TruffleShuffle

if you can stop a ball by throwing your glove at it, more power to you

And the Rangers just got back to back homers. 5-3 :) That's a good thing to see. No lead is ever safe in Texas. or when the astros' pitching staff is involved

tampa bay has walked jason larue and cesar izturis a combined 5 times today... they don't deserve to win

2 more homers today... corey patterson part II

what a bum

you have a 25 OPS+ and you can't hit a pitcher with good stuff, so you pray that he throws four balls before he throws three strikes

haha nice try bixler, he knew he had no chance at hitting kerry

ryan ludwick? i think you mean "the ghost of stan musial" actually i think he's still alive but whatever

yes i'm sure that's exactly what was going on

yeah the comeback was of course a result of brendan ryan, cesar izturis and aaron miles. that entire team can go jump in front of a cement mixer.

pirates announcer: "how many was it that kerry wood struck out in that game? 19?" :roll:

so if we don't get a hit this inning we are going to lose the game?

ok now that the flyers are being blown out by the pens, the cubs really need to win this one, so that the mulleted fans of pittsburgh do not have two things to celebrate today

come the hell on

haha you can tell marmol was pissed about yesterday and wanted to get mclouth back

wonder if we're gonna take a run at the 8-0 loss we had to end the series against buffalo a few years back :lol:

i really hate that guy

i'd like to think there's a difference between a hater and a skeptic. and i'm not so much skeptical of sean's ability to perform well in the long run, i just am not sure that his command is strong enough to be a solid starter at this point in his career. i hope it is obviously. i'd certainly rather watch him than marquis.

Here, here. And as long as he maintains a career OPS over 1.000 he should be able to do whatever the heck he wants. be careful with that, because later this year (or later this week) he's going to be under a 1.000 OPS.

and the brewers made 4 errors in the second game, haw haw

i'm a big believer in letting a reliever work if he has it going. not necessarily marmol since his "off" days are few and far between, but if wuertz is throwing well, then go with it. IMO, the more you change pitchers, the better chance that you're going to put a guy in the game who doesn't have it that day, or at least doesn't have time to settle into some sort of rhythm. wuertz won't be available on sunday, but everyone else will be, so they'll be fine.

PECOTA isn't very bullish on Ankiel's offense. But let's say he reaches his 75th percentile projection of .272/.335/.534, pretty awesome for a CF, right? Especially compared with Crisp's .270/.334/.414. Those work out to about a 20-run difference in VORP, not even enough to make up what Ankiel gives back in CF. I get what you are saying in the general sense, but I think you massively underestimate the range of potential values from defense in center field. It was once trendy to dismiss defense when looking at things sabermetrically because defense was poorly understood and generally saying a guy was good defensively was a proxy for saying "Stats say he sucks but I like him." The Cubs lead the league in defensive efficiency, one of three stats most linked to overperformance in the postseason. I'd like to keep it that way. I'll grant that Edmonds/Reed Johnson is a pretty mediocre platoon out there and we should be improving it, but raping our outfield defense isn't the way to do it. Playing Pie is. yeah, defense went from being overrated to underrated in a few years, to the point where everyone thinks a player like adam everett is worthless because he isn't a good hitter. (note - this year his hitting has been SO bad that he really has been terrible, but most years his hitting is enough to make him an acceptable option at SS given that he's an elite defender)

cotts got shelled... maybe that will stop people from complaining that he's in the minors

NSBB's favorite dreamboat, adam dunn, hit a 3-run walkoff that may have landed in kentucky.

brewers lose