Joe Lucia

Couldn't even link to my site's original stories? smh

Blew his elbow out approximately 12 times

Well, the good news for you is that the Mets only had a three game lead on 9/1 in 2007 and a two game lead on 9/1 in 2008, so they couldn't possibly blow this one too.

Fun fact: during Hart's last two years in Cleveland, their payrolls ranked 5th and 4th respectively. During Shapiro's first year, it fell to 12th. Since then, its broken the top 20 once - in 2008, when their payroll was exactly 20th. When you have a cheap ownership group, you have to make do with what you have.

Well, the universe *does* need to balance itself out after the Arrieta no-hitter. Cubs lose the Wild Card game...oh, 11-3 at PNC Park.

re: playoff tickets. Whatever tickets don't get used get rolled over to a credit on your STH plan the next year. My dad had Phillies credits roll over in 2010-2013 (yes, they sold tickets in 2013, and yes, pops paid for them since they were getting the STH money anyway). It's also not uncommon to use playoff tix as an early bird chance for STH the next year. Figure there's gonna be a spike anyway since the team is having a good year, why not let the people willing to throw down a shitload of money on playoff tix get first dibs on those that sign up during the offseason?

Behind the plate, they're obviously closer, with better sight angles. Also, they get handies in the underground bunker.

It's not homerish at all, but this isn't exactly a situation that would have been easy to foretell. Who could have expected that the NL East and NL West would have been so damn bad? Still don't think it's more egregious than the 103 win Giants staying home in 1993. Win the second-most games in baseball? Tough shit, should have won the most.

In honor of Don Orsillo...

Brendan Ryan. FOR TWO SCORELESS INNINGS!

That's just the tip of the iceberg re: Curt Schilling sharing batshit insane memes on Facebook. He really is your crazy uncle/friend from HS.

Law got a paid Twitter suspension for like four days, let's not pretend that he got smashed with the hammer of god here. re: the Schilling thing. Suspended "pending further consideration", which says to me "we want to see what he says before we decide if we're going to do more".

It took 13 minutes for our first "kitchen" comment at AA, but it was actually the only one I saw (because I didn't open up the Twitter feed). Some guy got uppity and said that all on-field analysts were useless. When I pointed out she was in the booth, he got real angry for no real reason. Internet, man.

Whitlock's been hosting every so often while one or the other has been on vacation.

See, this is the thing. The Cubs are 17-4 in August. That's phenomenal. Yet despite playing that well, they've only picked up two games on the Pirates and four on the Cardinals. With 39 games left, if the Cardinals just play .500 ball, the Cubs need to go 27-12 (and have the Pirates go 23-16 or worse) just to force a tie. It's obviously not impossible, but it's a stretch.

The fucked up part about the Carter thing is that he said it at the symposium LAST YEAR, and the video had been up since. But no one watches that shit and noticed it until Chris Borland mentioned the line in an ESPN article, and someone dug up the video. So all of the apologies are an even bigger load of shit since it's been out there for over a year.

Typically draws around 100k viewers, which is a good number given the timeslot.

Mike Fiers, no hitter number five of the season.

Neither would the Ravens.

MASN is a tire fire. Padres trade Will Venable to Texas. THEY'RE SELLING! KIND OF! Red Sox hire Dave Dombrowski as prez of baseball ops, and Ben Cherington resigns as GM.

I'm a little confused by this then. Isn't the issue that a person lives in a particular team's market, but can't stream the game because theoretically, that person should just watch it on their cable provider's channel that shows those games? So is this something like HBO Go, where you have to choose your cable provider, then login to your online account with that provider to verify that you should be able to watch the games online? It's like all of the other authenticated login services (WatchESPN, Fox Sports Go, NBC Live Extra) that sports networks use. Doesn't benefit cord cutters at all since they don't have cable subscriptions to log in with. The issue this corrects is "I can watch this game on TV but can't stream it online". For example, if you live in Atlanta and want to watch the Braves, you can't watch them on your tablet/laptop/phone/whatever and watch something else on the TV. People that are blacked out of teams they shouldn't be blacked out of are still blacked out of those teams. This has nothing to do with that issue, and MLB is in no rush to correct that. When all of the RSNs get on board, it'll be a lifesaver for someone like me, who has *four* RSNs on my cable package but can only watch one at a time. If I want to watch the Pirates and Orioles at the same time, tough shit.

To reiterate, because some people on the internet are stupid... THIS DOES NOT MEAN LOCAL BLACKOUTS ARE GONE. If you do not get the RSN on your cable package, you still can't stream the team's games. Those people in Iowa blacked out of the Twins and Brewers? You still can't watch the Twins and Brewers. Now, if you live in Arizona, have a cable package with FS Arizona, and want to watch the Diamondbacks online...go right ahead. Really amazes me how people read this and think all of the Fox regional games will be streaming for everyone now. Doesn't work that way.

Phillies pen in August: 3.27 ERA, 52 1/3 IP, 53 K, 15 BB, 5/5 saves Nationals pen in August: 6.11 ERA, 45 2/3 IP, 39 K, 19 BB, 1/3 saves

Marcell Ozuna compared his ridiculous demotion to AAA to a jail stint. OFFSEASON HEADLINE: Marlins trade Marcell Ozuna to <team> for <two relief pitchers from high-A>

Danny Kanell is Russillo's new partner.