Frayed Knot

I trust that I don't even have to say 'No Bunts' here ... right?

A LHP for Cespedes, Wright & Cuddyer!?! Can I say 'Thank You' in advance?

How do you argue that Panda? It's not exactly a judgement call and it's a stationary ball two feet in front of the ump! ... and in front of YOU for that matter!!

Frayed Knot wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Desmond, leadoff single in the 9th for the Nats. Still 4-3 Marlins. Ramos on the hill for the Fish 2 outs, tying run on 2nd Clint Robinson up Marlins win!!!!

Frayed Knot wrote: Desmond, leadoff single in the 9th for the Nats. Still 4-3 Marlins. Ramos on the hill for the Fish 2 outs, tying run on 2nd Clint Robinson up

Desmond, leadoff single in the 9th for the Nats. Still 4-3 Marlins. Ramos on the hill for the Fish

So the just-departed LHP Robbie Ross uses his Jr. designation as does Jackie Bradley Jr on the same team, as does Melvin Upton Jr. now in SD The one connecting factor with those three is that none of their father were ML players. It seems to me that those used to be the only time you'd see a player use Jr in his playing name a la Ken Griffey or Cal Ripken (Cal Sr coached and managed) but I guess trends change.

Nats only get one run out of a bases-loaded/no-out situation and trail 4-3 in the 7th.

This Henry Owens guy was the 34th overall pick for the Sox in 2011 out of HS and was showing up as high as Top-20 on the pre-season prospect reports last winter. Tonight will be his 5th ever ML start. Got hit hard by the Mariners in one game but has been decent to good in the other three. John Sickels posted this about Owens upon his call-up in early August: In 2014 he posted a combined 2.94 ERA in 159 innings divided between Double-A Portland and Triple-A Pawtucket with a 170/59 K/BB. He has spent all of 2015 with Pawtucket, producing a 3.16 ERA in 122 innings with a 103/56 K/BB and just 84 hits allowed. He has been particularly sharp recently, with a 34/8 K/BB in 32 innings over five July starts with a 2.84 ERA. Owens is a 6-6, 220 pound southpaw born July 21, 1992. His arsenal consists of a fastball in the 88-92 range, peaking at 93-94 when he pushes for extra velocity. The fastball works well even at the lower velocity notches because he mixes it efficiently with an above-average change-up and a decent breaking ball. Although he occasionally struggles with his command, his feel for pitching is considered quite strong in general. He's shown he can adjust and make positive changes when things aren't going well. Joe Kelly (Saturday's starter) came from the Cardinals in the Lackey deal and, in typical StL fashion, Lackey got better while the younger Kelly regressed. He's 7-6 but with a 5+ ERA and faces deGrom Wade Miley (Sunday) we've seen in his Arizona days. He's 0-1 in 3 career starts vs NYM. Syndergaard goes for the Mets.

This is exactly why the summer of 1985 was more fun than the summer of 1986. And why '84 might have been better still. Among my Met fan friends of the '86 era, if you wanted to talk Mets but weren't well-versed on the '84 team we automatically dismissed you as a bandwagon jumper.

As I said last night in the IGT somewhere, after seeing Carlos Torres run, both to 1st on the carom play and later to home on Murphy's double, my money's on him as the fastest man on the team. Not fastest pitcher, Fastest - Player - Period! (or Fastest - Player - 'Full Stop' for those of you listening in overseas via Armed Forces Radio)

Never offended either. I've had numerous experiences over the years with non-New Yorkers assuming that NYC sports fans rooted for all NYC teams, it seems odd to them when told that's NOT the case. And I certainly don't expect some dumb jock to be up on things. Besides, if we can't have zingers in pro sports where are we supposed to get them? I'm all for sportsmanship and the like but there's also a danger in becoming too nice.

Of all our string of series vs last place clubs, This is the one I had penciled in as a potential pitfall the way some of you were viewing the Phils. Red Sox can hit, have a bunch of new faces no one knows about, and are a respectable 14-11 since July 30. Of course they can't pitch or field but no one's perfect. So, as Butch repeatedly said to Sundance, who are those guys? C - Blake Swihart and Ryan Hanigan Hanigan's a vet backup with typical backup catcher stats. Swihart is a highly touted rookie who's impressed since his May call-up 1B - They say we're going to see Papi there for 2 of the 3 games. Other than that, 25 y/o rookie Travis Shaw has been manning the position since Mike Napoli was dealt away and has been hitting far beyond his minor league credentials 2B - Pedroia's out, so they picked up former Rockie/Angel Josh Rutledge at the deadline with with occasional appearances from utility-knife player (and 2015 All-Star) Brock Holt SS - Xander Bogaerts is having the break-out year everyone predicted for him last year following his star turn in the 2013 post-season 3B - A very expensive and only occasionally worth it Panda. They've been especially down on his defense LF - Hanley Ramirez, for now anyway as there's talk of moving the SS turned 3B turned LF into a 1B for next year. CF - Mookie Betts is an exciting player worthy of his first name RF - Jackie Bradley Jr and Rusney Casillo -- Both have just over 100 ABs for the year as RF was a revolving door for the Sox over the first half of the season. Bradley is less valuable now that he's been bumped from CF. Castillo is a Cuban import signed for a boatload of years/money almost exactly one year ago but has needed more break-in time than they hoped. Maybe somebody knows something about their pitching cuz I sure as hell don't.

Centerfield wrote: I like to think that the Nats saw the 5-0 score and were glad to see it, but knew that the game was far from over. I also like to think that as they saw the score change to 5-2, 5-4, then tied at 5, that they knew what was eventually coming. I was trying to switch on the Nats game every once in a while just to hear how their announcing duo was reacting to changing scores in the NYM/PHI game. Did manage to catch at least one reaction to some NYM runs which I would describe as a kind of resigned disbelief. It was like he wanted to say "How the Fuck are those guys doing it?!?" but managed to restrain himself.

Murphy - 1.8 CTorres - 2.0 Gilmartin - 0.8 Robles - 0.5 Verrett - 0.5 Cespedes - 1.2 d'Arnaud - 1.2 Johnson - 1.0 Granderson - 1.0

Robles - 0.6 Familia - 1.0 Cespedes - 2.2 Cuddyer - 1.7 d'Arnaud - 1.0 Syndergaard - 1.5 Johnson - 0.5 Murphy - 1.0 Granderson - 0.5

Gilmartin - 1.2 Flores - 2.0 Murphy - 1.4 Cespedes - 1.0 Wright - 1.0 d'Arnaud - 1.2 Cuddyer - 1.2 Lagares - 1.0

Tack on another few and let Torres finish the game.

OK, I'm going out on a limb here, Carlos Torres is the fastest guy on the team!!

You can't stop Carlos Torres you can only hope to contain him.

Remember how for most of the season you'd check to see who was coming up in the next inning for the Mets, and if it wasn't 3-4-5 (and even if it was much of the time) you'd almost mentally write off any chance they had at scoring? Now suddenly even if it's towards the bottom of the order I think there's as good a chance as there would be anywhere else. d'Arnaud, Conforto, Tejada ? ... I'll take those odds!!

I don't know if the youngsters get it from the major leaguers of if the oldsters first develop it as youngsters, but these Little League games move even slower than ML contests. Coming up on three hours past their starting time and they're in the 6th inning.

Damn! Philly pitchers threw about 4 legit strikes that whole inning ... and still nuthin'

You gotta admit, there's going to be a bunch of stuff from Murph that we're going to miss when he's gone. Not everything, but a lot.

And how many times do you see it, the guy who makes the great play bats third in the upcoming inning.