roger_that

Someone on FB posted a chart of the Mets' footspeed, with this comment: The chart had Acuna at 29.6 feet/second, Jared Young 27.8, Mauricio 25.8, and Pete Alonso 25.4. Does Mendoza not know his personnel? That would be inexcusable. Even racist? "Mauricio's young, skinny, and black--must be much faster than an older chunkier white dude."

Yeah, those guys are haters and dumb haters (though there sure are a lot of them--I just quoted a very small sample) but I don't think Mauricio got a good read or a good jump, so that gives them material to hate on. CF--excellent point about wasting Acuna. I'd sure like to see the 9th inning with Acuna running for Pete.

Siri and Acuna in the lineup. That's novel for sure Why no thread yet titled "Are you Sirious?"

Yes, although we don't actually see him hesitating, or how long that took, or even whether the hesitation was reasonable. A more astute baserunner might have decided it simply wasn't catchable (from the way Castellanos was running to fetch it?) and he (esp. Acuna) might have been more than halfway home by the time Stott first touched the ball. No way of knowing, really. You seem to be giving Mauricio credit for some smarts, I'm definitely giving him less credit, but did you read some of the comments on the FB clip I posted? You should. Some of those folks are claiming that Mauricio (or even Pete if they'd left him in) could have made home plate easily. You read that and you'd think he should have been shot at sunrise for dereliction of duty. Here's a small sample: Mike Long Jr. Did Mendoza pinch run Mauricio for Alonso? Lol did anyone notice how slow he looked running the bases? Alonso would’ve had a better chance to score. 1d Reply Patrick de Courcey Mike Long Jr. I agree with you Mike he should have scored 😔 with his speed but to me 😕 he looked like he was in slow motion 😭 1d Reply Edwin Haddock Mike Long Jr. He would have had acuna if he didn't constantly put him in late oh and lost another at bat for baty..... 1d Reply Cheng Tsai Mike Long Jr. Should of also hold Young to pinch hit for Alvarez..... 1d Reply David Goldman Mike Long Jr. he even held up to see if ball would drop. What a mistake 1d Reply Jay Hillegass Mike Long Jr.Yeah why not put acuna in he would have def scored with veintos hit but whatever they seem to like to make it harder than it need to be to get into post season. 1d Reply Sean Gerard Mike Long Jr. Another questionable move by Mendoza 21h Reply Keith Dempster Mike Long Jr. Mauricio didn't look good running the bases, but he's still faster than Alonso on the bases, and you don't have to wonder if Mauricio will fall down while running. 1d Reply Steve Schubert Mike Long Jr. Totally agreed, I was like wtf? 1d Reply Angelo Fiouris Mike Long Jr. Yeah he looked slow but Pete wasn't scoring from first on that 1d Reply Michael Fernandez Mike Long Jr. did not hustle , every other team in same situation would have scored 1d Reply Timo Brew Only for Alvarez to swing at 3 a foot or more off the plate with eyes closed to end it ... 💩 1d Reply Jeremy Mozak Thanks for getting my hopes up for nothing. Chokers. 1d Reply Ben Caldas How Mauricio didn’t score on this ball has me scratching my head. 1d Reply Jimmy Alexander -Nola w/ a 6.78 ERA threw 6 scoreless -Mullins struck out w/ 1st and 3rd, 2 outs and popped up a bunt w/ the leadoff man on 1st -Mauricio misread Vientos double and doesn’t score as a PR… See more 6 of 363

Oh, Frayed Knot, the relay guy was Stott, per the clip above.

Here's Vientos' double. 230K views · 2.2K reactions | Mark Vientos rips a double the other... WWW.FACEBOOK.COM Mark Vientos rips a double the other way! The exciting moment for me came when Castellanos had a bit of trouble finding the ball bouncing off the RF fence. I couldn't see where Mauricio was, but I thought maybe he's busting it (he was looking to see if it dropped in apparently) and he seemed not to be running full speed when the camera caught up with him. If you read the "comments" on the FB link, I wasn't the only one who thought Mauricio did a poor job on the bases. For a fast runner to take home from first base on a long shot to the RF corner is not completely unheard of. Some of those comments are blistering.... ...and none of them are mine.

No death date on bbrief.com

No doubt your reading of the play is the correct one. I'm just frustrated, as we all are, by the Mets' failure to get a run across with fast men on 2B and 3B and only one out. Maybe the moment of elation I felt when I thought "Can Mauricio score here?" overtook me. Alvarez swinging a limp noodle at 3 pitches chafes my undershorts.

I conceded that your analysis of the play more sense than mine, and the odds of success may well be more like 1-2% than my speculated 5-10%--but we should explore how often the rightfielder bobbles the transfer under pressure, the throw home goes off line, the catcher mishandles a perfect throw, the cutoff man messes the play up, or some combination of those mishaps occur. I think it's more common than 1-2%--at least with the Mets it is. I think you're incorrect, though, in asserting that Vientos doesn't make 3B if Mauricio tries for home. A slug sitting on the back of a turtle makes 3B (unless the cutoff goes to 3B, in which case, Mauricio scores which is all you want there). The play at the plate is a contact play in which the catcher usually gets so tangled up and turned around that he can't make a throw to 3B that would nail a one-legged six-year-old. And yes 'twas I who posted that 1986 game-ending DP. Very exciting play, don't you agree?

The first, I think, of several key Mets. Many of them appeared on the 1996 squad: Butch Huskey, Bernard Gilkey, Dave Mlicki, Jason Hardtke, but I'm sure there have been some others in other years as well.

Look at it this way: if you make the not-unreasonable assumption that (let's say) Ryan Stanek is going to get destroyed by the St. Louis Cardinals on this day, whether he starts the seventh inning or the first, do you really want (let's say) Nolan McLean to throw (and waste) six shutout innings, leave the game with a nice 3-0 lead only to see Stanek give up seven hits, two homeruns, three walks, and end the game losing 9-3? Me, I'd rather tell McLean "Let's take another day off, and start fresh tomorrow, okay?" and I'm pretty sure McLean would prefer that to seeing his good work wasted because the bullpen couldn't hold a lead.

Oh, ffs!!

But it's exciting, aggressive baseball, no? Forces the opposition to make the play, instead of flailing weakly at pitches.

How many "Siri, why do the Mets suck?" jokes have been made here so far? It's there room for more?

Looks like we're better with Squirrel and Siri in center. Mullins is a failed rental, but I hope they're not committed to playing him due to the "sunk cost" dynamic.

when I suggested in the IGT of last night's game that I thought Mauricio might try for home on Vientos' 9th inning double, and Frayed Knot was probably correct in asserting that he would have been dead out if he had. Frayed Knot was as good as his user name in countering my suggestion that Mauricio should have made the attempt in asserting "'Fraid not." But I wonder. Was it worth a try? Even if he'd been out at the plate by a lot, the Mets were desperate for a run, and they only had two more outs to work with, so maybe it was worth the gamble to have him running full tilt on contact (or better yet to have Acuna doing the pinch-running, and saving Mauricio to run for Vientos instead of the other way around--the tying run being much more critical than the winning run at that point). There is always the chance that a throw goes wild, or that Realmuto loses the ball on a contact play, or that Castellanos bobbles the transfer if he's under time-pressure, or that the cut-off man ****s up the throw--not much of a chance, but a chance. 5%? 10%? More? Less? If he's out, Vientos can advance to third, where you still have a chance to move him (or his pinch-runner) if McNeil gets a hit, or if McNeil walks and Alvarez gets a hit, neither of which happened as it turned out, so we lost the game. We do KNOW for a solid fact that holding Mauricio up at third did NOT work, that's the base of our assumptions. And there is that small chance that Mauricio (or Acuna) makes it home, and the small chance that if either of them gets thrown out, we could still get the man on 3B home with 2 outs. I like gambling, especially in a game where runs are hard to come by. And especially in retrospect. ETA: I see now that Acuna was already in the game, so skip him. (I was misled by Edgy's writing that Acuna would have made it--apparently, Edgy was just asserting that Acuna's the better baserunner, but how much better he is than Mauricio, I can't really say. A foot faster? Half a foot faster?) Let's just go with Mauricio which was what happened anyway. ****, if we were going to hold him at 3B, you might as well have left Alonso in there. Mauricio was in the game because he is much faster on the bases than Pete, and Pete would have been on 3b on Vientos' double. He was sitting in the dugout, looking at Mauricio on 3B, maybe thinking in disgust, "****, I coulda done THAT!" I hate his ever-lasting guts, more than anyone in baseball's history, except maybe Pete Rose, but Leo Durocher would definitely have sent the runner home. So would Rose, come to think of it. "If you're scared, go home," was how Leo justified such crazy gambles. Besides all which, can you imagine the fun we would have here if Mauricio had been thrown out at the plate, the Mets losing the game, and all of us jumping up and down on the Mets' insane coaching?

Luck or Suck? You Make The Call.

Sometimes a runner-up is there because they deserve to be, sometimes they're just unlucky, and other times they're lucky to be where they are. The Mets this year are an unlucky club. I've seen all three kinds.

What level are the expansion draft picks, and by extension post 1964(ish) entry draft selections by incoming teams to start filling out their minor league systems) but are ephemeral the franchise, never appearing in a regular/postseason game for them? And I guess Level 0: Richie Ashburn

You should get back on the horse. [TWEET] [/TWEET]

According to Clint Hurdle's capitalization, Davey was not only a great manager and friend, but also the Son of God.... [TWEET] [/TWEET]

Nice story. Untrue, but nice anyway. Hodges played the entire opener. Marshall pinch-hit in the 9th for Clem Labine. Home Opener, not Opening Night in St. Louis — Hodges was a late scratch and did not play; Marshall started, batted sixth and went 1-for-3 with a walk: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN196204130.shtml Sorry. Didn't catch that. (Marv Throneberry memorial excuse.) Shoulda known better. (Awful glad your white knight isn't here anymore to defend you against any accusations of fallibility. I might never hear the end of it if Sir Galahad were still posting here.)

How about with Acuna running top speed? Still dead out?

Edgy MD wrote: Damn, but Acoonie scores on that. I was surprised, not shocked, that they didn't send Mauricio.

=ashie62 post_id=203738 time=1757379695 user_id=90] Nice play by Stott