Frayed Knot

Marlins tie it up vs Papelbon in the 9th

Frayed Knot wrote: Tied-up in Washington -- Nats still batting. 4-3 Nats - still batting.

Tied-up in Washington -- Nats still batting.

Wasn't Brandon Pinder the guy involved in that prep school sex and cheating scandal?

REED all about it!!

What Uribe -- and, to a slightly lesser extent, Kelly Johnson -- have lacked in volume of hits since the trade they've made up for in YUGENESS of those hits. Holy schnikees that was big!!

TransMonk wrote: MLB Network has this SHIFT TRAX corner graphic that shows where the defense is during the pitch. I've never seen it before It's an OK gimmick but, as with most toys in the TV production world, they overdo it. Put it up there at the beginning of the AB and then get rid of it, particularly if there's nothing unusual about the alignment.

That was a huge hit coming so early in the game because Tanaka looked like he was headed for six outs on about 15 pitches prior to that - as opposed to Matz who needed nearly 50. Now if we can just avoid giving up shitty hits to the Yanx we may be OK here.

The difference with Harper is that he'll hit the FA market just as he turns 26 y/o Not that that means that a team still couldn't make a bad deal out of such a situation [see: Rodriguez, Alex at a half year younger] but you'd be on much better footing starting out as compared to the recent deals for Pujols, Cano, etc., or, for that matter, Cespedes.

Edgy MD wrote: While they keep a guy with 686 career homers, including 32 this season, on the bench That 32, btw, is his most since 2008 !!

And he'll face off against Scherzer ... but what! the Nats are 5-9 in Scherzer's last 14 starts (vs 10-5 in his first 15 starts of the year)

Tonight's game on MLBN will be their own production with Costas & Smoltz on the mikes. Definitely go with G, K & R if you can get them, but you could do worse than that duo if you can't.

NHOP for clinching prior to the final series = .346

Friday's game should be MLBN's own broadcast, meaning that they're not merely picking up one of the local feeds but are doing the production themselves. Usually this involves some combo of Costas, Kaat, or Smoltz, all of whom do a pretty good job IMO so if it winds up as a choice between them and YES it's a case of no lo contendre I know the 'Extra Innings' package usually carries the home team feed although there are exceptions and the MLBN game on Friday isn't an exclusive so the EI feed should still be available to all non-NYC area folks as well. That it's a PIX game rather than SNY could mean EI would pick up the YES feed instead but there sometimes seems to be little rhyme or reason to those decisions. And while I'm sure the midwest will get the Cards/Cubs feed on Saturday via FOX's network channel, again EI shouldn't be blacked out for the alternate FOX game so you'll be able to get the game even if you wind up deciding that you prefer the radio feed. And of course on Sunday everyone's watching the same broadcast no matter where you are.

Tough week for Pitt & Houston - Pirates lose 3 of 4 to the Cubs dropping their odds of taking the Central considerably (now 5.0 out) and also weakened their hold on the 1st WC slot as they're just 2 ahead of Chicago. They also lost SS/3B Jung Ho Kang for the season w/a leg injury following a take-out slide, a slide that looked aggressive but clean to me although slider Chris Coughlin did get his leg up a bit. Coughlin's also the guy who took out Posey leading to the plate-blocking rules changes. Dude's gonna get a rep. And after this series the Buccos had to fly to LA to face the Dodgers. By contrast it was a good week for StL who were sweeping the Brewers while the 3rd place Cubs were winning their series giving them a bigger cushion vs both. Cards are at Wrigley this weekend but with a mostly comfy 7-game lead. - Houston suffered a devastating four-game sweep to Texas dropping them with a thud from 1.5 games up to 2.5 back and with a tenuous hold on the 2nd WC (+1.5 over Minn, 2.5 over LAA). And yet despite the huge gain for the Rangers, somehow I imagine the big sports story in Dallas deals with whatever Tony Romo had for lunch yesterday. The two Texas teams have one series remaining next week, but at 4-12 for the season series so far, the Astros can't depend too much on that one. For this weekend: Houston hosts Oakland; Texas hosts Seattle; LAA & Minnesota play each other. Yanx have a 4-game lead over WC #2 and 5.5 & 7.5 over the threat of being dropped entirely. - Giants (-7.5) are just about as dead as the Nationals - and while the Royals have been stumbling lately (6-10 in September) I think their 11 game lead makes them pretty safe

For some actual KTE knowledge about the series: Yanx are playing pretty mediocre these days: 8-7 in September, 22-21 since the 17-7 month of July which shot them into 1st place. Currently sitting 3.0 games in back of Toronto, they're in the drivers seat for the 1st WC slot but a lot can happen over the final 17 days so there's no need to emphasize how damaging we can be to them here. They're still as HR-happy as ever - HRs account for over 48% of their runs. But they won't have the services of either of their top two HR hitters this weekend, nor will they have the short porch. - ARod won't see the light of day except for PH situations since we'll be playing by real baseball rules this weekend and they took his glove away last spring and won't tell him where they hid it. - Texeira is out for the season with a broken leg which somehow took like two weeks to diagnose. C - McCann: Same as ever, low BA, lots of walks & HRs. His career has been almost absurdly consistent. 1B - Prospect Greg Bird was called up last month and is off to a good start. 7 HRs in barely 100 ABs and nearly half his hits have gone for XBs so far 2B - a variety of people, none of whom are any good SS - Didi Gregorius: Started slow both offensively and defensively but getting better 3B - Chase Headley: Still dining out over that one good year he had in SD. Decent player but nothing special and has been shaky defensively lately LF - Brett Gardner and/or Chris Young. We'll probably see Young start vs Matz on Friday CF - Jacoby Ellsbury: Is totally sucking and the natives aren't happy. Oh well, only 43 more years left on the deal. RF - Usually Beltran. Can't run or field like he used to, but still hanging in there with the bat All three games on national TV btw Friday (MLBN) 7:10 -- Matz vs Tanaka [12-6, 3.40, 0.99] That arm still hasn't fallen off yet Saturday (FOX) 1:10 -- Syndergaard vs Pineda [10-8, 4.25, 1.22] Seems to throw out a mixture of good & bad starts. Never know what you'll get. Sunday (ESPN) 8:10 -- Harvey vs Sabathia [4-9, 4.93, 1.42] Horrible early but better lately They've used like 75 different relievers this year, none of whom would be recognized by any baseball fan anywhere even if they walked into a room wearing their pinstripes. Only Bettances & Miller at the end of games have consistent roles. Girardi has to lean on them but also tries to back off using them too many days in a row.

Blue Jays win tonight dropping the Yanx to 3.5 back. Yanx follow the series at CF with one in Toronto. Talk about six make or break games. After that it's 4 w/the ChiSox, 3 w/the BoSox, then finish with 3 @ Baltimore No more days off. Toronto hosts Balt (3), Yanx (3) and, after a day off, TB (3) before finishing up with a trip to Balt (4) and TB (3) Blue Jays magic number = 14. NHOP = .424

Ceetar wrote: it's just getting unlikely the Mets will clinch at home is all. Not at all my biggest concern. 8/16 > 7/17

[fimg=300:27scumno]http://www.the99thfloor.com/images2/nine_ep.jpg[/fimg:27scumno]

6-4, heading for bottom 9

[fimg=400:31t515rm]http://www.callcentrehelper.com/images/stories/Q2-2008/body3.jpg[/fimg:31t515rm] Caller: Hey thanks for takin' my phone call Mike Mike Francesa: What's up? C -- We'll I was watching SportsCenter hi-lights the other day and I saw a 2nd baseman on Houston -- I didn't even know Houston had a team, probably just expanded them or something ... MF: They're not an expansion team, they were just moved over from the National League C -- What league? ... Oh, is that the one the Mets play in? Ahh, I never pay attention to that league except in October and even then not lately. So anyway dese Houston guys got someone named Amway or something like that ... MF -- Altuve. Jose Al-Too-Vay C - Yeah, that's him. So anyway they was sayin' that he gets 200 hits every year and has stolen like 100 bases and I was thinking we need someone to replace Drew MF -- They're not going to give you Altuve, they're in the middle of a division race C -- I'm talking about signing him for next year MF -- He's not even a free agent yet C -- That never use-da stop George! MF -- You're an idiot! C - OK, supposin' we trade for him? MF -- He's a 25 year old Awl-Stah on an up and coming team, we would they trade him? C -- How 'bout if we give them A-Rod? MF - Why would they want ARod? C -- Cuz we'll pay most of the money MF -- They don't want him, he's fawty years old!! C -- Even if we t'row in a coupla prospects? MF -- No way!! C -- Well if not him, I just heard about some guy on Washington named Harper or something like that, how 'bout if we packaged Sabathia with Chris Young? ...

Sarah Palin can see NYM games from her house. Or is that Tina Fey, I can never remember.

Another way to look at this is that there are 27 games in total (Mets + Nats combined) prior to the three-game, season-ending, head-to-head series. 14 for the Nats, 13 for the Mets. Ideally you'd like to be at least 4 up when that series starts to erase even the possibility of a disaster as there'll be no outside help possible once that series starts. The magic number for that scenario is still 10 but it means that a higher percentage of those non h-t-h games will have to go our way (37% - or right about 3 games out of every 8) in order to make that final series meaningless. That's really the number to shoot for. For a slightly less dark take on things, even if the Nats win tonight while we're idle it would still put us in a one game better situation than in 2007: 7 up with 16 to play. And with the h-t-h series coming at the end of the season, the magic number is unlikely to crash as quickly as it did back then. The problem with '07 is that the Phils won on a night when we were idle to make it 6.5/17 and then came the sweep. The result was that barely 72 hours after the lead was sitting at 7/17 it was suddenly a much more precarious 3.5/14. The magic number went nowhere while the lead was being chopped in half. In this case, with two separate series going on, even a sweep by them can't ensure a sweep against us so the MN is likely to be smaller by the end of the weekend and the lead larger than it was then even if not as large as it is right now (if that makes any sense). Point is, not only is 3.5/14 impossible but even the worst case scenario (5/14) is highly unlikely to happen.

[fimg=400:34m1tj47]http://justin-biebers-fansite.webs.com/596700_1292233057227_full.jpg[/fimg:34m1tj47] No caption needed.

So dude, getting your money's worth out of those $600 seats? [fimg=500:1w47hsi7]http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--xjBhr20A--/801312109885137839.jpg[/fimg:1w47hsi7] Oh well, at least you lasted until the top of the 4th inning. Plus it's only the Red Sox so it's not like it's a meaningful game or anything. Just wondering though, how many $11 Bud Lights did you down in the first three innings -- I mean, not counting the nips from your hip flask en route to the game as you took up 2 seats on the 4-train while making some elderly guy had to stand after a long day's work? Or could it be just an eating coma from four calzones you inhaled from Vinny's Roach Coach across the street so you could actually make the walk from the train platform all the way into the stadium? But at least you took it well. Oh wait, no you didn't, you [u:1w47hsi7]sued ESPN for $10 million[/u:1w47hsi7] for having the audacity to show it and poke fun of you as they did. What, afraid it was going to hurt your job status? As if your position as the union chief's nephew doesn't allow you to sleep on the job on a regular basis anyway. Hope the neck wasn't too sore the next day. And, hey, you're still good looking so you've got that going for you