Okay, so the Pads pulled that one off but at the risk of seeming ungrateful, I have to get a few things off my chest:
Guys Hacking First Pitch with RISP
1st inning
Dave Roberts: Ball, Ball, Strike (looking), Ball, Ball, D Roberts walked
Geoff Blum: Ball, Ball, Ball, D Roberts stole second, Strike (looking), Strike (looking), Ball, G Blum walked
Ryan Klesko: R Klesko flied out to left
Wes Obermueller has thrown 11 pitches in the game when Klesko comes up, and only 3 have been strikes.
3rd inning
Dave Roberts: Ball, Ball, Ball, Ball, D Roberts walked
Geoff Blum: Ball, Strike (looking), Strike (foul), G Blum doubled to deep right, D Roberts to third
Ryan Klesko: Ball, Ball, Ball, Ball, R Klesko walked
Brian Giles: B Giles fouled out to third
Obermueller has thrown 48 pitches in the game when Giles comes up, and only 20 have been strikes. Obermueller ends up walking five batters in 2 2/3 innings, and yet two guys who are top 15 in the NL in drawing walks get themselves out on first pitches with runners in scoring position. What’s up with that?
Bad Relay Throw
If Damian Jackson makes a good throw to the plate on Damian Miller‘s fourth-inning double, Lyle Overbay is out by a mile. Russell Branyan‘s homer is a solo shot, and Gary Glover‘s line out to first ends the inning (or a pinch hitter comes up and forces Milwaukee to go deeper into the bullpen). Jake Peavy most likely gets out of the inning with a 4-1 lead.
But I can’t even stay mad at Jackson because he ended up with two hits and made a spectacular play going to his left in the ninth on a ball hit by Junior Spivey.
Burning Sweeney in the Fourth
Down 4-3, the Pads send their best pinch hitter, Mark Sweeney, up to bat for Peavy to lead off the fourth. Of course, it’s obvious now that Bruce Bochy envisioned his team scoring a boatload of runs late and thus decided to get Sweeney in and out of the game early.
Anyway, stuff like this bugs me, but I can’t even complain with much conviction because it seems like whatever happens, the Padres are destined to win games. Peavy doesn’t make it to the fifth inning, but Dennys Reyes, Brian Falkenborg, and Chris Hammond slam the door until Blum provides the heroics via a three-run homer in the sixth.
Reyes? Falkenborg? Hammond? Blum? Yeah, believe it.
And speaking of Peavy, yesterday we looked at his first 10 starts of the 2005 season vs his first 10 of 2004. Any guesses as to when the last time Peavy failed to reach the fifth inning of a game? Yep, his 11th start last year, July 7 against the Astros at Petco. Check out the lines from those two games:
IP H ER HR BB SO
2005: 4.0 6 4 1 1 5
2004: 4.0 7 4 1 4 2
Too weird. Kinda like the entire month of May.
I’m telling you Lynch Mob, trading Brian Giles for Kyle Davies isn’t a bad idea…what do you think?
Competely agree about first pitch hacking from Giles and Klesko. You FPH if the pitcher is throwing darts and your desperate. The guy last night was walking guys left and right and struggling. I hope Bocky calls them in the office for a talk, or better yet, Sandy.
Not to mention you shorted yourself in the at bat. You didn’t see enough pitches, didn’t work the pitcher, didn’t apply any pressure to the other team by hacking at the first ptich.
Klesko’s hack clearly killed the no outs, two on inning by opening up the DP ball, which happened. I think its lazy batting.
You are correct Duckman, we are playing lucky these days but when it gets tougher, and it will, cut off throws and plate discipline will matter.
I’m with you as well. Arguably our two most disciplined, best hitters up there hacking away. Getting greedy or lazy or something. Hernandez keeps hacking as well. Aside from Hernandez, generally this team has been comfortable going deep in the counts and waiting for a good pitch to hit. I hope yesterday was an aberrant blip for both of those guys.
The bases loaded no outs and getting nothing bothered me. X-man had an ugly K. Good to see him get more PT, if as a LIDR. Actually, with the way Klesko was hacking, I was thinking he could be a LIOR (O for offensive). Blum’s GIDP was very ugly, but, of course, he had contributed already. I didn’t like it, aside from the principle, is that not getting 1-2 additional runs may have caused Bochy to go to Hammond earlier.
But, with the way things have been going, Lawrence will pitch a complete game allowing the bullpen to rest, so the extra pitches won’t be a problem.
I am pro-low radar as well, though it is funny to see all the other teams getting coverage for their turn-arounds (Texas, Milwaukee). The Padres are one loss behind having the best record in the NL and St. Louis has been doing what St. Louis always does.
Talk about going low radar, I was reading ESPN, and they have the Padres ranked 7th. Ahead of them are St. Louis and Florida, along with the Yankees. Did they not see how we took 6 of 7 from StL and FLA? Doesn’t matter though, as long as we keep winning. This team expects to win every night. As long as we continue to win series, I think we will win this division. Hopefully the injury bug won’t plague us anymore this season.