You think SF has it in for LA, you should measure Tucson's antipathy towards that town up north.

I'd give a more up to date prediction of doom, but the site I use for these things is down.

This is not a drill!

BTW, whatever happened to Bill Murphy?

Stand down.

It seems like all season they've been saying he just has to play through pain this year, so don't expect him to play well.

This is a Butch Hobson's Choice.

http://tinyurl.com/26x2a2

Wired Mag has a list of Wikipedia edits created by the subjects of the entries to put said subjects in better light.

You are an exceedingly charitable person.

Mathematically, the Dodgers are still in charge of their own destiny for the playoffs. They can win all their remaining games and clinch a playoff spot, regardless of what the teams ahead of them do.

Again, the argument makes less sense as the season goes on, but they've been saying all along that his ankles won't get better while he's playing.

2006: San Diego (one game)
2005: Yankees (1.5 games)
2004: Astros (six games)
2003: Oakland (four games)
2002: Giants (four games)
2001: Cardinals (1.5 games)
2000: None
1999: D'Backs (1.5 games)
1998: Texas (1.5 games)
1997: Astros (1.5 games)

Four times (the Yankees came back in one of these years too) in the last 10 years has a team sat mroe than 1.5 games out of a playoff spot and made the playoffs.

I'm not saying it's impossible, it's just very hard to make up deficits at this point in the season, as close as things may seem.

Mainly it's because the managers don't know the rules very well.

After all, it's not his fault that he's out. If it hadn't been strike three, Sullivan would have just been sent back to first.

C'mon Morales, the scouting report says you lvoe to throw breaking balls and that you're left handed.

I really don't wish to soak LaRoche in a salt solution overnight before cooking him.

hes played 1b when Orr DHs or doesn't play. He is mostly a right fielder though.

Okay, I'll stop now.

Probably not do-able.

Don't throw Hurdle out! Don't reward his team by letting somebody else run it!

While we're on the subject, are there any announcers who are stupider than the 3 regular Colorado announcers?

I also think he'll blow out his arm sometime in the near future.

Except when determining errors and unearned runs.

His isos against lefties (.149 patience, .176 power) combined with a low BABIP show that he should be in the middle of the order against left, especially in our lineup.

The emphasis being NOW.

An expression of that in the indicative would be "You gotta go soak your feet."

A subjunctive expression would be something like "May you go soak your feet." or "Would that you would go soak your feet."

Orig. the past tense of OWE v. (see also discussion s.v.).
Like other Primitive Germanic preterite-present verbs, OWE v. originally formed its past tense with a dental element suffixed immediately to the stem: cf. Old Frisian {amac}chte, Old Saxon {emac}hta, Old Icelandic átta, Old Swedish aatte (Swedish (now regional) åtte), Old Danish ate, ottæ (early modern Danish aatte), Gothic aihta. This continues in Middle English, early inflected as a normal past tense with 2nd singular -est, plural -en, later -e, but frequently uninflected towards the end of the period. 'Double' past tense forms, with the regular past tense suffix added (see {delta} forms) occur occasionally from the 15th cent.
In Middle English, in main verb senses (see branch I.), a past participle use develops, which after the 17th cent. is restricted to Scots. Additionally in these senses in Scots, the word shows a tendency to develop present tense and present participle inflections, reflecting the newer present tense uses, while retaining the uninflected past tense form for past tense uses.
In modal verb use (see branch II.), following the development of present senses, inflected present tense forms are attested from the 16th cent. onwards; the evidence is sparse, suggesting that this is a sporadic independent development in dialects of different regions and periods. On the other hand the development of a past participle and infinitive use in conjunction with other auxiliaries in branch II. occurs late, but establishes itself strongly in British and U.S. dialects from the 19th cent. onwards.
Ought remains the ordinary past tense of owe throughout Middle English. Its development of present and future reference in modal use can be compared with MUST v.1 3. This probably accounts for the emergence of the new regular past tense of owe in late Middle English.
Ought, in standard English, has many of the characteristics of the other modal auxiliaries, notably the lack of inflections and tense distinction and the absence of the do construction in forming negatives and interrogatives. The main exception to this is the retention of the to-infinitive. The construction with bare infinitive arises early in Middle English and survives to the present day, in modern English especially in non-assertive contexts (compare NEED v.2 10c), but this has never become standard, perhaps owing to the influence of the parallel deontic have to (see HAVE v. 7c). In common with must (see MUST v.1 7), the negative that syntactically modifies ought semantically modifies the following infinitive.

Can I sue to have that time added back to my lifespan?

No, I suppose you don't.

It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

I thought my advisor made up the phrase "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission." You might wonder why my advisor has said that to me more than once, but I won't answer.

Free to join! No obligation! Operators are standing by!

Actually it's black toner.

Let he who is without grammatical sin cast the first stone!

(Ducks as William Safire hurls rock at head.)

It's in the Bible.

Toward the back.

I feel very tense. I feel like I have to be pluperfect.

?????

Also, why is Russell batting behind Olmedo tonight? Fine, get him in against a lefty, but put Russell ahead of him and take him out once the lefty is removed from the game.

http://www.futilityinfielder.com/leadoff05.html

yep, just when I am out they pull me......

We need a t-shirt!

Shea just bought himself another 3 weeks in the lineup no matter if LaRoche is healthy or not.

I just caught myself saying that by accident..

Hi, CoachJ. Feel like I haven't seen you in a while. How are things?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/COL/COL200208100.shtml

But it's not back to the dugout.

I managed to nail it with my shoe. As I got ready to give it a dignified burial in the trash, my cat used an alternate disposal method.

Please explain!

Crickets aren't discouraged much by deserts. Ask the good people of Utah and Nevada.

http://www.hawaiiup.com/lost/locations

Also:
http://www.hawaiithreads.com/showthread.php?t=9882

And though I treated you like a child
Im gonna miss you for the rest of my life

All I need is a miracle, all I need is you
All I need is a miracle, all I need is you
All I need is a miracle, all I need is you

Why was Furcal playing right there??? Awesome!

Now we are winning this game!

I was just watching the last few innings (and some of the rest on delay) after coming home, and just have to say. Baseball is a crazy game and this one in particular.

The Colorado announcers are wondering if he will bunt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_+_The_Mechanics

Although I do have two episodes from "The Streets of San Francisco" on DVD to watch.

And now that title goes to ...

I think you can figure it out.

So it's not Mike Stanton.

"Not scoring enough runs is a bad deal," said San Diego's Morgan Ensberg

I nominate Derek Lowe. Since his wife took him to the cleaners during their divorce proceedings, he's used to squatting.

but....its roberto!

And if anyone wants a bit of a scouting report on where the LAD are headed next week:

http://community.webshots.com/user/das411sum07

I'm... barely... hanging... on... One... more...inning... must... see... end... {Unh}

http://www.japanesebaseball.com/boxscore.jsp?BoxID=2007081806

This game is like an ongoing miracle.

Unless you think the Dodgers have a catcher's mitt for lefties in the clubhouse.

Go get 'em Russ...

So I really wonder where he's watching this game from.

Paging Chad Moeller, Paging Chad Moeller.

Oh, Hernandez is still pitching - night all!

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHA/CHA199608250.shtml

One of them might be Vin Scully. Day game after a 14-inning marathon is kind of tough.

i bet russell martin will not be one of those to have a day off tomorrow.

Nice effort at the top of the order 1-11.

Ah well. Night all.

Its 162 games, teams win them and they lose them.

As much as I wanted Loney to start over Saenz, he didn't do all that much when he did come in - though he did collect a walk. Tomorrow he's gotta be starting. I'd assume Lieberthal too - except Penny absolutely loves throwing to Martin.

Good night...

Holliday and Atkins were 2 for 13. They should probably sit too.

Look, all these stats are great but numbers don't help when you have to start going to your pen in the 6th inning everytime you start. And none of those other guys threw the pitch that their pitcher in his first MLB at bat singled in the second run.

481 Exactly how many superior talents are available right now, Meloan, okay, if you could by usage, he would pitch as the last the guy in the pen so unless you get an extra inning game, he's not pitching ahead of Proctor, Beimel, Broxton and Saito. So how valuable is that?

Who else? LaRoche, yes, but he's hurt. Abreu, according to Boras, he was hurt until this week so how many games does that impact. I'd take Delwyn Young over Olmedo but again, sure Olmedo played today but he's not playing that much.

The superior talent is here. Now are there some intriguing guys like James McDonald, yep, though he must be approaching his career high in innings pitched by now.

I hope the next few weeks bring up the guys on the 40 man roster but its just not true that we have tons of superior talent biding their time in the minors.

Even the Tigers let go of Monroe, and brought up their best young talent and he had a HR today. Guess what I'm driving at, is that Ned and Grady are hanging to the experienced guys may be just a bit too long when this season is getting short.

Consider yourselves warned.

It was a team loss. Three-fourths of the infield combined to go 0 for 18 with two walks. At the same time, the Dodgers showed resiliency - four double-plays, including the great one in the 11th.

Unfortunately, Hernandez shouldn't be on the roster - he simply can't be counted on for a scoreless inning, much less too.

This guy whined about not playing everyday in Anaheim, and it'll only get worse here with Loney, Nomar and LaRoche fighting for 3 spots.

Last night was a MUST WIN for the Dodgers, one of the few chances they're going to get between now and the end of the regular season to make some good ground in the wild card. What are the odds the EVERYONE who needs to lose will lose again today?

Of course, you can't blame Hernandez completely (though I still think they should have just brought Saito out to try to take care of the 14th since he had only pitched for 2/3 an inning the past two nights but that's just me). Frankly, Hillenbrand is a huge mistake and had he not been a moron and tried to move his slow (self) to second in the 11th perhaps the momentum that Fucal had created with that INCREDIBLE 'run-of-the-mii' 6 - 2 - 5 doubleplay wouldn't have been lost.

Also, what the heck was Grady thinking starting Saenz instead of Loney????????

Another depressing and demoralizing end to a short-lived Dodger winning streak in a typically rollercoaster Dodger season I guess.

Ever since the Dodgers signed Hernandez, I have felt Meloan deserved a promotion before he did. But I'm sure there are some Dodger fans out there who got promotions that they didn't deserve. I doubt that they all turned those promotions down.

Its not like Grady were under 25 years old.

One team has overcome this big of a deficit on August 18th in the last 10 years, no team has been as far back as 7.5 games and made it in the same timespan.

Ned knows that if he had a big lead the Dodgers would rest the veterans and they would get rusty for the playoffs. If the D-backs were trailing by 5 or more games the pressure would be off their kids and they might thrive down the stretch.

He has his plan and it is working.

Meloan:

14.0 IP, 11 H's, 2 HR's, 6 BB's, 13 K's

Hull:

12.1 IP, 6 H's, 0 ER's, 4 BB's, 20 K's

Hull has really been dominating in a very tough pitching environment, one that can be tougher than what a pitcher faces in the majors, as Eric Stults keeps proving. And unlike Meloan, Hull is on the 40-man roster. Hull is to Meloan as Stults is to Billingsley: the younger guys with the superior stuff likely have more promising MLB futures, but the older guys with more pitchability can do a good job right now if only given a chance.

He's out of the lineup today, so his awe-inspiring talent (to Shimmin) is not being used now.

I think the NL wild card contenders will be sorted out after this week. The Phillies are playing the Dodgers and Padres and by next Sunday, one of those three teams should be out of contention.

Here's today's lineup:

Furcal, SS

Pierre, CF

Kemp, RF

Hillenbrand, 3B

Ethier, LF

Martin, C

Loney, 1B

Martinez, 2B

Penny, P

Too bad Kent gets the day off. I can't wait 'til Abreu's back.

521, 526 - anyone see the article on Yogi Berra's back up in the Times a couple days ago? The guy basically played 15 games a year for the length of his career but won 6 world titles. Kind of like being Joe Montana's back up during most of the 80s. Or Tom Brady's now.

The Mets two catchers now are Mike DeFelice and Old Friend Sandy Alomar.

And Howard was 35 years old then.

It apparently was enough to land him in the doghouse and make Grady very leery.

This management team is much more likely to forgive a woofer of an outing in a proven veteran (see Hernandez--unfortunately). I think management more or less EXPECTS young players to fail; Grady talks about expecting inconsistency from them. To an extent, he's right.

But I prefer my inconsistency--if it must be--come from players with upside. Mediocre veterans on the downside usually can't be counted on for much except mediocrity--consistent mediocrity, but mediocrity nonetheless.

Mediocrity won't make up deficits.

I wish people could just play nice!

It was a double steal.

Someone has a little cold streak, it's DFA time. Someone goes 6 for 12, best player ever.

Actually, that might not be a great example.

Whatever you say, Jim Tracy...

(and J-Roll with his 23rd career Rickey, aka leadoff home run. He's more than 1/4 of the way to the record!!)

How dare you.

My guess on Saenz is 10%, on Kent, 40%.

The thing is strapped in with fishing line and packing tape as if it were going for a ride on the space shuttle.

And yes, I am bleeding again.

People do not retire and give away $12 million. Not even curmudgeons like Kent.

"The Thermidorian Reaction, Revolution of Thermidor, or simply Thermidor refers to the coup of 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794) in which Maximilien Robespierre was guillotined and the Reign of Terror ended."

Mais, il est un peu "reckless."

And I realize it would have to be la thread "nouvelle," n'est ce past? (and I'm not sure how to spell that).

(high school was a long long time ago!)