Edgy MD

Will Kiner be in the booth tomorrow night?

Very righty heavy. I get Terry's Turnerlove, even if mine is not quite that strong, but I just don't get batting him fifth.

The little-sung Logan Verrett gets within one out of a complete game, striking out nine, walking one, while yielding just five hits and a lone run.... because he's merciful! Offense comes from Cesar Puello with two punds of Kaboomage.

Notice how desperately he avoids the Romeo & Juliet question.

Xavier Nady also lost his power stroke the remainder of that season.

Expect one salaciously violent kick in the gut from the Pirates every season.

You know, Baz Luhrman and his fabulous overindulgence (overindulgent fabulousness) have their defenders. But who out there is going out of their way to see Romeo & Juliet again?

Plus Sarah Grace works overtime giving us WW material. I think too much is made of who odd men out will be in pitching crunches. If you are pitching effectively, there's always room for you.

The part with the boy was better, certainly. I'd do a review, but... just input my complaints about most superdude movies here.

Us analyzing what's wrong with him, and him making excuses is not the same thing. The "no excuses" cliche is tired, macho, and counter-productive. Firstly, he didn't make one. Secondly if he's got a health issue that he doesn't report to the team, he's hurting the team. It's such a Catch-22. 1. We expect players to play through all ailments or else we will see them as soft and womenly. Girlish, even. 2. We expect them not to even mention if they have ailments or else we will see them as soft and womenly. Girlish, even. 3. If they do this, and a coach expereses that, while he appreciates his player being tough, but it would be more helpful to the team if he had been truthful, that coach should be shamed. We demand the truth, and hate them for telling it.

Suits don't tend to supersede on-field calls by umpires, no matter how egregious. If they did, the Yankees would lose two or three of their recent championships.

The distressing thing to me is that he publicly denied to the moon and back that he was feeling any effects of his condition last year. Then he arrives at Spring Training this year announcing that he feels like a million bucks, which is great, because he could really feel the effects of Valley Fever last year, particularly in the beginning of the year in the colder weather. That's, um, great. I get that you wanted to man up last year and grind through shit and not make excuses. But what do we do with that now? On one hand, you want us to know you feel better, and on the other, you want us to know that we can't believe what you're saying with regard to the issue. Ike would make a lousy boyfriend. He just would.

Ironmeh.

Wowwow. That's a chunky team they're building this year.

And the golem that is Gary Kolb appears again. John Milner looked high all the time, didn't he?

Following Byrd too. Duda, .239 batting average and all, is one of the real success stories of the young season, but nobody really wants to talk about it, lest he get scared and run away. Regarding one more hitter, the old joke goes: [list:6c1qvbzw]"We're just one or two players away" "Yeah --- Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig."[/list:u:6c1qvbzw] But I hear you. A capable righthanded hitter (or, alternatively, Davis remembering that he's a capable lefthanded one) would sure help. Meantime, they pretend that Buck is for real. I think the management is more interested in risking the season solving that problem longterm from within, rather than trying to make a definitive and bold short-term answer up front. So you start your season with a Marlon Byrd, and challenge your young outfielders to take playing time away from him, while challenging him to stave them off as long as he can. It's not really a strategy producing the results we want, certainly, but on the other hand, the same strategy is working so far at catcher.

Angel Hernandez, blowing a home run call, being asked to review it, leaving the field, delaying the game, coming back out, and blowing it again. The man works at it. It seems really easy to solve the problem of indicating whether a ball hits a divider behind a wall or hits the wall itself. Either you can put easily scarred material on the outside of the divider --- perhaps a layer of carbon or shoe polish that would mark the ball and be marked by the ball --- or you affix a resounding material like tin to the divider. Heck, you could even go high teck and affix the divider with impact sensors.

Adam Rubin scrambling and defensive is not a sightly thing. You speak arrogantly and decisively and condescendingly about something way unknown and it's the least surprising thing in the world that your words should come back to bite your sweet ass. You expect to see Francesa blame the messenger when shown his own words. It's sad to see Rubin do it.

Greg (of course, Greg) had a fantastic list of all the men (Quallses) who stood between Mets pitchers and history. I have to say, that the wattage of electricity in the Metsophere seems shockingly low for the day after one of the four or five best pitched games in team history.

This is great stuff, Greg.

Matt Harvey Is Pretty Awesome By Joe DeLessio So last night, after taking care of a first-inning nosebleed, Matt Harvey went on to pitch about the best baseball game you�ll ever see: He allowed just one hit � an infield single � in nine innings, walked nobody, and struck out twelve. (The Mets won in ten but gave Harvey no support, leading to a historically unfair no-decision.) Harvey�s been incredible over the first month-and-change of the season: He�s second in the National League in ERA, first in WHIP, first in strikeouts, first in WAR, and third in innings pitched, just a tick behind the leaders. In the off-season, the Mets (smartly) traded R.A. Dickey, who�d been the N.L.�s best pitcher in 2012. And we�ll be damned if they don�t have the best pitcher in the league so far in 2013. Harvey isn�t the only thing Mets fans have been able to get excited about in recent years: David Wright is a bona fide star, Dickey�s 2012 season was a pleasure to watch, and then there was that time Johan Santana threw a no-hitter. But Harvey�s emergence is the biggest sign yet that the Mets� rebuilding process is actually happening on the field, and not just on depth charts and farm reports. Harvey actually pre-dates Sandy Alderson�s arrival in the organization, but he worked his way through the system since being selected seventh overall in 2010, made his debut last season, and has dazzled thus far in 2013. Mets fans have been burned by well-hyped pitchers before � Generation K, anyone? � but so far, Harvey�s been everything they could have hoped for. He appears to be the type of pitcher the team can build around � the type of young arm every team in baseball dreams of developing. As exciting as Dickey was last year, and as likable as he�s always been, he was 37 years old in 2012. His success was wonderful, but it didn�t signal anything about the team�s future (other than increasing his trade value in order to acquire young players). Harvey, on the other hand, is gonna be here for a while. It�s always dangerous to heap too much praise on a pitcher with just seventeen big-league starts, and Harvey alone won�t make the team a legitimate contender. (As we write this, the Mets are 13-16, in fourth place in the N.L. East.) But none of that should keep Mets fans from being downright giddy about Harvey. The Mets, as you might imagine, are doing what they can to capitalize on the buzz: We count at least three e-mails in our in-box from the team�s ticket office hyping Harvey starts this year. The next of those starts, by the way, is scheduled for this coming Sunday, at Citi Field. He's awesome. John Buck punches Jordany Valdespin in the nose, and Matt Harvey bleeds for him.

Vegas gets seven shutout innings from Collin McHugh, inspired, I imagine, by his Flushing counterpart. The team entered the eighth with a 1-0 lead, before the bullpen faltered, but the Vegasatarians held on for a 3-2 win after trading single runs with Round Rock in both the eighth and ninth.

what do you think he does better than average? Effectively execute the role of big league shortstop.

Tejada is definitely better than average. I say that with confidence even after his wubbly defensive start this season.