Master Index of Archived Threads


KTE - Padres (April 13-16)

Frayed Knot Apr 13 2009 10:21 AM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Apr 14 2009 11:52 AM

As you may have heard CitiField is opening its doors today. ESPN the Website is saying the Mets “at last have a place to call home” - so I guess you folks who thought we did have a home for the previous 45 seasons were in need of the ‘Worldwide Leader’ to tell you that the Mets were just temporary squatters in that other place whose name we are apparently supposed to wipe from our memories. The Padres get the pleasure of being our first ever CF home opponents. Off to a 5-2 record thus far -- splitting 4 with the Dodgers before sweeping the Giants -- they are apparently ignoring the recent survey (Joel Sherman’s Sunday NY Post column) that picked them as MLB’s worst team. But, hot start notwithstanding, this should be a pretty bad team. Jake Peavy is a legit top of the rotation pitcher while Chris Young is OK. On the offensive side, A. Gonzalez is good and just hitting his prime but Giles is a shadow of his former self. Of their young players, 3b Kevin Kouzmanoff (3rd year) and OFer Chase Headley (2nd) show the most promise but may not be the kind of guys to build around. They’d probably love it if local kid (both HS & college) and presumed #1 overall drfat pick Steven Strasburg fell to them in this June’s draft, but are they going to be willing to pay the high rans ... I mean contract that super-agent Scott Boras is asking for? Sandy Eggo Dramatis Personae: C - Nick (no relation) Hundley & Hank White (aka Henry Blanco) 1B - Adrian Gonzalez (aka, the Good Gonzalez, brother Edgar backs up 2B) 2B - David Eckstein (his presence can only mean the Padres are going to win the WS this year because his “scrappiness” is the foremost key to winning baseball ... or so I’ve heard) SS - Luis Rodriguez (Is it wrong to call him ‘L-Rod’? ... Yes, yes it is) 3B - Kevin Kouzmanoff (43 points in Scrabble - and that’s not even counting any bonus squares!!) LF - Chase Headley (not to be confused with former ‘SI for Kids’ character Hedley Kase) CF - Jody Gerut & Scott Hairston (that’s Scott, not to be confused with MLers brother Jerry Jr., father Jerry Sr., uncle Johnny, or grandfather Sammy) RF - Brian Giles (better than brother Marcus, although not nearly as annoying) Hot so far in 2009 (such as it is): Hundley, Gonzalez, Blanco, Rodriguez, & Hairston Not: Everyone else * Monday, 7:10 PM -- SNY & ESPN OK, first things first: This should be a day game. Not just for the weather aspect but that it’s fucking Opening Day dudes! Make it a festival while folks sneak out of work or school. Instead, it's just another night game like all others. Was getting the stadium opening game on ESPN THAT important to you? Pelfrey vs Walter Silva (1 start this season, 5 IP, 2 ER, 5 H, 4 BB) - note that’s not Carlos but Walter Silva, a 32 y/o Mexican rookie who, I must confess, I’ve never heard of before now (and how many Mexicans are named ‘Walter’?!?) * Day off Tuesday. - If you go to the park you will be very lonely. * Wednesday, 7:10 PM -- SNY & ESPN Perez v Edwin Correia (3 - 8; 6.05 in 19 starts last season) - I guess Correia could be tagged with either the nickname ‘South’ or ‘North’ depending on whether or not he’s going well (or on whether or not he’s a communist) * Thursday, 7:10 PM -- SNY Maine v Jake Peavy (10 - 11; 2.85 in 2008; 1 - 1 w/18 Ks & 2 BBs in 15 IP this season) - Just one season removed from his CY win, I’m trying to look into the rumor that says Peavy is, in fact, Hungarian for ‘sucks during the WBC’ ex-Mets: disgruntled relievers Heath Bell (3 appearances, 3 saves, 1 hit) and Duaner Sanchez (2 hitless/1 BB IPs) Mets who were Padres: Gary Sheffield (although I think this was back during the Nixon administration) & Ollie Perez (traded from there for Brian Giles) Forecast: cold and possibly rainy (hey, it’s April!) with frequent gusts of gushing over the new park plus the occasional outburst of Heath Bell vs Rick Peterson screeds even though that was years ago and Peterson’s not even here anymore.

Edgy DC Apr 13 2009 10:28 AM

Totally forgot Ollie's season and a half in San Diego.

SteveJRogers Apr 13 2009 10:31 AM Re: KTE - Padres (April 13-16)

="Frayed Knot":1ldkn0qc]Mets who were Padres: Gary Sheffield (although I think this was back during the Nixon administration) [/quote:1ldkn0qc] IIRC, traded during their Firestorm of 1993 to the Marlins around the time McGriff (another well traveled slugger) was sent to the Braves. sharpie Apr 13 2009 10:33 AM ]Kevin Kouzmanoff (43 points in Scrabble - Actually 38 as there is only one K so the second would have to be a blank. Edgy DC Apr 13 2009 10:35 AM Yeah, but, how do you thread something like that around the bonus squares? Edgy DC Apr 13 2009 10:40 AM Kouzmanoff, by the way, should totally be a Met, just like Sivierenyev, Sturnzovsky, and Kreinpülgartner. Edgy DC Apr 13 2009 10:43 AM Other great Metly Eastern European-sounding surnames: "Batmagadanleadoff" LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr Apr 13 2009 10:47 AM ="Frayed Knot":2tjakp5g]Ex-Mets: disgruntled relievers Heath Bell (3 appearances, 3 saves, 1 hit) and Duaner Sanchez (2 hitless/1 BB IPs) [/quote:2tjakp5g] NOTE: Duaner's 2 innings include a couple of warning-track numbers to the deepest recesses of Woofer Field (including a Bengie Molina boomjob to right-center Friday night that would've plated two, but for the grace of Scott Hairston). EXTRA NOTE: El-Siddish carriage or no-- if he looks like this now, and WiiFit helped him lose 20 pounds this winter, WHAT IN THE NAME OF RICH GARCES WAS HE EATING BEFORE?-- Heath Bell does continue to kick major ass. I mean, MAJOR ass. [MLB Extra Innings contributed to this report.] batmagadanleadoff Apr 13 2009 11:04 AM ="Edgy DC":1mymmqgq]Other great Metly Eastern European-sounding surnames: "Batmagadanleadoff"[/quote:1mymmqgq] And you may recall how Batmagadanleadoff's playing time was Bloc-ed, first by the stellar incumbent though fading Keith Hernandez, and then by the not so Iron Mike Marshall, who appeared to have drawn the Curtain over Batmagadanladoff's Met career before it got going. (groan.) GYC Apr 13 2009 11:09 AM I enjoyed this KTE. Very amusing. metirish Apr 13 2009 02:19 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Apr 13 2009 02:29 PM KTE's are off to a hot start this season. Dave Howard on why this is not a day game. ] April 13, 2009, 4:15 PM Why Citi Field Opener is a Night Game By BEN SHPIGEL If you were wondering why the Mets didn’t open up Citi Field in cool and sunny weather this afternoon, instead of much colder temperatures tonight, Dave Howard, the team’s executive vice president for business operations, explains. The Padres, the Mets’ opponent tonight, played in San Diego on Sunday and had to fly across the country for this series. They were entitled to an off day. When a draft of the schedule was released to the Mets last August or September, this game was originally scheduled for Tuesday. But they asked the Padres if they would be amenable to playing Monday to give them two chances to play the game should there be a rainout. Howard said Sandy Alderson, the Padres’ former chief executive, agreed, as long as the game would be played at night. “It was important to us that people who had tickets for this game would be able to come on Monday or Tuesday,” Howard said. “Our feeling for the inaugural opener at Citi Field was that you can’t just hope that the weather’s good that day. You want to have that cushion. As it turns out, based on the forecast, tomorrow’s not looking good. Had we not moved it, I think we’d be all kicking ourselves.” Ideally, Howard said the Mets would have played their home opener in the afternoon, as they have for the last several years. But, Howard said, “we wanted to improve our odds. Given a chance to hedge against the weather, we had to take it.” seawolf17 Apr 13 2009 02:25 PM "Plus," Howard said, "ESPN gave us a shitload of money to move it to the evening. And our fans want to hear mispronunciations from Jon Miller and analysis from Steve Phillips. Besides, if we had it during the day and everyone took the day off to attend the game, it would hurt the economy." Gwreck Apr 13 2009 09:56 PM You know who else -- and I totally forgot this too -- is on the Padres this year? Cliff Floyd. themetfairy Apr 13 2009 11:08 PM Cliff received a lot of cheers when he was announced during the pre-game ceremonies tonight. Frayed Knot Apr 14 2009 08:22 AM ="sharpie"] ]Kevin Kouzmanoff (43 points in Scrabble - Actually 38 as there is only one K so the second would have to be a blank. Yeah, I chose to ignore certain inconvenient facts like where you'd get the second K. Also the part about how one would get 15 letters in their rack in the first place. And, yes, before I start getting cards and letters from the Scrabble mafia, I do realize that it is theoretically possible to get dealt the proper 6 tiles (E V O U Z N) plus a blank and use them on a board with an already properly aligned row or column of _ _ _ I N K _ _ _ M A _ O F F and spell KEVINKOUZMANOFF out of it. Of course then you'd still need to deal with the fact that it's not a legal word (or at least I think it's not) Come to think of it, that would be an interesting form of Scrabble; the only words that are legal would be ones that either pertain to baseball or are ML players' names. Baseball-Reference.com would become the final arbiter for challenged words. GYC Apr 14 2009 12:06 PM That's awesome. I hope I one day will encounter the opportunity to play "KEVINKOUZMANOFF" in Scrabble.