Edgy MD

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Carlos Torres hooked on with his old pals Kirk Niuewenhuis -- and Blaine Boyer (!!) -- in Milwaukee. ... And Chris Capuano! Just kidding. Nobody was friends with Capuano.

And the suspension of Robles is over. If you've got to lose a reliever to a suspension, that's the time of year to do it.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Games will remain open for voting longer than they did in past years, when it was two business days. Now, I'm figuring about two weeks, though we'll have to see how things develop. My current plan is to close out games from the first half of April on or around May 1, and the second half of April on or around May 15, etc. I'm not sure if this is where you were going with your question, but I should point out that there's no mechanism for going back and editing your votes, and I have no plans at all to add that feature. No, I was thinking that, as more users visit the UMDB, one might decide to vote on a game he saw five years ago, and lo and behold, the results continue to evolve.

I was nobody. And then I was somebody. I was a prospect. I came up on the same day as Jacob deGrom. He prospered. He became a thing. A big, BIG thing. And I... I'm still trying to stick. But that's the way of things! Making the jump and beating the odds and staying healthy... that's all hard. You can't just compare me to that guy! I think it's all gonna fall in place somehow, and I'm pitching to make that happen. Your rotation of the future is too domestic, I think, and needs a little Dominican blood. So what's gonna happen? [fimg=509:axz2avzv]http://www.bloggingmets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/rafael-montero.jpg[/fimg:axz2avzv] [fimg=191:axz2avzv]http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1703937.1393522944!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/gallery_1200/rafael-montero.jpg[/fimg:axz2avzv] [fimg=204:axz2avzv]http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/slides/photos/003/101/679/hi-res-7108914_display_image.jpg?1365819028[/fimg:axz2avzv] [fimg=496:axz2avzv]http://www.rantsports.com/mlb/files/2013/05/USATSI_7181000_149008644_lowresrm.jpg[/fimg:axz2avzv]

So, anybody?

I'm sure there was a lot of that, but he's mostly describing abuse of amphetamines, something far more black market. Baseball players have largely replaced them with abuse of ADD medications and hammering energy drinks.

Big story coming out is the surprising-to-no-one revelations by Ron Darling in his new book about the rampant, egregious, and in-game drug use by his 1986-era team. It should lead to some lazy moral leverage and bad parallels — if the Mets were all on drugs, why shouldn't Pete Rose be in the Hall of Fame?! — but the main news is that the highly educated and highly employed Darling is spilling the beans and not some broken down-and-outer like Lenny. http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-drugs-and-alcohol-fueled-the-1986-mets-1459795793?mod=e2fb When I first came up, there was a jar of pills that was kept in a prominent place—prominent, that is, if you knew where to look for it. It was called the jar because, come on, baseball players weren’t the most creative bunch. It became part of our language, our shorthand. If someone was scrambling, trying to mask an ache or a pain, or maybe to recover from an injury, he’d say, “I’m in the jar today.” Each pill had its own name. The five-milligram amphetamines were known as white crosses—and these were passed around like candy, if that was your bag. The heavier doses were black beauties. Remember, this was well before the common use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs; in many ways, you could make an argument that the drugs of choice in our clubhouse were more performance reducing than anything else. But most starting pitchers were loath to mess with any chemicals that might mess with their mind-set—anyway, I was. You’ve got all that time between starts, the last thing you want is to be anxious and on the edge for four days; if anything, you want something to take the edge off. It should be something good for broadcast yammering about for a few days, which suggests maybe opening day wan't the best time for a release.

Frayed Knot wrote: Sure. But is it interference without the ball actually going anywhere near the runner? And whether the runner affected the throw or not all comes down to a judgement call by the umps (they did get together on it) and judgement calls never get flipped. The thing is, guys are almost always out of the baseline. It shouldn't matter unless (1) they are out of the baseline avoiding a tag, or (2) out of the baseline interfering with a play. The pitcher's responsibility, I guess is to realize that the reason he can't get a clear throw to the bag is that the guy is out of the baseline, and so make a throw that's not exactly an intentional beaning of the baserunner, but in modestly good faith directed at the bag, but indifferent to whether it hits the runner. That's perhaps a lot to ask of a fielder hustling to make a play. The argument the team seems to want to make is that the runner outside the baseline interfered with the play not by running into a fielder or getting hit with a thrown ball, but by obscuring the line of sight to the base. That's not altogether unreasonable, but it's a stretch, and I doubt that the protest review committee (protest review board? guy? Joe Torre?) is big about setting that sort of precedent, essentially making new rules based on an interpretation of established rules. Baseball just doesn't tend to operate that way.

Bullpen in 2016 IP: 5 1/3 R: 0 ER: 0 H: 1 BB: 0 SO: 4 ERA: 0.00 WHIP: 0.19

I'm nobody's first choice as a catcher. But I'm a left-handed batter, and I know how to use it. You want a catcher with a stick, you call my name. I'm also from the Bronx, I make a damn sexy figure playing Underwear Cowboy, I inspire Beastie Boys songs, and I'm the son of a 17-year minor league vet. That's the kind of guy you want on your roster. But what will I do when I get there? Perhaps you know. [fimg=329]http://27inarow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/johnny-monell-mlb-new-york-mets-miami-marlins-850x560.jpg[/fimg] [fimg=325]http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.10422541.1431363038!/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/display_600/image.jpg[/fimg] [fimg=420]http://m.mlb.com/assets/images/7/6/6/122501766/cuts/monell1280_i03eh267_xo1ckqpx.jpg[/fimg]

Zvon wrote: Whoa, Walker almost boots a grounder but recovers. 2 out. That wouldn't have been a boot. That's smothering a tough hop, Glenn Hubbard-style.

ONE AND ONE!!

Jim Henderson, seventh-inning guy.

Yeah, whatever it was.

Humility, Kendrys.

This coach-clocking business isn't working for me.

Things are getting sweaty, folks. But no, this is not what disintegrating looks like. Talk to me after Morales.

Nobody played that first potential DP particularly cleanly. Looked far better on the second.

Gary has a point. Maybe Cespedes just stinks in Kansas City.

David Wright, still stealing.

Meanwhile Cindy has sat down 12 in a row.

That's 77 pitches for Young'un.

And that's what happens when you've got to come in, CY

Young throwing a lot of ballzz.

Rob Manfred descending from on high to join the SNY booth next inning.