dola -

The 2nd part, the first part I'm fine with.

Mets aren't playing well, to many injury issues.
I expect nothing less than a sweep, to bury the Mets even further.
Also, with the Marlins and Braves playing each other, this is prime time for the Phillies to open up the gap between those 2 teams.

We better soak it in because I have a bad feel the Eagles are going to suck bad this year.

Umm...yeah. I don't care how many toys the Iggles have on offense, they're going to do nothing with no offensive line or defense.

Maybe we dropped the wrong pitcher into the bullpen? Hamels does not look good at all right now.

So Francoeur has been looking pretty good since joining the Mets, close to .300, 5 HRs, 20+ RBI. Something to look forward to, or just a hot start with a new team?

why are the Red Sox claiming Wagner off waivers from the Mets? What's the point? He doesn't fix any of the issues the team has.

Don't see how it can really hurt them. Not gonna lie, I don't know much of anything about the Red Sox bullpen, but a former All-Star lefty can't be a bad thing, especially with rosters expanding shortly.

I would figure the point is to have a second lefty in the pen & to add some major league experience to the group as well. Right now I think Papelbon is actually the senior member of the group in terms of experience, in his fifth season.

Yankees are gonna win the world series.

Joe Sheehan once said Francoeur will eventually put up a .300/.340/.550 type season and everyone will think he's figured things out. Hopefully does it with the Mets, but I'm also scared that the Mets would then rush to lock him up long-term.

Just got home a few minutes ago after an infrequent trip to Turner Field.

Kind of a special occasion of sorts as it was the first in person MLB game for my 80 y/o mother-in-law (something I didn't realize she'd never done until just a few weeks ago).

Interesting to hear the thing that stood out most to her about being there vs watching on TV: that she never really appreciated the distance from the OF to home plate until tonight & how much more impressive that added perspective made throws to home without a relay. Not something I would have guessed that would stand out if you had given me 20 tries but I thought it was interesting.

My own little observations were that, in spite of a kind of odd sightline (club level, last section down the left field line before it starts turning the corner toward the outfield seats), the Golden Moon Casino Bobby Cox Section tickets are one hell of a good deal. $6 each for regular $28/$30 tickets, with the minimal crowding on the club level & not an obnoxious drunk sight all night. At that price, I'll take the weird angle & distance and be quite happy with it thank you very much.

Hanson is fun to watch pitch and I really enjoyed the professionalism of Javier Vazquez pinch hitting for Hanson & getting a good bunt down on the first pitch (bench was very short with three players unavailable with injuries).

Is Club level at Turner Field like at Miller Park where you need a Club Ticket to even enter the concourse?

Yep.

Camden Yards is like that, too.

That seems to be the best way to keep the riff raff out.

Game ending unassisted triple play, unbelievable.

:confused:

Phillies - Mets game apparently, according to boxscores, since EF didn't say in original post.

Sorry, yes. In one of the craziest innings. Inning starts off with a ground ball through Ryan Howard and into right for a three base error. Next batter ground ball to Eric Bruntlett at second giving Utley the day off and he bobbles it for two errors onthe first two batters (just what a struggling Lidge needs).

Next batter ground ball up the middle Bruntlett gets to it but bobbles it (would have had the runner at second if he didn't bobble it). Play ruled a hit. 1st and 2nd with no outs, 1 run in to make it a 2 run game and not one ball should have made it out of the infield.

2-2 count on Franceur (sp?) and they send the runners. He hits a line drive to Bruntlett who was covering second. Steps on the bag for the second out and tags the runner from first (actually the runner pretty much baks up into center field to avoid being tagged and gets called for out of the base path, I think he would have backed up to the warning track if he had to the way he was going).

That was probably the most insane thing I've ever seen watching baseball. Glad I didn't just hide my head on the covers after a run in and no outs in the ninth :)

i'll have to catch it on sportscenter

I still can't believe what I saw. Between the lousy defense to set it up and that was the ball that was hit the best all inning.

First time in MLB history that a game has ended on an unassisted triple play.

Second actually...from ESPN:

Or the third according to AP

Ha...sounds like the Stats/Elias computers are running a little slow today.

Bruntlett just might be the worst defensive infielder in the league.

The fact that he gets the unassisted triple play is just mind-bottling.

I want to thank the Red Sox for giving up on Smoltz and Lugo. Lugo's hitting .300 and actually shoring up a rough SS rotation and Smoltz was dealing today!

At least it's not mind-boggling. ;)

Awesome.

In case people missed the reference, it's from the underrated Blades of Glory with Farrell and Heder.

I've stolen it for my own vocabulary.

9 K's in 5 IP's. Pretty impressive.

To be honest, that's actually the first thing that I noticed when I went to my first baseball game in person (in the old Yankee Stadium) - that the distance from the wall to home plate looked HUGE in person compared to on TV.

It's certainly not helping the perception among AL East fans that the NL is a AAAA league.

and PING: Mets fans - I think people were just joking, but now possibly Santana too? Johan scratched, to see doctor Tuesday | MLB.com: News Just send anyone valuable left home at this point.

There's no one valuable left.

I think the top and bottom feed that a bit. 4 of the top 6 salary teams are from the AL and 4 of the bottom 5 teams are from the NL. I think interleague play was 137-114, with the Angels, Yankees and Red Sox going 35-19. Those three teams combine for more salary than most of the divisions in the NL.

Still, the Phillies won last year and there's a strong chance that Philly, St. Louis or LA wins this year.

Last I checked, the AL only has a 5-4 advantage in World Series Champions this decade. Yeah, that's a landslide right there.

I'm not saying it's the truth, but watching castoffs turn into all-stars and very good players turn into superhuman ones (Manny, Holliday) feeds the perception. And those salary cutoffs are quite arbitrary and misleading - I could say 5 of the top 9 teams are from the NL and 6 of the bottom 10 are AL. Using season-opening payrolls* and without adding up past the million mark, AL teams averaged $92.9m and NL teams $83.3m - but the difference is essentially the Yankees and their payroll $80m higher than any other AL team. FWIW, you also pick the #4 AL team in payroll (LAA) over #3 DET and 2 of the 3 NL teams that really bring down their numbers actually had winning records - Florida and Pittsburgh.

And a WS is certainly possible in any 7 game series, which is why perception really doesn't matter, but Philly with their 6-12 record in interleague, St. Louis being so bolstered by AL castoffs and the face of LA being Manny, its not the best of arguments.

*I'm too lazy to look at how things have seperated since then, but I suspect St. Louis went up quite a bit and Pitt and Cleveland have decreased a lot. Not sure what other big trades I'm forgetting.

I was going to suggest that the AL playing a bastardized version of the sport might play a role but not only have NL pitchers outhit their AL counterparts but NL DHs have outhit AL DHs as well.

NL pitchers: .145/.187/.186 in 4296 PAs
AL pitchers: .096/.128/.132 in 321 PAs

NL DHs: .277/.357/.457 in 532 PAs
AL DHs: .256/.340/.455 in 6913 PAs

But maybe it would look different if I could have found the stats for how those splits looked in interleague games only...

Higher payrolls, better scouting, and/or better talent development seem to be more likely causes for the AL performing better in interleague play in each of the 2004-9 seasons.

713-546 the past 5 years. Sample size.

Dola, I forgot - 12-0-1 in the last 13 all-star games, because clearly that's important :)

The AL has won the World Series 713 times in the past 5 years?

That is a damned impressive sample.

This time it counts!!!1!!

SI

RIP, 2009 San Francisco Giants.

Fucking Giants. I leave the country for 2 weeks and come back to this.

I didn't think it was possible for me to hate the Giants any more than I already did.

Their bullpen just proved me wrong.

How the fuck do they give up 5 runs in the 14th.

Ugh!

Hopefully that bad loss sends the Giants spiraling down leaving only one team for Atlanta to pass in the wild card race.

Rockies have been so much fun to watch the last few months. That game was crazy.

That looks like it would have been a really fun game to watch, seeing all the highlights.

SI