Unless, of course, this sort of traffic maintains. My work computer was obscenely slow, which I suppose was fine because it forced me to concentrate on work.

That’s cool. I just thought I’d throw the suggestion out there.

Who thought that fan came over the fence to get that ball from Damon?

also, blind luck

1) Jim Hendry is a “great” GM because he signed Soriano and Derosa.
2) Aramis Ramirez is underrated, because Billy Williams used the word “clutch” to describe him.
3) A lot of players on both side (cubs and stros) learned a lot of things from a lot of older players and coaches. To list them would take my entire night.
4) The cubs bullpen must be better this year because Jeff Smarjida was a great wide receiver and was sent to the minors. This came a couple innings before Kevin Gregg came in to close things out (marmol isn’t the closer, really?).

Getting runners on is a better indicator for future success than a team who “knows” how to bunch hits and scores 2 runs on 3 hits and no BBs.

Hear me out.
It’s safe to say that the New York Mets have 3 of the 10 best offensive players in the NL, easily. That puts them in a league of their own, as you could easily make a case that no other NL team has even two (although, I’d personally put the Cards and consider the Dodgers). So, why aren’t they leading the league in runs by a large margin? Supporting cast.
As we all know, baseball is a game of failure. More often than not, when a player gets up to the plate, he will not even get on base. But when 3 or 4 of your players provide the large majority of your offense, there will be many, many games when guys are left on base all day. Why? Wright, Reyes, and Beltran can’t get it done every time, statistically speaking. Even if you pulled a Carlos Voltron and combined them, their average would not certify success getting a hit. So when those three have an off day or even an off week, the offense goes dark, and fast. No lineup, I think, in baseball is more top heavy than the Mets.
This is why guys like Delgado, Murphy and Church really need to excel this year. League average production from Castillo would be unexpected and pleasing, but I’m not counting on it. Schneider is who he is- a defensive minded catcher who has a competent enough bat to justify starting. But our middle of the order producers really, really need to come through…and based on today, I think that’s a strong possibility.

He was at 99 pitches. Throwing even 10 more to get out of the inning would have made his arm fall off in August? Cut me a break. Nothing pisses me off more then managers babying their pitchers because they are afraid to let them throw 5-10 more pitches.

Plus consider this: those pitches had to be thrown, whether it was by Santana or Green, who are you more comfortable with doing the job? Also, Green/Putz/K-Rod are going to be leaned on pretty heavily this year, the less innings they get burdened with this year the better they are going to be. It seems like managers are always scared to have the starter throw a few extra pitches, but will dump extra innings on relievers with out a second thought.

in bad weather, and he’d thrown 99 pitches, and there were concerns about the health of his elbow not too long ago, and it was against a hitter he’d had trouble with in the past.