!!!!! not really

Opening Day Payroll Figures 1stDODGERS$249.8 mil- NL -2YANX226.0AL3TIGERS198.6AL4BOSOX197.9AL5GIANTS172.0NL6CUBS171.6NL7LAA164.7AL8RANGERS159.0AL9ORIOLES147.7AL10CARDS145.6NL11NATS145.2NL12MARINERS141.8AL13.BLUE JAYS.136.8AL14METS135.2NL15ROYALS131.5AL16CHISOX114.5AL17ROX112.6NL18TWINS105.3AL19PIRATES99.9NL20PADRES99.3NL21DBACKS98.2NL22ASTROS96.9AL23seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians"96.3AL24REDS89.9NL25PHILS88.6NL26A’S86.8AL27BRAVES86.6NL 28MARLINS74.3NL29RAYS66.7AL30thBREWERS63.9NL Mean = $130.1 mil Median = $123.0

17 year vet and 209 game winner (Balt, Cincy, Braves, Cubs) Milt Pappas - 76 Notable for, among other things, losing a perfect game on a borderline 3-2 call that didn't go his way with 2 outs in the 9th. And he wasn't shy about saying how unhappy he was with HP ump Bruce Froemming. The other oddity in his life came after his playing career was over when his wife simply disappeared one day after going out shopping. Amid rumors of abduction and ritual murder by a local cult in suburban Chicago, no trace of her or her car were found until almost exactly five years later when a pond was drained for construction purposes just a few blocks from their house revealed the family car with her remains in it. The death was ruled an accidental drowning caused by her apparently mistaking a driveway to the pond for a road into her neighborhood.

Kind of an odd situation where you PH for your #3 hitter - but I agree with Ron/Gary here in that it's a useful way to get innings & ABs for Lagares

Lefty Specialist wrote: Verrett dancing between the raindrops here, but they're going to need a lot of bullpen tonight. 68 pitches through 4 innings for Verrett is higher than you'd like but not alarmingly so. But, yeah, we should probably by happy with 6 IP tonight, especially since he's now on base for the second time tonight.

He's also 2nd in the NL in OBA (behind Yelich), 3rd in Slugging (Story & Harper), and 2nd in OPS (Harper) The NL OPS list as of right now is kind of funny: Harper & Murph up top followed, not suprisingly, by a bunch of Colorado guys, and then oddly (or maybe not because they always seem to do something like this) by two StL rookies that no one had ever heard of before like last week: Jeremy Hazelbaker (no, I'm not making that up) a 28 y/o career minor leaguer who's been released several times; and a 25 y/o Cuban signee from two years ago, Aledmys Diaz, who fell into the SS job because both Jhonny Peralta AND some guy named Ruben Tejada are injured (Tejada just reactivated).

[fimg=300:do6zik1j]http://affordablehousinginstitute.org/blogs/us/wp-content/uploads/churchill_vee-259x300.jpg[/fimg:do6zik1j]

Just keep the tying run from coming to the plate Jeurys - which means you gotta get this guy (Ruf)!!

Wright HRs at CPB = 22, or 1 every 18.1 ABs Wright HRs at CitiField = 47, or 1 every 32.5 ABs

So first I do the initial 'Phils in '16' thread, then did the first week's KTE, and then spent last night updating the KTE for this series, only to find that the Phils made a roster move this afternoon and stuck someone in tonight's lineup who I've yet to mention. I'm convinced they did it just to make me look ridiculous and, as Jack Woltz once reminded Tom Hagen, a man in my position can't afford to be made to look ridiculous!!! [fimg=350]http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/godfather/images/3/34/Vlcsnap-2010-06-29-18h14m34s69.png/revision/latest?cb=20110304193834[/fimg] So anyway, David Lough (pronounced LOW, as in Derek Lowe) was brought up from AAA and non-hitting career minor leaguer Cedric Hunter swapped out. Lough had two partial seasons with KC in 2012 & 13 then two more w/Baltimore in '14-15. I saw him occasionally with the O's where the now 30 y/o lefty swinger/thrower never really hit enough to snag a full-time position [.255/.295/.377 over 4 seasons and 750 PA] but, IIRC, he runs well and plays a decent OF. Just another one of the low budget FA signings that these Phils made over the winter which has helped their payroll plummet from $183 million two seasons ago down (3rd highest in MLB) to $88 mil as of the start of 2016.

cooby wrote: In bed, doing a NYTimes crossword, Sunday's or Monday's?

Ashie62 wrote: How does Duda not get to third???????????? Because the throw would have been coming from medium LF - not deep RF like with Cespedes.