Padres claimed Lou Merloni off waivers from Boston. Most famous as Nomar Garciaparra’s caddy, Merloni (which is Italian for "Keith Lockhart’s out of a job") is a hard-nosed guy who can play anywhere on the infield. The most similar batter to Merloni through age 31 is former Padre infielder Craig Shipley. Not exactly thrilling but it’s a fair shake better than Lockhart.

I’m taking the lazy way out today and just giving you a bunch of links. Enjoy…

• Perez’s value rising as pitch count shrinks (U-T). This is a good start; let’s hope he keeps those pitch counts down.
• Burroughs needs more work (U-T). He looked good in the field last night against the Cubs. Made a real nice stop on a ball down the line. Accurate, if not terribly strong, throw. According to Mark Grant and Rick Sutcliffe, he’s on orders not to crank it up just yet.
• Peavy makes plenty of progress in Peoria (U-T). Even better, Donaldo Mendez didn’t make the big club. Neither did Charles Nagy, Miguel Ojeda, Mark Quinn, or Tagg Bozied.
• Peavy enjoys strong outing (padres.com). He gets the nod to start at Elsinore this Saturday.
• Bullpen still in flux (padres.com). Kevin Walker is struggling.
• Nagy accepts reassignment, will start year at Portland (NC Times). The battle for the fifth spot in the rotation is pretty much down to Mike Bynum and Clay Condrey. Bynum made his first start of the spring last night and pitched reasonably well. He’ll either be in the San Diego rotation or the Portland rotation. If Condrey doesn’t win a starting job, he should stick as a reliever.
• Bozied gives Padres another good dilemma (NC Times). The young slugger will see some time in the outfield this year.
• Padres well-armed against Phillips flak (NC Times). Brief mention of Ben Howard’s progress, plus a peek at some of the names the Pads are said to be looking at for the June draft.