ExWNYer

Maybe try a menorah this year. Fewer lights and easier to pitch... Sir, you are no gentleman.

@Gugny @Another Fan And in yet another lost Mets season...on a night when their manager gets tossed during a typical 'rinse and repeat' home loss...on a night when their starting pitcher goes only 5 innings once again...on a night when their owner is addressing the media about his overpaid and under-performing squad and his embattled front office...Domingo German of their crosstown rivals tosses only the 24th perfect game in MLB history (and 4th in team history). The yin and yang that is ever present in baseball. Sadly, more often than not, the Mets seem to be the bad which evens out the good. <sigh> In a disappointing year that was supposed to be "all in" and about chasing a World Series title, a perfect game by NY AL feels like salt in the wound. Every time I hear that there was a no hitter (and even more rare, a perfect game) thrown, I think about the lone no-no that the Mets have by Johann Santana and think, "The one we have isn't even legit". Had there been replay back then, the Mets wouldn't even have the one that they do. I don't know how in the world the umps missed that shot down the left field line that clearly hit the chalk, but I digress. Hard to believe that as pitching rich as this franchise has historically been, they only have one no hitter and a questionable one at that. Several fan favorites and team icons have them...Tom Seaver, Doc Gooden, Nolan Ryan...but all with other franchises. And just to bring this full-circle, the last perfect game thrown by NY AL was back in 1999...by David Cone...another former Met. David Wells also threw one for them the year prior so back-to-back perfect games in 1998 & 1999 and a third last night while the Mets are still looking for their first 'clean' no hitter. That would be nice at some point. A perfect game for the Mets? Fuhgeddaboudit!

I keep telling myself I'm not going to watch them anymore this season but my addiction keeps sucking me back into watching. I did turn the channel when they got down, 5-1, on Friday and saved myself. I missed most of Saturday (the lone win) due to plans with friends but, unfortunately, watched all of the sh*t show on Sunday. The most disappointing thing to me is that they are not fun to watch. I like elements of this squad but there is nothing fun or entertaining about watching the highest payroll in baseball continually shoot themselves in the foot and invent new and excruciating ways to lose. There are too many talented players and coaches (Buck & Hefner) for this team to be an also-ran laughingstock sitting 15 games out of first place and eight...yes, EIGHT...games out of the LAST Wild Card spot in June. Holy cripes... Let me start off about Buck by saying that I like him...I wanted him as the manager. But he has frustrated me time and again this year with (IMO) his mismanagement of the bullpen. I am on record several times...you guys have seen it before. I know he's not managing with a full arsenal at his disposal but he's bungling what he does have. That said, he didn't go from winning 101 games and NL Manager of the year to not knowing anything about baseball but, as you guys said, he has always been known for preaching fundies and this is one of the most head-scratchingly bad fundamental teams in all of baseball. It's beyond perplexing. They don't have the margin of error for the kinds of mental & physical errors they are committing. Admittedly, Buck has forgotten more about baseball than I will ever know but, at some point, even the shelf life of the good ones runs out. This mess isn't entirely on him but he certainly should be held accountable for some of it. And a big "F*CK NO!" to Joe Girardi. I wanted him at one point, too, but have you already forgotten how putrid the Philthies were under his misdirection? They didn't take off until they canned his rigid ass and went in another direction. I'd rather stick with Buck or give Beltran his shot than bring in the crew-cut with the stench of both the Skanks & Philthies on him. That ship has sailed and is a hard pass for me. JMO Lastly, I don't think a managerial shakeup will do anything for this current rag-tag amalgamation of misfit toys. They are poorly put together by one Billy Eppler. I can't stand him and would welcome his firing today. He assembled this awful bullpen. There were better options still on the market but he chose to go with guys who had options so he could have the flexibility to call them up and move them down. How the fug has that worked out for you, Billy?? The 2023 NY Mess have lost 12 games already...TWELVE...when scoring 6 or more runs in a game. That is mind-blowing and the most in MLB. They have also allowed the most HRs in all of baseball. Between this Mets team and the constant infestation of trolls on the main boards starting 'Trade Diggs...he's a cancer' threads or 'McDermott sucks' threads, this has been a miserable sports summer. Have a great week, gentlemen. I'm headed to WNY on Friday for a much needed week of R&R with family.

^^^^^ This. A $45M cap hit to release or trade him this year and $30M next year. He's tied to the team for at least the next two seasons. He'll be 31 after the 2024 season so they may ready to move in another direction at that time but not before then.

Does this have anything at all to do with that lab-grown chicken from animal cells? Asking for a friend...🤔 https://apnews.com/article/cultivated-meat-lab-grown-cell-based-a88ab8e0241712b501aa191cdbf6b39a

this ******* place

@Gugny @Another Fan Maybe I did see you! Was that you in the orange & blue feather boa and matching heels? Outstanding! I was shocked to see Pete back already but he looked rusty. In all honesty, he wasn't contributing much at the time he was injured. He needs to get back into the groove sooner rather than later although I'm not sure at this point if it even matters. After winning two in a row, they dropped 2 out of 3 to an old team with the worst record in the NL...at home...and now head to Houston. They were already 5 games out of the final Wild Card spot heading into today and they simply cannot get on a roll. The division is also no longer in play and Buck continues to irritate me, as well. He brought in Robertson today in the 8th in a 7-7 tie and did not bring him back for the 9th despite having only thrown 8 pitches. In comes Ottavino in the 9th to serve up a meat pitch to Arenado. Game over. You can't save Robertson for Houston as they may not even be in the game. Go for the win at hand and worry about tomorrow's game tomorrow. Then, to pour salt in the wound, he uses Vogelbach to PH in the 9th. You saw Vogie's only highlight of the year the other night after a 9 day 'mental rest' hiatus and Buck acts like the big man has suddenly turned the corner by going back to him. One good AB does not make up for a horrible season. I agree 100% on Vientos. He should have been sent down if he wasn't going to get sufficient playing time and his use/non-use during his call-up was a travesty on the part of the manager and the front office. But, hey, at least Danny V is tan, rested and ready...

@Gugny I watched that game. I'm not sure I believe you...I didn't see you anywhere in the crowd. 😁 (j/k) BTW, unfortunately for you, you were witness to the fastest Met game so far this season (2:01). The previous fastest was either 2:03 or 2:04. Lastly, I am not a fan of the black jerseys. I can handle the Friday night black jersey games, I guess, but I was pissed to see them earlier in the week for the first game against the Skanks. Cool that you got to make it out to a game, even if it was a loss. In fairness to Canha, he was one of the only guys delivering over the last couple of weeks but he has since gone belly up, too. Nobody else stepped up to help him out and here we are. Canha is supposed to be a piece, not one of the main pieces. You never know what you're going to get with this team. Just as you leave them for dead after a 2-9 stretch, they win two in a row to make you raise an eyebrow only to fall at home yet again to another lousy team throwing an ancient pitcher on his last legs. This squad really misses Alonso but, even with him in the lineup, they were still scuffling. As an aside, I think Verlander still has something in the tank and will give them a good outing more often than not but I am almost fully convinced at this point that Scherzer is cooked for good. I hope he proves me wrong. If they get nothing out of him & Lindor and Lindor continues to be a huge waste of oxygen and payroll, this team will be relegated to second division status anyway. Lindor is barely above 'The Mendoza Line' 70 games into the season. Hey, Francisco, it's not early anymore. At least we have one Francisco worth cheering for...when Buck decides to leave him in the lineup. Thanks for being a Met prospect who seems to be living up to the billing and then some, Mr. Alvarez. Happy Father's Day to all. LGM!!!

Definitely a Vikings fan. He has stated it on more than one occasion.

Is this the same Dak Prescott who has never even gotten his team to an NFC Championship Game and has a whopping 2-4 playoff record? That Dak Prescott?

We have some 'Bram Stokers' here, as well. Real pains in the neck... Ironic considering he's a fan of the Vikings who haven't been in a Super Bowl since the 1970s and sport the same 0-4 record in the big game as the Bills.

1) "If they yank my tackle eligible play over dis sh*t, you and me gon' come to blows." 2) "So somebody says to you, 'Let's go roll a fatty!' and you think they talkin' 'bout da ShnowMan??"

I don't see him getting the axe either but if they get off to a slow start again next year I could see them pulling the plug early and going with Beltran again. BTW, how Metsy would it be to see Buck get eighty-sixed either during this year or right after just a season removed from winning 'NL Manager of the Year'? Fun times...

@Gugny @SinceThe70s @Another Fan I know Cohen said last week that he's not ready to blow things up. Saw this today, FWIW... "It was around this time last year when the first manager was fired in Major League Baseball, and it's somewhat unusual for the season to reach the All-Star break without at least one canned. Two months ago, the favorite via oddsmakers to be the first manager dismissed in 2023 was Detroit's AJ Hinch, and he's still in that spot. However, closing fast is the New York Mets' Buck Showalter. New York lost 2-1 in Pittsburgh on Sunday, its eighth defeat in nine games, to fall to 31-35. The team is much closer to last place in the NL East than first despite an MLB-record payroll of approximately $340 million. To make the playoffs at DraftKings, the Mets are currently +125 and -145 to go home early. One might think having a seven-game losing streak as New York just did would be a playoff killer, but the Mets have made the playoffs twice when having at least a seven-game skid in the regular season, doing so in 1999 and 2015. It's certainly not Showalter's fault that All-Star closer Edwin Diaz suffered a serious injury in the World Baseball Classic and is likely out for the entire season, or Showalter's fault that the Carlos Correa contract situation didn't work out. Or that Justin Verlander looks past his prime at age 40. Or that mega-durable All-Star first baseman and NL MVP candidate Pete Alonso, with an MLB-best 22 homers, was hit on the wrist by a pitch last week and could miss another month. The 'Mets Fire Showalter' columns are likely being pre-written as we speak. While it's likely not time to move on from the highly respected manager just yet, time is running out to save this all-in World Series season. Just looking at the division, the Phillies' 2022 campaign completely changed whey then fired Joe Girardi early last June and promoted Rob Thomson to manager. He led them to the World Series."

@Gugny @SinceThe70s Ditto to the bolded. I know hindsight is 20/20 but Lindor is one of the biggest wastes of money in a long time, IMO. He was hitting .218 entering play today and did nothing again in a 2-1 loss. Even his defense has been subpar the last several games. I am at the point that I wish they had held on to Amed Rosario & Andres Gimenez and used the money elsewhere...either for some power bats or starting pitching. Gimenez is coming into his own and is a helluva lot cheaper than Lindor. You guys may not agree but that is just my two cents.

When I saw this topic thread, I actually thought the prognostication might have been from MJD who is probably the worst employee at NFLN. I'm not sure if he would even concede 9 wins for the Bills. He's a shill for the LA teams and rarely utters an intelligent sentence. If I see him on air, I flip the channel. He's just a waste of my time. NFLN has a ton of their 'analysts' make these on air predictions which are just fluffy, worthless air time filler. If it had been Michael Robinson, he probably would have had the Bills going 14-3 or something. It's all just individual perspective and not worth any more or less than the next guy or gal. As far as Adam Rank is concerned, he's a Bears homer and his shtick is trying to be funny. Sometimes he succeeds, often times he falls flat. It's difficult for me to ever take any of his 'objective' analysis seriously because I just don't find him to be very credible, believable, or knowledgeable. He rarely picks against the Bears no matter how bad they are. I remember him laughably picking the Bears over the Bills last year when the Bills were 11-3 at the time and fighting for home field advantage and his beloved Bears were 3-11 and staring at the #1 overall selection in the 2023 draft. The Bills promptly smoked them in Chicago, 35-13. I also find his fantasy football analysis to be subpar. In fairness to him, I don't find anyone's fantasy football analysis on NFLN to be informative. As someone else said upthread, Rank is harmless and can be taken with a grain of salt like just about everyone else on that network.

@Gugny @Another Fan Jose Quintana I saw the same article and I'm glad that Cohen is not a reactionary hothead like Steinbrenner. That said, seeing is believing. I need some empirical evidence that this organization is truly changing and will be building correctly for the future. We'll see if they foolishly deal some of their better prospects for stop-gap pieces who give the fans some 'hope' but ultimately turn out to be window dressing or if they bite the bullet and try to retool (not rebuild) next year. One other note: Vientos is playing today but he is not getting enough playing time to be up with the big club. He needs a run of at least a dozen games or so to see if he can show anything. Whether they want to see if he is a building block of the future or whether they want to showcase him as part of a potential deadline deal, sitting him so much will accomplish neither goal. He should either be playing first base while Alonso is out or DHing with Vogelbach's fat ass glued to the bench, lefty/righty match-up be damned. Currently, neither is being done which is the typically inept and shortsighted Met way.

@Gugny @SinceThe70s Everything these days is driven by analytics and lineups are largely determined by the GM and the analytics team with very little say by the on field manager. You would think that someone with Buck's experience and years in the game would have more input but I'm not sure if that is actually the case. Managers used to determine lineups, not the pencil-pushers and nerds in the front office. FWIW, I hope the majority of this is not Buck because, if it is, the game has passed him by, IMO. In no world should a team that is supposed to be a contender be trotting out Daniel Vogelbach on a nearly nightly basis. He should have already been DFA'd. Can you imagine a well-run organization like Atlanta regularly playing Vogelbach as their DH? Not a chance in hell. Nothing ever changes with this franchise. They went from penny-pinching owners to the richest owner in baseball and yet the ineptitude continues despite the bloated payroll. Alonso, Alvarez and, to an extent, Baty are the only reasons to even pay attention to this team right now, at least for me. And now Alonso is day-to-day after getting plunked the other night. 1986 seems like a million years ago in the rearview mirror now. I'm starting to think I'll never see another title in my lifetime. <sigh>

Just announced. It's official. https://www.buffalobills.com/news/bills-qb-josh-allen-featured-on-madden-nfl-24-cover

@Gugny @SinceThe70s @Another Fan This team sucks. That is all. #SOFM

It's also interesting (frustrating?) that people continue to engage...and give a platform to...the same handful of trolls who continually contribute nothing constructive to this community. By any objective measure, the pass rush got better with the addition of Leonard Floyd.

Congrats to the Bandits. I watched the entire series and thoroughly enjoyed it; however, it was a little disappointing that the deciding game was only available via ESPN+. I get that's the way the world is going now but to televise the first two games 'conventionally' and then air the deciding game over stream only seemed odd to me but I managed to watch regardless. It did not bring me the joy that a title for the Bills or Sabres would but I was happy they won for sure. My younger son was even more into it than me which I thought was cool since he has never lived a day in WNY but is everything Buffalo for his sports teams.