MetsGeek has a very nice examination of Kaz Matsui's Mets career by Damien Heath. Very nice as in “thorough, well-argued and persuasive,” or even very nice as in “wicked intimidating with all those acronyms and sabermetric thingamabobs.” Not very nice if you were hoping that newfangled stats might reveal TBKM isn't as bad as conventional […]

Sometimes it just ain't happening. It's not so much that you're playing badly, but you're certainly not playing well. You're just playing, the other guy's getting the breaks, and you're going to lose. This one was practically a sand-in-the-gears roll call:

* Jason Lane's nice catch off Marlon Anderson denies us two more runs in the […]

“It's kind of a culmination of thoughts. First, it's just the gratification of knowing you hit the ball well. Then, you realize that you broke up a no-hitter and it's your first homer and it's off Pedro Martinez. When I got into the dugout, I really kind of had to sit down for a second.”

— […]

MLB's schedule-makers — who may be a bunch of rats pressing levers in the dark, if Memorial Day is any indication — have started the second round of interleague play with a small slate: The Braves are playing the Angels, while the Phillies got stuck playing the lone lame NL-only game and got beat by […]

I think I've got the baseball equivalent of an ice-cream headache.

Seven hours is a long, long time to spend at Shea Stadium, even if it was a very pleasant time. We (me and Will, noted earlier in these pages for Cardinals fandom and being struck by legumes) were in the upper deck, but a remarkably […]

Edgardo Alfonzo vs. Roberto Hernandez, 8th inning. Alfonzo's the tying run, two outs, 1-2 count. Hernandez keeps trying to put him away; Alfonzo keeps fouling pitches away, waiting for Hernandez to miss with a pitch he can drive. And I'm wondering at my loyalties. I'd switched to the radio at that point, but I could […]

(The fans at Kaufmann Stadium are acting like they just won the World Series. It's nice to see. Hey, can you begin with a digression?)

Once in a while this game's just plain fun. Your ace torments a bunch of snakes. An ancient catcher gets waved around from first, with doom awaiting him at the […]

It's never the best PR move to spit the bit on the first game of a homestand after returning from an infuriatingly schizoid road trip after your city has been rendered baseball-less on the first national holiday of summer by a bizarre quirk in the schedule. It's particularly not a good PR move to spit […]

Seems there are some things we're not accustomed to.

Dae-Sung Koo is not accustomed to hitters swinging 3-0 — “In Korea and Japan, most players don't swing at 3-0. I wasn't expecting a swing on that.” That, of course, was the lifeless, string-straight fastball he threw to Carlos Delgado in much the same way a zookeeper […]

Middle-of-the-day greetings, as tonight's posting weather is Uncertain with a 60% chance of drunkenness.

Is it possible for a team up two games to zip in a key series with a division rival to have that sinking feeling? Why yes it is. Hear that basso growl, the one with a hint of a high-pitched whine atop […]