Edgy MD

TransMonk wrote: This guy's gonna be a beast. Keep your predictions coming, Monk.

St. Lucie got four hits, two doubles, and three RBI out of Dom Smith today, one of three St. Lucie Mets to go 4-5. Raised his batting average 10 points to .305.

You like a 2-3 for Smith? How about a 2-3 against Jose Fernandez? The former Rookie of the Year is tearing through his rehab starts like cheetah through the grass. A cheetah on 5-Hour Energy Drink. But Smitty is no blade of grass. He's batted .365 (57-for-156) since May 9, with 20 doubles and two home runs.

I appreciate the ambition. The long prologue in particular was courageous. But the execution didn't add up for me. I was really, really undone by the sound on this thing. Between the mumbling, the jargon, the slurring of Matthew McConaughey's accent, and Hans Zimmer's bombastic scoring, we kept having to stop the thing and replay it. Eventually, my wife demanded we set it to play back with subtitles. The fate of humanity is at stake, and you're in a command situation. Speak up and speak clearly.

In strangely inappropriate times, I find myself recalling the line, "So... Hermione just stole all our shit..." and laughing out loud.

Hollywood screenwriter in a professional and personal slump takes a job as writer-in-residence at SUNY-Binghamton. Can he put aside his smug Hollywood ways and find the meaning and virtue in teaching? I dunno, but if you say, "Binghamton," I say "raucous comedy"! Marissa Tomei, Chris Elliott, and both Juno's father and stepmother co-star. [fimg=640:3av1fhid]http://klips-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/movies/404/posters/non_featured/The_Rewrite_Poster.jpg?1411464930[/fimg:3av1fhid]

Edgy MD wrote: ... inning his slugging percentage up at a solid .434. It is, in fact, seventh in the circuit.

Dominic Smith goes 4-4 as St. Lucie, down 2-1 after five, puts up four runs in innings 6-8 and turns the ball over to soon-to-be New York Met Akeel Morris for the savie thing. Smith now at .298, having been on tear for a month at least. He hit his second homer last week, pulling him within one of his career high. Yeah, big whoopsie-daisy, but he's ripped a league-leading 21 doubles, pinning his slugging percentage up at a solid .434.

Turning point of the film set to this catchy little rocker by a group of Baltimore babies with the good taste to borrow their riffs from Billy Squier. [youtube:1dsos93n]DSUMF5bSGTI[/youtube:1dsos93n]

Pretty good, though it takes a while to find it's voice. Designed on the James Bond template, with the mid-mission cold open, followed by a title sequence filled with sexy silhouettes panning across the screen and a title song by an elegant and exotic chanteuse. The hook, such as it is, is that McCarthy's character, working on the back end of the spy business, only appears to be an unassuming frump, but has vicious and effective violent instincts once released into the field. Rather than make up a spy organization, she supposedly works for the CIA, which is strange, because the CIA ends up looking profoundly stupid. Plus, half their agents seems to be British. Some of the best comedy in the first half comes from Jason Statham (who knew?), as a loose-cannon rival agent consumed by his self-mythology. Three stars out of five. I'm willing to be talked up to three and a half. Lots of low-humor, which works more in the second half. The first half, you mostly feel like you're wallowing.

When a CIA analyst (Melissa McCarthy) has the dashing field operative she supports (Jude Law) killed while she's communicating with him remotely, she puts her training to use and heads into the field, seeking to track down the Russian arms dealer (Rose Byrne) behind the kill. Fellow agent Jason Statham totally isn't into her. Hijinx? Oh, they can't help but ensue. Viewing this evening. Lady's choice. McCarthy is totally irresistible. Ditto the movie. — Peter Travers·Rolling Stone Don't lead me astray here, Travers. The last McCarthy movie you steered innocent moviegoers to was crap.

In perhaps the worst timing since the release of Space Camp, a soccer drama comes out about the origins and evolution to the present day of FIFA, largely financed and developed by FIFA themselves. Even putting aside the convergence of the release with the organization mired in scandal (mired up to the neck, I would say), who would want to see a sports movie dramatizing the history of a sport's governing body? I'll leave this poll-less for now, as I don't expect anybody to actually see this barring a stuck-on-a-long-flight scenario a few months from now. International big shots Fisher Stevens, Thomas Kretschmann, Tim Roth, Sam Neill, and Gerard Depardieu [crossout]shill[/crossout] star.

2012 (Kingsport, Brooklyn): .240 / .307 / .321 // .629 2013 (Brooklyn): .273 / .319 / .314 // .633 2014 (Savannah & St. Lucie & Bingo): .247 / .328 / .378 // .707 2015 (Binghamton): .331 / .387 / .490 // .878 POW! Corner: turned. My name is Gavin. See how I rake.

ThunderDom Smith went 2 for 5 with two more doubles last night, as St. Lucie Beat Brandenton, 7-6, running her winning streak to a season-high five games. Picking up in June where he left off in May, Smitty now has nine doubles in his last eight games. His double in the fifth plated Miakis De La Cruz to break a 4-all tie.

Twenty-three RBI in a month is amazin' for a guy still not hitting it over the wall. Some credits got to go to Jeff McNeil (.401 OBP) and Michael Conforto (.350), but keep swinging, Big Dom.

Let the doubters doubt. Mets first base prospect Dominic Smith smashed three hits Sunday in a win for High-A St. Lucie. Smith drove in four runs to cap off an incredible weekend. On Saturday, the 19-year-old belted an 11th-inning walk-off home run, his second blast in 215 career minor league games. Smith's three-hit day Sunday extended his hitting streak to 13 games. The 2013 first-round pick batted .276 with 23 RBI in the month of May. Let the believers believe.

Seems like some Josh Thole numbers with the stick. If it won't play at first, it won't play much better in left, but better to be versatile, I guess.

Space Face Jayce called up to AAA after going .306 / .363 / .420 // .783 to start the season in Binghamton. Over two seasons (a convenient 160 games) he's been a consistent .296 / .377 / .416 // .792 hitter in the Eastern League.

Stormtroopers.

Dominic is up to a respectable .233 / .287 / .308 // .595. And by "respectable," I mean, "a barely tolerable for the best fielding shortstop the Florida State League has ever seen." For Smith, it remains deeply perturbing. It's an improvement from April, to be certain, but the man wasn't signed to put up an Ordóñezian slugging percentage. No sir.

It's a sad reality that, while we decry the caterpillarian lowness of Adam Sandler's act, when he does endeavor to try a more honorable project � Punch Drunk Love, Love Reign o'er Me, and this � it disappears quickly in the marketplace. Then he returns to the sewer and America handsomely rewards him. We can tut-tut that his latest project appears to be a borderline hate crime, but YOU MADE HIM, America. And YOU MADE HIM DO IT! That bit of anti-moralizing moralizing aside, the film � categorizable as Jewish magic realism � is something of a departure for McCarthy as well but it ends up being hit-and-miss. Some of the plot turns are clever, and the portrayal of a dying Lower East Side tradesman-and-merchant community is authentic enough (though far from pitch perfect), but some of the protagonist's choices are head-scratchers and the themes are a little Disney facile. Certainly not a wasted evening, though. It kind of feels like a John Sayles movie, in that the you're getting a bigger picture of good-and-bad American values in an ordinary, low-budget/low-scale life, but you don't realize it unless you think about it. What have you all been watching?

Adam Sandler plays the title role, a shoe repairman who discovers a magic stitching machine that allows him to assume other persons' identities when he puts their shoes on. Hijinks, as they tend to do when you hear klezmer music, ensue. Writer/director Tom McCarthy writes and directs.

Impressed by this, we rented Godzilla, and found ourselves bored out of our minds. I'd put up a thread, but I fell asleep halfway-ish. Give some people a budget, and you're not doing them a favor, sometimes.

Much has been made of impatiently waiting for Alderson products to make the majors, but he's the very first Met to reach the majors from 2009's draft class — the last under Omar Minaya. Sixth-round pick David Buchanan didn't sign, but eventually reached the majors as a Phillie, logging 25 games over the last two years. Still, in the system from that draft: [list:3vw8gr3h][*:3vw8gr3h]Steven Matz, sp, round two, now at AAA[/*:m:3vw8gr3h] [*:3vw8gr3h]Darin Gorski, sp, round seven, now at AAA[/*:m:3vw8gr3h] [*:3vw8gr3h]Jeff Glenn, c, round nine, now at A+[/*:m:3vw8gr3h] [*:3vw8gr3h]Neifi Zapata, c/1b, round 19, now at AAA[/*:m:3vw8gr3h] [*:3vw8gr3h]John Church, rp, round 23, now at AAA[/*:m:3vw8gr3h][/list:u:3vw8gr3h] Taylor Whitenton (round 39) left pro ball after 2012, but the Mets brought him back this year, but he hasn't been pitching. Darrell's brother Devin was drafted, but has apparently opted out of pro ball. Somebody has to take the clients hunting. Wonder if he has another brother named Darrell. Good job nursing this guy through five years in the bushies.

In other news, Sean Ratliff, once Ceciliani's peer and rival as they took a parallel course of ascension through the system, before being forced to retire due to a serious eye injury, has rejoined the organization as the hitting coach for the Kingsport Mets. That's Seannie, second from right. Hasn't been out of baseball very long, but is already padding his belly like a coach. Good show.