first pitch: 7:15 p.m., PT
television: Channel 4
matchup: Woody Williams (1-1, 5.16 ERA) vs Noah Lowry (1-1, 4.58 ERA)
game previews: ESPN | CBS SportsLine | SI
AB BA OBP SLG
Williams vs current Giants 211 .270 .339 .422
Lowry vs current Padres 41 .341 .438 .561
Beware the middle infielders. Omar Vizquel is hitting .438/.550/.625 against Woody in 16 at-bats, Durham is at .467/.500/.667 in 15 at-bats. On the other side, a much smaller sample. Brian Giles and Ramon Hernandez have homers against Lowry.
Acknowledging that one of his starts came at Coors Field, Williams has been getting hit pretty hard in the early going. So far, the further he goes into a game, the better he gets. Friars need to start winning some games; let’s hope Woody goes pretty far tonight.
Source: ESPN. Stats through games of Apr. 24, 2005.
93 Comments
Loretta walks. Middle of the order has to get him home.
Giles is now hitting .500 against Lowry.
Phil needs to drive in a run or two here.
Nevin crushed that ball. I thought it was gone. Anyway, he drove in a run with a double. Nice job.
Lowry is falling behind everyone.
Ramon strikes out on a fastball at his eyes. Bases still loaded, now two out. Gotta score.
Nady strikes out on a changeup outside off the plate. Good news: Lowry threw 30 pitches in the first inning. Bad news: Padres had bases loaded with one out and only scored one run. Can’t be helping the pitcher like that.
Why is Nevin late covering the bag on the 3-6-3? Inning should be over. Alou up instead.
Base hit Alfonzo, tie game. Our defense stinks.
Woody gets out of the inning. Game is tied, 1-1. We should be up at least 3-0 by now.
Dinner’s up; I’ll check in later…
Geoff, I suspect this is an average baseball team, at best.
No, I am not falling victim to the U-T’s silly headline today.
The Padres simply lack any truly great players, and have a shortage of very good ones.
I like the graph, but isn’t it more likely that Woody goes deeper into games the better he’s pitching?
Lance, you sign up with blogger, yet?
Yay. I just finished finding the correlation coefficients of Runs to various stats… but only for the year 2004. blah
In order from highest correlation to lowest: RC27, OPS, SLG, OBP, BA, IsoP, SecA, BB/PA, BB/K.
Thus, if the figures are accurate (huge friggin’ “if”), Klesko is currently the productive bat in the Padre lineup (with Nady not far behind).
Crap, when I finally start watching the game, Woody starts giving up (a) run(s).
What the hell happened there?
A broken bat blooper and an UGLY error by Nady (not sure if it was scored one, but it was and it was UGLY).
Woody is getting pecked away at by bloop rbi hits. He is pitching real well today. hitting his spots.
Our defense stinks. Our offense ain’t that great either. Woody should be up 5-1 or so by now.
Nice to see X not let his fielding miscue (that’s being SO nice) carry over into the batter’s box.
Yeah, pay no attention to the boxscore; Woody is pitching a beautiful game.
what’s happening, people. is everyone else in san diego?
Jeez, how come they keep hitting Burroughs in the knee?
Richard, I’m not sure which is cause and which is effect on that graph. It’s weird that there’s a spike in the 46-60 pitch range.
they are trying to kill him.
Hey Kevin, how’s it going?
Good, I’m watching the game on MLBtv. I run padresnation.com. I’m in High Point, N.C., the furniture capital of the world.
ah I’m watchin on mlb.tv too. Isn’t J.T. Snow terribly inarticulate? “I believe, um, people with good hands, is, er, because of their feet, if that makes….any sense.”
Ah yes, the excellent PadresNation.com. Welcome!
Yeah, Snow should stick his foot in his mouth. Is this Kuiper and the other guy who is supposed to be good? I’m not buying them.
Giles is 1-2 against Levine, with a walk and a homer.
Geoff, small sample size maybe?
How does Snow make plays like that?
What, 3 PAs isn’t enough for you?
Again, say small sample size?
I was actually referring to the Williams pitch count OPS graph the first time.
This game should be about 10-1 by now. Nevin just missed that one.
Damn.
Feliz walked…
Woody’s still only thrown about 70 or so pitches?
Oh, the graph? Yeah, that could well be. Here’s how he breaks out 2002-05:
1-15: 842 OPS
16-30: 692
31-45: 558
46-60: 672
61-75: 568
76-90: 809
91-105: 773
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/splits3?statsId=5025&type=pitching
Williams needs to bare down, get this last out and then we can give to the bullpen.
Woody’s at 80 pitches, 55 for strikes.
That’s far more interesting.
So, does anyone else get nervous whenever there’s a popup?
Kevin, he did just that. Made a nice pitch to Tucker to get the last out.
speaking of bullpen, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hammond and Seanez supplant Linebrink and Otsuka as the primary setup crew by the end of the year. Relievers are so volatile.
I hope they have a bullpen where all four of those guys are reliable.
Did ya see the way X laid off that high fastball?
Eric, you may be right. Hammond has been impressive.
I would be surprised. I don’t think Bochy would do it even if it were for the best.
Again going for Burroughs’ legs…
Geoff- huh?
Interesting decision to let Woody hit here.
Giants pitcher threw one right at Burroughs’ feet, made him hit the deck.
I don’t think it was intentional; this guy is all over the place.
Thanks.
Woody strikes out, Pads leave two in scoring position.
Damn. What’s Nady doing that far down in the lineup, anyway?
That was a filthy breaking ball to punch out Vizquel.
Good question about Nady. Most of his at-bats this year have come in the #7 spot.
It’s ridiculous. Boch doesn’t want to hurt the feelings of Nevin and Giles or something…
Nady and Klesko have been the team’s best hitters. They ought to be hitting 3-4 until that’s no longer true.
Loretta was robbed.
LynchMob isn’t here, so I’ll do the honors: Portland lost to Salt Lake tonight, 18-8, thanks to an 11-run seventh. Homers for Damian Jackson and Jon Knott. Former Padre prospect Eric Cyr gets the win.
Durham go up for it?
Mobile lost to Chattanooga, 10-2. Travis Chick gave up 7 ER in 2.2 IP.
http://www.mobilebaybears.com/news/article.asp?NID=2003
Yeah, Durham made a nice play on Loretta. Mud and Mark were already calling it a single.
Mud and Mark are always a little ahead of themselves.
Ft. Wayne and Burlington split a DH.
http://www.wizardsbaseball.com/news/news.asp?newsId=532
Klesko gets ahead in the count, 3-0, strikes out with runners at first and second to end the eighth. In his defense, that was a nice pitch by Eyre.
For all the Hyzdu fans: he has an RC27 of NEGATIVE 1.63. ha
bring Williams back in
That was a tremendous catch by Loretta in foul territory down the right field line. Where would we be without Loretta…
Loretta is like Kelly Leak. He has to cover everyone’s ass.
Nice dive-n-throw by Burroughs. See, our defense is good sometimes
Great diving stop by Burroughs on a ball hit by Matheny ends the inning. This game shouldn’t even be close. Did I mention that already?
Only about ten times, Geoff. It’s STILL an understatement.
Trevor Time. He abuses Niekro for the first out.
Durham is 2 for 4 against Trevor. Both hits are doubles.
Did he ever look stupid on that strikeout. Wow. “Just missed it, Ray,” said Grant.
Trevor abuses Durham, two outs. This is Vizquel’s first time up against Hoffman.
Vizquel singles. Not hit hard…
“Abuse” is your word of the day, Geoff?
Snow is the tying run. Career against Hoffy: .231/.333/.231 (13 AB).
Defensive indifference.
Punch him out, Hoffy.
Hell yes!
Blum is the player of the game and he now leads the Pads in HRs doesn’t he?
Death. Taxes. Hoffman.
Hoffman strikes out the side, Pads win. That was sweet. Dodgers lost, too.
Thanks for the chat, gents; till next time…
That’s excellent.
Interesting graph on the OPS by number of pitches. First, I was like “Wow. They really do improve with pitches.” But then I was thinking about some adverse selection problems. Woody is probably only going to get to 90+ pitches on a good night; or, at least, he won’t get there on a horrendous night. So there are probably a lot of crappy starts hidden in the under 90 pitches. You might compare is OPS by pitch count within games where he pitched a minimum number of pitches. Interesting stat, nonetheless. Nice to see a win. I live up in SF, but my week is too busy to catch them on this run. In the last five years or so, I have probably been to 10 games up here. It is brutal being surrounded by Giants fans, especially how they have abused the Pads since 1998 (last year was better). I made it one game at Petco, and though Tankersly lost to the Brewers, it was great being surrounded by Padres fans.