first pitch: 4:10 p.m., PT
television: Channel 4
matchup: Brian Lawrence (2-3, 5.19 ERA) vs Brandon Claussen (1-3, 5.60 ERA)
game preview: CBS
The Padres, fielding their projected Opening Day starting lineup for the first time all year, mounted an improbable comeback victory in the series opener at Cincy. And although he went 0 for 3 in his return from the DL, Khalil Greene was a welcome sight out on the diamond Monday night. Pads have closed the gap on LA and are now just two games out of first place. With the Dodgers battling in St. Louis, the Friars have a good opportunity to gain even more ground.
Tonight’s matchup:
AB BA OBP SLG
Lawrence vs current Reds 98 .296 .355 .469
Claussen vs everybody 372 .304 .378 .481
The only Reds who have faced Lawrence much are Adam Dunn (.267/.389/.600 in 15 AB) and former Padre Rich Aurilia (.333/.333/.458 in 24 AB). Each has a homer against Lawrence, as do Wily Mo Pena (3 AB) and Jacob Cruz (2 AB).
Claussen is making his 20th big-league start. No current Padre has ever faced him, so I’ve listed Claussen’s career numbers. Although he’s a southpaw, lefties (.367/.466/.617) have had much better success than righties (.281/.343/.434) in his limited time in the Show.
Lawrence has been two entirely different pitchers so far in 2005. He’s made three starts each at home and on the road:
IP H HR BB SO ERA AB BA OBP SLG
Home 23.0 15 0 4 14 1.57 83 .181 .227 .229
Road 11.2 23 3 8 6 12.34 54 .426 .500 .722
His road starts have been at Wrigley, the BOB, and Busch, so we can’t even blame Coors Field. Here’s hoping this is nothing more than a small sample anomaly and Lawrence can buck the trend in Cincy.
For the Pads, over the past 7 days it’s been all Brian Giles (.370/.485/.741 in 27 AB) and Ryan Klesko (.290/.353/.774 in 31 AB), with a dash of Ramon Hernandez (.348/.348/.565 in 23 AB) thrown in for good measure. The bullpen has worked 31 innings over that span, so now would be a good time to have the starter go deep into the game.
Other Stuff
These don’t really belong here, but there wasn’t enough to justify a separate post, so here they shall be:
- Thompson promoted to Double-A (NC Times). Sean Thompson is headed to Mobile. Southpaw has fanned 10.22 batters per 9 over 284 1/3 pro innings. On Monday, in the Love Boat thread, I said it would be “interesting to see how well his success translates to higher levels once he’s deemed ready.” Well, he’s been deemed ready. Go get ‘em, kid! Also of note: Michael Johnson is on the DL with “inflammation in his right hand.” He expects to be back later in the week.
- Also, as Dave mentioned in the comments to Monday’s In-Game Discussion, Rickey Henderson will be playing for the San Diego Surf Dawgs of the independent Golden Baseball League. The Surf Dawgs play their home games at Tony Gwynn Stadium, and the opener is Thursday, May 26, against the Long Beach Armada. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty psyched at the prospect of seeing Rickey here in San Diego again.
Gees duckman, your putting the rest of us padre bloggers to shame, great work. Where do you get all the stats?
The one I loved last night, thrown out by Muddy himself on the cablecast, was that the Padres have out-scored opponents 60ish to 33ish from the seventh inning on. Heh.
Also, looks like the book on Boroughs is working, throw inside, don’t let him go to the opposite field. He needs to turn on one or two and see of the “book” makes the adjustment.
I try to post on the pads everyday, but mostly observations on the game, not stats.
http://www.padretalk.blogpot.com
Mike, now that is an interesting typo. I think it should be “blogSPOT”. Bizarrely, you get a result with what you typed.
Nice blog, Mike. As for the stats, I make ‘em up. J/K. I get most of them from ESPN.com; if I can’t find what I need there, I use one of the other sources listed in my Links section on the right.
Thanks, Duckman. My mother says I need an editor. Strangely though, she doesn’t want to volunteer. That is a funny typo, but I better not follow that link here at work…I usually go to CNN/SI so try I’ll ESPN, but being an English major (a long time ago), stats always gave me a headache, not to undermine their importance in baseball.
Ducksnort is a volunteer effort on your part, no?
Duckman… That’s great. Padre Mike, you can find stats at http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/statistics. Also, http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/ is quite good.
English major? Good man; I am one in a long line of ‘em.
Yes, this is and has been a volunteer effort, although I’m not above “selling out.”
Since the heading of one of the subjects of today’s blog is “Other Stuff” … here’s an update on Ollie Perez …
It is safe to say left-hander Oliver Perez has been one of baseball’s biggest disappointments during the first five weeks of this season.
The 23-year-old appeared ready to emerge as a star after going 12-10 with a 2.98 ERA in 30 starts last season while leading the major leagues with 11.0 strikeouts per nine innings.
However, Perez was hammered again Friday night in an 8-4 loss at Arizona as he gave up eight runs on 10 hits in 5 1/3 innings with two walks and only one strikeout. He is 1-4 with an 8.03 ERA after seven starts.
Most alarming is that Perez has allowed 10 homers and walked 25 batters in 37 innings. Perez has surrendered two home runs in four of his last five starts after giving up just 22 in 196 innings last season.
“He’s just not hitting his spots,” manager Lloyd McClendon said. “It’s location. His ball was up in the zone. The slider was up. The fastball was not moving in a downward location, and they took advantage of it.”
Perez’s fastball velocity was down again Friday as he topped out at 93 mph and was usually in the 89-91 mph range. Last season, he often reached 97 mph and routinely sat in the 93-95 range.
That has led to suspicions Perez might be hiding an arm injury. However, he insisted he is healthy although he missed the first week of exhibition games with stiffness in his pitching shoulder.
English majors? ew
I’m a Lit major — practically the same thing.
Remember all the hoo-haw over last night’s line-up being the first time all season they used the eight starters we all expected to see 120 or so games this year? Well, last night might have been the one and only time we’ll see it. Check tonight’s starting nine:
Jackson 3B
Loretta 2B
Giles RF
Nevin 1B
Hernandez C
Nady CF
Ojeda LF
Greene SS
Lawrence P
I’m hopeful they’re facing a left-hander.
Two questions: Is Burroughs hurt? Does anyone recall Loretta swinging and missing at as many balls all of last year as he has already this year?
Interesting. They are facing a left-hander, but it’s one who has allowed a 1083 OPS against in his very brief big-league career (~70 PA).
They’re facing a lefty.
I’m wondering about hitting Hernandez 5 and Nady 6. Their stats overall, vs. LHP and w/RISP are practically indistinguishable so why not put the two catchers on the basepaths together at 6 and 7 rather than roadblocking Nady?
Name – BA/OBP/SLG v. LHP (2002-2005)
Jackson – .281/.278/.291
Loretta – .325/.415/.471
Giles – .250/.348/.419
Nevin – .332/.418/.614
Hernandez – .251/.323/.461
Nady – .319/.477/.449
Ojeda – .288/.359/.575
Greene – .295/.378/.517
Lawrence – .125/.188/.188
On the bolded players, perhaps they should not be where they are in the lineup.
Damn your comments not allowing html, Geoff. Jackson & Hernandez were in bold…
That was a bad PA by Nevin.
That was disappointing.
Hernandez just doesn’t hit lefties all that well. Nady, Ojeda and Greene are better.
What guides Bochy in filling out the lineups?
.334
That’s the probability of not scoring when you have men on first and second with no outs.
I have to imagine it should be even smaller with your 3-4-5 hitters coming up.
Nice double play right there.
Way to help your own cause, B-Law. E-1.
That was a methodical (read: slow) 1-3. Way to recover.
Geoff, have you read Marc Normandin’s Beyond the Box Score? Spiffy non-team specific blog.
Claussen is breaking some bats…
Bruce, what was dissappointing? Some of us like ot read these comments later …
I have to imagine he was disappointed by the wasting of two base runners with zero outs.
Lawrence gets thru 1st with just 10 pitches … gotta like that … hoping he can go DEEP in this game!
That outside corner seems a little generous…
Greene hit that ball hard. Damn.
Richard, I’ve been hearing about BTBS but not really had a chance to read it. Looks interesting.
Richard is dead on, it was disappointing to not score even a run with runners at 2nd and 3rd with one out and a flyball hitter at the plate.
It’s a bit of a headache to read if you’re not familiar with annoying stats like WARP3 and such.
Got the groundball, but it found the hole.
I’d like to see B-Law throw more first-pitch strikes…
Crap.
For Lynch, the RBI double is “crap.”
I’d like to see the Padres bats come alive against a medicocre pitcher when it is looking like we are going to have to score a lot of runs to win at the moment.
Claussen’s pitch count: 22 in 1st … 9 in 2nd …
Thanks, Richard … for the explanation …
Lawrence struggling (from my view on Yahoo) in bottom of 2nd …
- A. Dunn walked
- J. Randa singled to left, A. Dunn to second
- A. Kearns doubled to left, A. Dunn scored, J. Randa to third
- J. Valentin hit sacrifice fly to center, J. Randa scored
2-0 Reds …
21 pitches this inning.
Never good to walk the opposing pitcher.
Wow, walked Claussen … that can’t be good
I guess this was what I was expecting from Lawrence tonight. He has never pitched well at Great American.
Only 2 runs, could have been worse.
.375 BABIP against B-Law so far tonight.
PH for Lawrence? Just kidding
Rich Aurilia pulls up lame. D’Angelo Jimenez will take his place.
Amazingly, their #8 hitter can hit a sacrifice fly off a sinkerball pitcher but our clean-up guy can’t do anything but pop-up with one out and two RISP against a fastball pitcher.
OT: Sweeney hit a HR tonight … http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/boxscore?gid=250510114 … eh, I guess that’s a bit of a stretch