I made a joke yesterday involving David Lee Roth. I said that he would be peforming with a puppet show at Viejas in June, when in fact only Roth will be appearing. It was wrong, and I apologize.

The good news is there will be other puppet shows.

Housekeeping

Well, we seem to experiencing some domain problems here. If you’re reading this and it’s actually April 2, chances are you got here by visiting ducksnorts.geoffreynyoung.com or geoffreynyoung.com/ducksnorts. For reasons not altogether clear to me, ducksnorts.com is having a bit of a problem just now. The technical folks are working to get that fixed, and I’ll let you know as soon as it’s resolved. Of course, if you’re attempting to access the site via ducksnorts.com, then you can’t read this anyway so what’s the point?

Well, the point is I wanted to let you know that (a) it’s me, not you; and (b) if you know of anyone who can’t get here, send ‘em to one of the other URLs. Apologies for the incovenience, and with luck we’ll get this all sorted out soon.

Game 2

Would you believe 160-2? Yeah, me neither.

San Francisco 8, San Diego 1 (ESPN)

Not much to write about last night’s game. Jason Schmidt dominated, Barry Bonds hit a ridiculously long homer off Mike Bynum, and that’s pretty much it.

Adam Eaton looked real good at times, but got himself in trouble by working behind in the count too often. In fact, that’s when the Giants did the bulk of their damage against him:

hitter   inn count result
-------------------------
Santiago  2   3-1    HR7
Cruz      4   2-1    HR9
Aurilia   4   3-2    2B7
Alfonzo   4   1-1    2B8

That fourth inning was a killer. Eaton started strong and finished strong, but had a heckuva time the second time through the order:

                    AB H 2B HR BB SO
1st time thru order  9 1  0  0  0  1
2nd time thru order  8 3  2  1  1  1
3rd time thru order  5 0  0  0  1  1

Eaton had a couple of good battles with Bonds. He made him look bad on a couple of pitches in the fourth before issuing a walk. And he struck him out on a beautiful breaking ball to start the sixth.

Other positives for the Pads:

• Sean Burroughs is swinging the bat very well. He hit a shot in the second right at Ray Durham and lined a sharp single to right in the fifth. His only weak at-bat came in the eighth, when he fell behind Schmidt 0-2 and could manage only a routine grounder to third. But in the two earlier at-bats, Burroughs got the bat head around on Schmidt (who according to the Pads’ announcers was reaching 96 MPH as late as the seventh) and hit the ball with some authority. It’s early, but the swings I’ve seen out of Burroughs the first two games of the season bear little resemblance to what I remember of him from last year.
• Ramon Vazquez is looking real good. He drove in the Padres’ only run on a double to right in the eighth. He’s fun to watch at short. Man, he gets rid of the ball in a hurry.

I was hoping for more, but there’s not much to work with when you get beat that badly. Like I said, Eaton showed signs of life; his command just was a little spotty, and a team like the Giants will jump all over that. The bullpen was shaky again, which is going to be a recurring theme this year.

I’m headed out to my first game tonight: Damian Moss vs Oliver Perez at the Q. Game time, 7 PM. Television: Channel 4.