Edgy MD

The Mets, tied 2-2 in a series but unable to solve Mike Scott whatsoever, suddenly have the psychological context of their series switched on them. If a win Scott over Darling is such a given for game seven, that forces them to approach Games Five and Six as two consecutive elimination games. And with Game Five pushed back a day, the specter only grew, with reporters and the players left with nothing to do but talk and talk and talk about Mike Scott. When the teams finally took the field on October 14, it was Met fireballers of two different generations matching up, with Nolan Ryan coming in against Dwight Gooden. The matchup lives up to its billing, with the two legends, 17 years of age difference between them, trading zeros through the first four. In the fifth, Houston scratches out a run on a double by Hal Ashby (their only extra base hit, a single by Craig Reynolds, a bunt by Ryan, and an RBI groundout by Billy Doran. Do the Mets answer? Oh they do! Ryan had been masterful to this point, holding the Mets hitless (the way he tends to do) through four and a third with eight (eight!) strikeouts. But power against power is a beautiful thing, and Darryl Strawberry extending his arms against Nolan Ryan is a whole lot of power, and in this case resulted an a long homer down the rightfield line. And... that's it. At the end of regulation, the teams are still tied at onesis, wit the Mets only garnering a single hit the rest of the way, a Hernandez single in the seventh. Even against the all-time walk leader, the Mets only managed a single free pass, also in the seventh, but with two on, Mookie Wilson flied out to end the faintest hint of a rally. So, up against it, Davey Johnson makes the bold decision to get a 10th inning out of Dwight Gooden, cruising pretty well himself. Gooden gets two quick outs before pinch-hitter Terry "Swimming" Puhl tries to ignite a one-man rally, reaching on a an infield hit and stealing second. (You just know Tim McCarver was carrying on about Gooden's high leg kick) Gooden, pitches around Doran, and walks him, but ends the threat when Billy Hatcher flies to right. That pinch-hit, though, cost the Astros their right to continue with old Nolie, and they send in their wierdo rookie seteup man Charlie Kerfeld. (Kerfield has had a fine season and would eventually finish fourth in Rookie of the Year voting, but has been perhaps overused this season and would never be good again.) He picks up where Ryan left off, getting the Mets 4-5-6 hitters in order while striking out Strawberry and Wilson. The Mets double switch Danny Heep in left and turn the game over to Jesse Orosco. Somewhere in the clubhouse, Kevin Mitchell breaks a few bats in outrage at the slight. Orosco is all over the Astros, striking out Denny Walling and Glenn Davis and getting Kevin Bass on a groundout back to the box. Mets half of the 11th, though, is no better, with Knight and Mazzilli (pinch-hitting for Rafael Santana) grounding out, Heep whiffing, and Mitchell trashing the porn room. On to the twelfth and Orosco pitches a second perfect inning, getting the legendary Jose Cruz (who I think history hasn't been kind enough to), Ashby and Thon. In the Astros half, Lanier gets a little silly as he tries to get a third inning out of the punk rocker Kerfeld. But, you know, Kerfeld is a big guy. Wally Backman, coming up with one out, opts to save his bunts for another day and raps one toward third that ricochets off the glove of Denny Walling. He takes and aggressive lead of first, and Kerfeld tries to pick him off, but in perhaps the TURNING POINT OF THE GAME, he instead throws wild, sending Backman into scoring position with still on out and the heart of the order coming up. Kerfeld intentionally walks Keith Hernandez to take one more crack at Gary Carter, in the midst of a 1-21 slump. Carter works a full count before singling up the middle and OH MY GOD THE METS WINNNN!!!!! Thier second walkoff win of the series! The accounts of the day remind me that double-plays were a big part of the story. The Astros led off the second with two straight singles, but Gooden defused the rally by striking out Ashby and getting a double-play on Craig Reynolds. Replays suggested Fred Brocklander blew the call and Reynolds beat the relay. The Mets attempted to get out of the fifith-inning Astro rally with a doubleplay, but Backman doubleclutched on the relay, and Brocklander, perhaps as a subconscious make-good, called Doran safe, giving the Astros their lone run. In the eighth, a hard-charging Mookie Wilson corralled what looked like a line single by Walling and had Billy Doran doubled easily off of first. On to Game Six. Ojeda vs. Knepper, with Mike Scott looming... ever looming. This might be good.

Well, five o'clock. Time to hit the porn room.

Yeah, he hit only three homers instead of four in the NLCS with the Mets. I"ll have to talk to him about that.

Is it any wonder that Al Leiter worked on Steve Phillips' watch? Show us the porn, Steve!!!! --- Ambler, circa 2000

Give us a rating, Brother Knot.

What would Backpack Girl say?

From the MLB Network broadcast.

Ted Berg at Tedquarters grabbed this screencap, thrown up to demonstrate how awesome Albert Pujols is, but inadvertently telling the story of just how lazy, soft, and unreliable Carlos Beltran has been. That's eight guys --- five hall-of-famers, one steroid abusing numbskull, Pujols, and Beltran on thop of them all by almost a hundred points.

Dan Patrick draws Senator Al out on Shea Stadum's porn room.

That was Mookie's game. As fast as he was stealing and in the outfield, going from first to third he was blazing. He just had this runningback's way of exploding out of his cut. Stayed way fast in his thirties, too.

Sorry. Misread that boxscore. How does Garner go from batting third for a division champ in the post-season to getting pinch-hit for?

That's his game, baby. When you're tying run and have almost no extra-base power, you get on base any way you can, and bunting for hits against overweight pitchers is his way. Wally was the extremest ground-ball hitter of his era, against a groundball pitcher. A single was the best you could reasonably hope for anyhow.

Could Mike Scott improve 25 years ago last night on his 14-strikeout, five-hit shutout performance in game one. Not really, but in game four, he held the Mets on the ground, limiting them to three ground singles, no walks, and Wally Backman reaching on interference in the baseline by Scott himself. The Mets were hitless through the first five. While his scuff splitter fanned only five, it produced 13 groundouts. The Mets got their only run in the eighth, as Mookie Wilson grounded a single through the hole, went from first to third on an infield out by Knight (as only Mookie could) and scored on a sacrifice fly by Danny Heep. If the Mets needed that sort of risktaking to scratch a single run while down 3-0 in the eighth, you know they were a little bit desperate. And the spectre of Game Seven against Scott loomed. IT LOOMED! Not to be lost in the tale of dominance by Scott (his two game scores in the series thus far were 90 and 82). Was the Mets pitching (Fernandez, McDowell, and Sisk) holding the Astros to only five hits. Unfortunately, the only three hits El Sid yielded were three solo homers --- to Davis Ashby, and Thon. Ashby's shot came after hitting an apparent foulout that the Mets were not able to get to because of the temporary post-season seats added down the line. Thon's homer was some degree of revenge for Dickie, who was playing against the Mets a few years before when a single pitch from Mike Torrez turned him from a budding All Star regular to a utility man.

I don't know. Thirty-five years on The Price Is Right is nothing to sneeze at.

The Matt Damon movie checklist. [list:1a5k4r0y][*:1a5k4r0y]Essentially orphaned? Check.[/*:m:1a5k4r0y] [*:1a5k4r0y]Bitter? Check.[/*:m:1a5k4r0y] [*:1a5k4r0y]Punchy? Check.[/*:m:1a5k4r0y] [*:1a5k4r0y]The pure virtue of a paladin underneath that? Check.[/*:m:1a5k4r0y] [*:1a5k4r0y]Handsome but unattainable? Check.[/*:m:1a5k4r0y] [*:1a5k4r0y]Cursed by knowledge and/or power that the rest of of us can scarcely conceive? Check.[/*:m:1a5k4r0y] [*:1a5k4r0y]Willing to defy it all and fight for his woman? Check.[/*:m:1a5k4r0y][/list:u:1a5k4r0y] And... print. Still, I enjoyed it.

A young politician on the verge of becoming a US senator hits a wave of bad publicity and gets his ass whupped in the election. As he prepares to make his concession speech, he meets a ladyperson and clicks with her. However, he soon finds himself unable to pursue the relationship, and learns instead that he and she and you and me are pawns in a game of a higher power's planned destiny, and a small, uncanny army of angels of fate is trying to make sure he doesn't deviate from his pre-ordained trip across the board. Matt Damon stars in this adaptation of a Phillip K. Dick story.

I disagree with a lot of this. Their heroic manager and GM are gone, and both are laded with copious, scattershot blame (the likes of which were smeared all over Pedro's and Manny's shadows as they left town). He certainly suggests he has sources that point to these things. He's just reporting, and he makes it clear that the blamers are pointing in many directions. He cites "numerous sources," and Francona's own claim that his influence tends to wane leaders over time. You have to report that. Francona's marital problems and "drug abuse" and caring about his son are raised as possible causes absent backup (and summarily dismissed) during the week following his being fired. Team sources are indeed feeding him that. He gives Francona ample space to respond. And Francona makes clear that he's disappointed in the sources for the suggestion, not the reporter. He gets the last word on the drug thing, too. That's good. Player moves which previously drew no public ire from management are recast as damning evidence of systemic problems. Jenks? Lackey? Crawford? These drew no prior ire? Fucking around during spring training video shoots is now seen as portentious "irony" (around the same clubhouse that prided itself on "cowboying up" in 2004). Guys who put up 1.000 OPSes during the last month are crapped on for not leading. People pointed fingers. Sometimes explicitly. The writer has no responsible choice but to call the subject for a response and print it. Meanwhile, ownership gets two brief, demi-neutral mentions in a 2,000-plus word piece that purports to speak to the concerns of "all levels" of the organization. From whom do you think Hohler's getting his premises? Right at the top we have "owners who approved unrewarding free agent spending and missed some warning signs that their $161 million club was deteriorating." I don't consider that demi-neutral. And the lame-duck status of the manager is certainly at the owner's feet. He says virtually everybody told him there were issues with training dedication. You have to run this. They're grown men and perfectly capable of issuing a denial. The main issue is the drug thing. If the only source on that is an employer, it sure would be some questionable journalism to print what should be protected. But it sounds like many of these things were open secrets and he's just rounding 'em up. I think, when it all goes up against the wall, two things mostly stick with me: (1) those three pitchers, and whether they showed the proper commitment, and (2) the lame-duck manager who didn't have the juice to crack down on them. The pitchers and the ownership have to answer for those things. The last thing that's important to report is that fingers are pointing all over. And that speaks of an organization in disarray, no matter which pointer is most accurate.

The team collapsed and their heroic manager and general manager are gone. Somebody is going to write a post-mortem on that. It was going to be filled with innuendo and insinuation. This was more responsible than most every other article would be. I came out with nothing but compassion for Francona.

Oooh, disagreement. I don't think it's a hatchet job. Folks made accusations, he sought confirmation, and he gave the guys accused more than adequate chance to respond.

Andy Martino says Bowa is off the list of potential Met bench coaches, but unsure whether he removed his name or the Mets have. Mr. Bigglesworth interviewed today.

Adam Ruby Duby wrote: Gary Carter gets more good news An MRI exam at Duke University revealed positive news in Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter's battle with cancerous brain tumors, daughter Kimmy Bloemers wrote in an online journal. Carter's doctors informed the family that the tumors have shrunk 10 percent from a previous MRI exam, and approximately 75 percent since the initial detection. "Parts of the tumors are actually dying," Bloemers wrote in the private journal, to which the family has granted access to ESPNNewYork.com. Also, headaches recently experienced by Carter on the side of his head are the result of modest swelling -- possibly caused by radiation treatments as opposed to internal bleeding, which the family had feared, according to Bloemers. Carter, 57, performed well on balance and memory tests at Duke. Doctors also were pleased with an examination of his vital signs. He will need to continue to inject himself in the stomach daily until further notice to combat blood clotting. "Physically, dad will push harder to exercise," Bloemers wrote. "It will be challenging, but dad is determined. He will also go to physical therapy three days a week and coach every day for his college baseball team." Carter is head baseball coach at Palm Beach Atlantic University. Former major league pitcher Kent Bottenfield has been hired as associate head coach to assist in the duties. Carter played 18 seasons in the big leagues, most notably for the New York Mets and Montreal Expos.

This guy's performance to date has him projecting as a first ballot Hall-of-Famer. [youtube:jb76bnmk]VOgPau-U9Js[/youtube:jb76bnmk]

Looking forward to seeing if Fernandez has any more luck against Scott than Gooden did. I'm intrigued that Johnson has gone to a four-man rotation against Lanier's three-man. That sets Darling up for a potential game seven! Against Scott!

Peter Gammons assures me that the Astros would rather be in downtown Beirut than the National League Central. Seriously, I'm certain that (1) Gammons has solid inside information, but (2) that's just information, and it's not a done deal until it's a done deal.

I know it's almost unworkable, but I'd like ballplayers to live in the world I do, where their so-called superiors have more salary/job security than they do.