Jon

I'm rather surprised they started to get someone ready in the bullpen already.

I'm waiting for them to start playing the Sponge Bob Square Pants theme at Shea. I think that might be the only thing that separates Shea from a minor league stadium. That and an upper deck.

I'd love to see a study on how rarely players get compared to players outside of their own racial category. Wow that was ugly.

I'm not sure if there was anyone in that stadium that wasn't fooled by that swing. That fly ball was a duck off the bat.

Holy crud... Marquis should be batting 6th in that lineup.

When Wolfe is in there, as well, I have a feeling that there will be times where Grossman gets almost too dump-off happy. But with Wolfe and Hester, there's going to be no way to avoid having more screen plays being run. It should balance the offense pretty well.

It's a good move. He wasn't going to stick at defense and shouldn't be a three-way player, so a move to offense was the next step to take. And that's certainly a reason why they drafted an extra CB a couple of weeks ago.

it's been pointed out by others, but Soriano's drop in production could be attributed to other things besides his place in the order. at some point during his tenure at Texas, the league started to figure him out. his production dropped overall, not just when hitting out of the leadoff spot. eventually, Soriano made adjustments to the way pitchers were attacking him and improved on those numbers. i am not totally dismissing the whole "he's comfortable at leadoff" arguement, but there may be more to it than that. i would prefer to see him hitting lower in the order, but i'm not sure what the alternative is. i'm still skeptical that Theriot will maintain his current obp, i guess. if they did make a change, a 1/2 of Theriot/Murton would probably make the most sense. I'm not saying he is more comfortable but there as to be some reason he is better up there. Maybe he sees better pitches because there is no one on base. Maybe his numbers in the first inning are incredibly higher than his career norms. I don't know how to find that information but I think it would be interesting to look up. I could honestly see Soriano's numbers being much higher in the first inning than they are compared to any other. Here are his 3-year splits: To leadoff an inning - .299/.341/.563 Nobody on - .278/.325/.530 Runners on - .269/.335/.503 He actually had a lower OBP when there's nobody on base from 2004-2006, but slightly higher to leadoff an inning. Of course, batting leadoff, you're probably more likely to bat with nobody on more often than you actually leadoff an inning. But the numbers are pretty close, likely in the range of normal fluctuation.

What doesn't make sense right now is to have Soriano batting leadoff and Theriot hitting second. Sure Theriot's OBP won't stay this high for the rest of the year, but what's wrong with Soriano hitting second? It shouldn't really negatively effect his base stealing opportunities if both guys get on base (he wouldn't be running in the leadoff spot if in theory he knew that the guy in the second spot would also be reaching), it doesn't effect the rest of the lineup, but it gives Soriano a chance to bat with someone on base more often than he does. It should go high OBP/low (no) power followed by above average OBP/high power, not the other way around.

As others have pointed out, this isn't only about OBP. There were two possible reasons why he shouldn't be batting leadoff coming into this season: low OBP and/or high SLG. Soriano's OBP is okay right now, but his SLG is always going to make his bat more valuable a little further down in the lineup. It's not an issue about having to fill the leadoff position. It's a little cliche already, but the leadoff spot isn't a position. It's no more important than other spots in your lineup, so one aspect of a player's game (OBP) doesn't suddenly become a lot more important just because they're batting leadoff. Their OBP and SLG still hold the same value and it's still a matter of where you can best use both in the lineup, not just their OBP.

Sammy's line drive % still seems a bit low for him at 14%, but he's keeping the ball off the ground more.

With no change in personnel, the choice is 5 veteran starters with Myers closing or 5 veteran starters, 1 unhappy starter in the pen, and Alf closing. As a long time Cub fan, this is a no brainer. As someone who doesn't like the Phillies, it's Myers to the bullpen. For the manager of the Phillies, it's probably best to take care of the rotation before worrying about something less significant like one spot in the bullpen.

You've finally earned that post count. Easily the best post I've ever made. You won't see me argue.

You've finally earned that post count.

Billups tries to hack Deng and get the foul, so he follows that up by complaining to the ref about it.

I'm not sure there's a rule that makes less sense. If you innocently foul someone at half court with nobody else between you and the basket, it's a free path foul. If you hack someone 50 feet away from the ball at the same time someone is about to lay one in, it's just a foul.

Wallace FINALLY gets a technical. About damn time.

Finally a "Detroit sucks" chant.

Win or lose, I made the right decision by disposing of my tickets.

He was safe if he touched the plate. I couldn't tell if he was successfully blocked off or not, but he clearly beat the throw and the tag.

Sending Murton with Cesar and Lilly coming up was the right call.

That's some awesome stuff. And I can't even stand Leary.

2 losses in a row as the Fire go down 3-1 in Toronto. Rolfe scored his 4th of the year already, though.

He pulled up lame and was limping around third. Why can't you and McCarver see that? It was what he was doing before he hit third that was the problem. Once he rounded the bag, he was actually trying. Before that, though, he thought he was going to be able to walk home.

Yeah, same with me. But, if they keep the code active until the game, there should be good seats released shortly before the game. Still good UD box seats, though. Thanks for the heads up, daske.