Frayed Knot

Syndergaard - 4.3 Duda - 3.7 Granderson - 1.5 Conforto - 0.5

Zvon wrote: I took almost a full minute for me to realize where the 2 was in this one. Several places actually.

I like how the Yanx 5-2 loss took only minutes less than this 12-5 mess.

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We might clinch by having the Nats lose tomorrow's game before this one is even over.

If a batter extends his on-base streak vs Eric O'Flaherty, does it still count in the record books?

When I turned on the game yesterday (Thurs) I was shocked to discover that Jason Bourgeois was black. Then I realized I was conflating him with Angel turned Cardinal* Peter Bourjos * as opposed to Pope Francis who many this week seem to be saying is a Cardinal turned Angel

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d'Kong76 wrote: . DudaBoom!![/bigpurple] d'Kong76 wrote: . DudaBoom!![/bigpurple] Doncha just love it?

The window for the team isn't necessarily going to close but it is going to close for a large portion of their 'core' the made up the last four seasons. As mentioned in that article above: SS Ian Desmond & the pitching Zimmermann are likely gone. As are some of their recent acquisitions like CF Denard Span, P Doug Fister, and maybe Storen after this past month's debacles. Last winter's monster signing of Scherzer was a kind of pre-replacement for Zimmermann & Fister, but now Strasburg and catcher Ramos are heading into their last pre-FA seasons. Meanwhile Werth & LHP Gio Gonzalez (both signed thru '17) and the 1B version of Zimmerman (thru 2020) remain from that 2012-2015 core, but that's the over-30 portion of it. Werth & Zimmerman in particular look to be getting older quite quickly and barely combined for 600 ABs this year.

The Nats had finished 81-81 in their very first year in DC and so went into a kind of mini- 'go for it' mode. So they dealt for Soriano in the off-season which became a mini-storm later in the season when they didn't trade him away for young talent later in the year as that season slid into a 71-91 disappointment. That was the winter Soriano signed that huge deal with the Cubs which went on to produce predictably decreasing returns (and calls from NYM fans that we deal Reyes for him). The other reason why his one year as a Nat was forgetful to the average fan was that practically everyone was hitting 40+ in those days and so hitting "merely" 46 hardly stood out. Ryan Howard led the NL that season with 58 and at least 10 other guys hit 40+

Also on the Nationals front - Papelbon suspended for 3 games for the beanballs the other night - Danny Espinosa to miss the remainder of the season

Trump wants to know whether this is going to allow the woman free admission to Petco for life.

Woman gives birth at Petco Park during the 3rd inning of Thursday night's game. Insert joke about Jeffie charging her for an extra admission here:

Just 3 of 13 games (.231) need to go well in order to end this thing prior to the final series. Be a bit of a bummer for the players if the clinching occurred with a Washington loss on our Monday off day, although at this point the Nats need some wins and/or some help just to hold it off even that long.

d'Kong76 wrote: The point is, the strike zone is where the ball goes over the plate. Not what some some catcher does with his glove afterwards. If the ump is judging by the latter, he's not doing his job well. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. But, in general, I think you're right in that announcers tend to credit FAR too much to catchers and their slight of hand mojo. Hell, listen to the Nats announcers and they credit about 3/4 of the strike calls to the Washington backstops. -- OK it's probably not that many but it seems that just about each time a strike gets called and their electronic box thingie shows that the ball actually missed by an inch or three they just ring it up to their catchers.

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Yay!

When they started showing that flick on TV -- like on Channel 11 in NYC -- you figure they'd cut the language and whatnot. But they also cut that Bluto chugging the Jack Daniels scene. Guess they figured it was a bad influence on impressionable minds.

2R HR from Jonathan Schoop - I'd say that makes him an American Hero as well. Or at least an all-Curacao one. 3-0 Birds in the 4th I'm just hoping that he didn't name his sons Perry or Telly.

Lefty Specialist wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: [fimg=390]http://venividivici.us/sites/default/files/John-belushi-animal-house.jpeg[/fimg] The cinema buff in me is compelled to note that John Belushi is actually yelling "Food Fight!!!!", not "Road Trip!!!" What can I say? You fucked up, you trusted me. Actually I noticed that too. But when you're looking for is a pic of Belushi yelling you tend to jump on the first thing you find. IIRC, Belushi was one of several guys who pretty much mouthed 'ROAD TRIP' all at once and so there probably isn't a shot of that.

Of course many Yogi-isms were spawned after his retirement by his childhood friend Joe Garagiola meaning that Yogi never really did say half the things he supposedly said. Joe was one of the first athletes to get into the then new and growing medium of TV -- and not just sports but the TODAY show and other variety type stuff -- and often times he'd come up with a line (or had one written for him) and he was smart enough to know it would be funnier if he said that he heard it from Yogi and Yogi was smart enough to know not to deny it. In his later years, especially when the museum attached to the college was going on, those quips became part of what was essentially Yogi Berra Inc. which a couple of his kids ran and I'm sure it set them all up very nicely going forward. One story I heard -- have no idea if even partially true -- involves his his one-time teammate Bobby Brown who followed a eight year ML career with one as a heart surgeon and, later still, American League President. So the story goes that they were sitting next to each other while on a bus (or maybe a plane) and both were reading. The Stanford educated Brown's book was a medical text while Yogi was reading being a comic book. Seeing that they both happened to finish and close their books simultaneously, Berra supposedly turned to Brown and said; "So how did your story turn out?"

Ceetar wrote: I don't see the Nats going better than 5-3 ... Considering that they just went 7-1 over an eight game span (Miami - Philly - Miami) prior to their two losses to the O's, I don't think 5-3 is something we can count on.

d'Kong76 wrote: Orioles RH Tyler Wilson (2-2, 3.72 ERA) vs. Nationals RH Tanner Roark (4-6, 4.73) I suspect that the number of MLB games started by pitchers named Tyler and Tanner in the 21st century have already surpassed those amassed by SPs with those names for the entire 20th.

We're also within 1964 Phillies distance. That was the year they were 6.5 up with 12 to play yet managed to blow it, thanks to a 10-game losing streak. The kicker is that they righted the ship just in time to win the final two games against Cincy to knock them out of the pennant. That all paved the way for the Cards who just had to beat the lowly Mets once in the final three games. But on Friday Al Jackson out-duelled Bob Gibson 1-0, and Saturday saw a 15-5 whoopin'. That forced an all-hands-on-deck game for Sunday which included the Cards bringing back Gibson 4 innings of middle relief two days after his complete game loss. Gibson actually wound up as the winning pitcher in an 11-5 pennant-clinching game which took them to the WS against the Yogi-led Yankees.