Edgy MD

Also worth noting is that they've passed the Pilots/Brewers this season, moving from 22nd to 21st place among active franchises, having started the season .000247896 behind the Brew Crew, and are now .00225796 ahead and rising. They now sit only .00077632 behind the Twins and the coveted 20th place. Historical redemption.

By the way, if anyone wants to check my work, please do. That's a lot of games, and a lot of chances for error. Plus there are ties in there.

Roughly. More or less good through the first half of that period. More or less not-so-good through the second half. But the terrible didn't really start until 1978. Or more specifically, June 15, 1977.

Since the deal, Cespedes has produced at a level that has no parallel in the team�s 53-year history. In 41 games for the Mets, he has 17 home runs and 42 runs batted in, along with a .309 batting average. Just for the sake of discussion, is it really true that this has no parallel? Is it really true that his quarter-season of .309 / .356 / .691 // 1.048 is unprecedented? I mean, it's probably unprecedented as far as dovetailing perfectly and magically and out-of-the-blue with a Mets stretch run, but surely Piazza or Beltran or Duda or Strawberry or McReynolds or Segui or somebody has had a similar month and a half somewhere, right?

Here's a worry... Finishing the season against teams dragging their asses across the finish line seemed an advantage a month and a half ago. And indeed it is, as the Mets currently blow the Nats out of the water. But is competition against teams who've frequently traded away their best parts, and are now dragging their asses to the end of the season with lineups populated by the too-young and the too-old, like the Germans at the end of World War II... does it have the effect of softening the Mets before the big battle instead of hardening them? In this spirit, the Yankees will be an important test, no? I guess that's why they want to throw Harvey then.

As you might have guessed by the infrequent updates between the early season winning streak and the trade deadline upgrades, I only measure advances in the historical enemy line, not retreats.

Of course. Even moreso. I was posting half-zonked from the bathtub. (Daddy has been sick.) And was still dealing with having my mind blown by the 8 1/2 year explosion.

Jos�! Jos�-Jos�-Jos�!! Jos�! Jos�! C'mon Jos�, help the Mets!

Um, guys? Last night was the magic night. I didn't realize this was going to happen, but after last night's win, the Mets are at least a .500 team over their last 7,442 games, going back to Sunday, April 27 (Game Two), 1969, an improvement of 1,=#FF8000]55=#FF8000]5 games. We've somehow, someway, jumped from the fall of 1978 to the spring of 1969, from the dawn of the space shuttle program, to the time before the moon landing. From the early dark days of the Joe Torre era, to the time before Joe Frazier, before Roy McMillan, before Yogi Berra, to the early Gil Hodges era, when we only had a hint of the miracle to come. The Sex Pistols and Van Halen are but stinky children and the Beatles still reign supreme, and the Mets have a .500 record dating back to that date. The day before World War II hero Charles deGaulle stepped down as president of France. Yes, the Mets are a break-even team going back to this grainy 8-mm time. Historical redemption. Such is representative of the remarkable things this remarkable season is bringing you. That a seemingly passing night in which a late-season Mets team edged a second-division bottom feeder by a single run actually erased eight 1/2 of history, extending the reign of the Respectable Mets back 8 1/2 years back over 1,500 games. What game are we dialed back to? Well it may or may not surprise you that we've way-backed all the way to a 3-0 shutout of the rival Cubs � capped by a three-homer ninth, started by Jim McAndrew, but won with four innings of six-strikeout shutout relief by none other than Tug McGraw. Because if there's anything 2015 has taught us, it's that you've gotta believe. [fimg=700]http://www.ultimatemets.com/scorecard_graph.php?game=1154&font=1[/fimg] [fimg=200]http://1969mets.com/files/2011/12/tug-mcgraw-1966-topps-card.jpg[/fimg] [fimg=900]http://usarmy.vo.llnwd.net/e2/c/images/2012/06/27/253709/original.jpg[/fimg]

In the great tradition (magnae traditionis) of Billy Wagner, Jonathan Papelbon leaves Philadelphia and ambiguously talks crap about the guys he left behind.

Doug Fister will be a Marlin next year. I'm curious if he spends the rest of the year in the pen and hits the free agent market as a potential closer.

Kingsport, TN, is a small town, but they're a small town that has had a professional team for 94 years. For 35 freakin' years they've been affiliated with the Mets. Now, they're so psyched to part of the Mets family (and who wouldn't be?) they're looking to extend for five more years. That sounds pretty unusual. I had come to believe most affiliation agreements run on two-year contracts. I visited Kingsport once, and I watched like five innings before a rainout. Got to see Mookie Wilson twice roll his eyes and call his players out for being airheads. Almost all top prospects skip Kingsport, but I kind of romanticize it because of that. Players there are not just struggling to be major leaguers. They're struggling even to get noticed and be considered as major league potential, and get onto a big league track. REALLY thick accents down there. And it was both jarring and right to see Mookie Wilson grinding it down there between his two stints as a Mets coach. Jarring because it's so far from the sophistication of New York, and the manager doubles as third base coach, and has so few of the resources big league coaches have. Right because Mookie is nonetheless pretty country at heart. The K-Mets had four stars this season. Catcher Patrick Mazeika got silly, hitting at a Cespedesian .354 / .451 / .540 // .991. Outfielder Kevin Kaczmarski did all that while adding speed to the mix. hitting .355 / .415 /.512 // .927 and stealing 20 bases in only 64 games. The gorgeously named Nabil Crismattwent 6-1 with a 2.90 ERA, striking out 63 and walking only 12 in 62.0 innings. Thomas McIlraith went 6-1 also, somehow posting a diminutive 1.71 ERA despite inferior strikeout/walk numbers. You'll nonetheless see them on the back end of prospect lists, where the iffy guys are found.

Cil CIL CIL! (I wanted Koehler to understand it.)

Who's Bour so pissed at?

Kinda thought the Mets should have gone to Murphy or Johnson for Uribe. Righthanded breaking ball guy? Not Uribe's kind of pitcher.

Wow. Granderson is so busy celebrating that he was practically at the water cooler before everybody told him he had to go back to third.

Nobody throws strikes to Grandy these days.

When Taveras was hot, you couldn't get him out. He was Johnny LeMaster most of the year. But for two weeks here and two weeks there, he was Garry Templeton.

David Wright: Hit a double, and robbed a double the other way.

Verizon Trivia: "Who are the two players with 250 or more hits for both the Mets and the Marlins?" I'll go with Dave Magadan and Luis Castillo.

Centerfield wrote: I wrote that everybody should be fired. I never said anything about blowing up anything. I didn't really think there was any distinction between these two statements. No, you never said anything about dumping pitchers. I didn't say you did. My use of "blowing up" was meant to characterize blowing up the organization, as you advocated. Firing everybody. I disagreed with that. If you didn't seriously mean he should be fired, you didn't. I'm not sure when to take you seriously, though. Especially when your statement is preceded by the word "Seriously." I'm not clear then what we're talking about here. Maybe "seriously" only applied to the part of the paragraph that preceded the one-word sentence "Seriously." If so, my misunderstanding.

sharpie wrote: Curtis gets a Blow Terry posts a lineup with a Curtis Blow Who needs a hit when you've got d'Arnaud? With a Cuddy and a Wright a Wilmer Flo Who needs a hit when you've got d'Arnaud? Who needs a hit when you've got d'Arnaud? Lorn Brownnnnn?! LORN Brownnnnn! Lorn Brownnnnn?! LORN Brownnnnn!

The thing that seemingly that made Ellsbury even more perfect a Red Sock even than Johnny Damon is that both his first and last names sounded like Boston neighborhoods. But yeah, let there be no doubt that the Yankees are already preparing a huge package for Mookie Betts in winter 2021.