IGD: Padres @ Rockies (21 Sep 2005)
Wed, Sep 21, 2005
by Geoff Young
first pitch: 5:35 p.m., PT
television: Channel 4
matchup: Jake Peavy (12-7, 2.98 ERA) vs Mike Esposito (MLB debut)
You lose by 19 runs, you get no “Magic Number” banner. Silver linings? Well, nobody got hurt.
Sean Burroughs made his big-league pitching debut and served up a three-run homer to Matt Holliday. Sure, it was an embarrassing loss, but I can think of worse things in the world. In fact, here are ten of them:
Ten Things Worse Than Losing 20-1 to the Rockies at Coors Field
- Too much coffee and an “Elimidate” marathon
- Nana Mouskouri
- Cleaning bathrooms at a pre-school (trust me on this one)
- Losing 20-1 to the Rockies at Petco Park
- Stupid blog lists
- Eggplant
- Boat racing
- The man scarf
- Police Academy 6 (I don’t know for a fact that it’s bad, but I like my odds)
- The skullet
Peavy goes for the Pads Wednesday night. I won’t guarantee a win, but I’m counting on it being better than a skullet.
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September 21, 2005 at 7:52 am
Ugly. But what’s worse is even with no chance of winning, WE STILL CAN’T HIT THE FRINGING BASEBALL…! Guy practically No-hit us.
Looks like my dream of clinching next Monday is fading. Oh well. So is my dream of a winning season. So is my dream of some respect from therest of the country.
Teddy interviewed Giles yesterday. Giles said he tried not to elavate the ball at Petco because its too hard to hit HRs. He said he perfers the play the ALT in the first round of the playoffs because of Marcus. He also said the Central has ballparks more suitable for his offense and that Petco isn’t good for left handers. Telling stuff. He won’t resigh here.
September 21, 2005 at 8:07 am
PM: At this point, the way the Pads gain respect from the rest of the country is by making the playoffs and kicking ass once they get there.
I hope you’re wrong about Giles not returning. He is the only part of the lineup that consistently produces and should be our top priority this winter. What will he get as FA? I’m thinking 3 years in the $30-35M range.
If you’re operating on the Padres budget, do you commit that kind of money to one player?
September 21, 2005 at 8:11 am
More food for thought. The U-T this morning published that the Pads have guaranteed $21.55 next year to four starting pitchers. How wrong is this:
Park: $10M
Williams: $5M
Lawrence: $4.05M
Peavy: $2.5M
http://www.signonsandiego.com/.....notes.html
September 21, 2005 at 9:28 am
Thought Texas was covering some of Park’s pork. Hmmm. Yes, it sounded like Giles didn’t want to play in Petco, so I guess the SD discount is out and now agents will be asking for an extra premium for a tough pitcher’s park.
Agree, about respect. Do well in the playoffs=respect.
Looks like we mya be playing the Bud burds, as the Houston Born Agains are pulling away in the WC race.
Come on, cheese steaks! Nut up!
BTW, what does a guy do eith $10 extra large?
September 21, 2005 at 9:40 am
Robinson of the Nationals did not help us much. He goes from micro-managing the Padres game, leaving him no pitchers, to letting Hernandez walk Vizquel and Bonds (understandable) on about 120+ pitches go ahead and pitch to Alou. Result, 3-run jack, Padres stay at 8 magic number.
The Rockie loss disgusts me. I know it is a perverse park, but Williams is supposed to be one of our bedrocks going down the stretch. 9 hits with 1.0+ of pitching? Sure we are not going to overcome a 15 run deficit, but at least go up there and get some hits.
This team keeps annoying me just when I think they can start getting things together. Frankly, I am not sure what respect we are supposed to be getting. We have a great bullpen, both veterans and young guys. We have Jack Peavy and Giles. We have Pedro Astacio putting up very solid numbers. We have a resurgent Hernandez, but we needed that resurgency all year. We have some good solid, professional bench players and a rising star in Greene. Outside that we either have veterans on in serious decline from last year (Loretta, Klesko; Nevin too but he is gone), so-so veterans that are marginal everyday players (Roberts, Randa), or promising young guys who aren’t ready or aren’t ready with Bochy’s use of them (Johnson, Nady, Burroughs, McNaulty).
There is a small chance we will implode before the playoffs, but our chances don’t seem that much better that we suddenly pull it together in the playoffs. I think of player performances as a normal distribution curve, with their “true” OPS in the middle and their play bouncing around that number. We will need most of the team (offense) to start playing well above that average to make it through the playoffs. May in a good way, and June and July in a bad way does show that this team can get in psynch together. Let’s hope a May distribution appears again quickly.
September 21, 2005 at 10:55 am
I rather enjoyed seeing Sean pitched last night.
Seeing that he hadn’t pitched since his LLWS days, he looked like he’s still throwing the Little League fastball as well…to Matt Holiday who crushed his pitch a long long way.
OK, that was the highlight for me.
GO get them Jake!
September 21, 2005 at 12:14 pm
Thanks, Geoff, for the list. Definitely needed the laugh after last night. But I have to admit that when it was 15-0 after three innings that a perverse hope arose in me for something truly spectacular, on the order of 30-0, rather than something just plain embarrassing. It seemed better to focus on the absurdity of the score than to allow hopelessness and despair to reign. I hope that the team takes the same attitude, can just let it go, and start over today.
September 21, 2005 at 12:20 pm
I love your rants, Jay
September 21, 2005 at 12:29 pm
dprat: Sometimes you just gotta laugh. I have to admit, it was one of the least stressful games I’ve watched in quite some time.
Eric: I second that emotion!
September 21, 2005 at 1:49 pm
Sorry for the ranting; I’m feeling better now. It’s just very hard to have the 4th trip to the post-season, ever, over all 36 years of the franchise, lying in our palms but unable to close our fingers and grab it. This is a once or twice a decade thing, and yet we cannot quite close it out.
BP Playoff odds have us over 97.9%, down from 99.1%. Still pretty high, but would sure like to see 100.00%.
September 21, 2005 at 2:40 pm
Last night’s result virtually guarantees that the Padres will score fewer runs than they allow (they are a healthy -55 currently). That got me to wondering if any playoff team since the dilution of the postseason, er, I mean, since the 1995 super exciting introduction of the wild card and three divisions, had ever been on the wrong side of the run difference ledger. In fact, there was. One team. Interestingly, they were also from the NL West: the ‘97 Giants. They finished 90-72 but were actually outscored by a whopping 9 runs that year. For you stat geeks, their Pythagorean record was 80-82. They were subsequently swept in three games by the super exciting wild card Marlins, who went on to win the World Series.
I then wondered how many playoff teams had even been within 95 runs of the Padres’ dismal run difference. That is, how many teams finished with a run difference of +40 or less. The answer is four (’97 Giants -9, ‘95 Rockies +2, ‘95 Dodgers +25, ‘98 Cubs +39). Their combined postseason record? 1-12.
As a point of reference, last year’s Padres were 87-75 with a +63. Also, this year’s team’s Pythag is estimated at 75-87.
Finally, the team to which this Padre team is often compared, the 82-79 division-winning 1973 Mets were +20. But they had Tom Seaver, Jon Matlack and Jerry Koosman. And Ed Kranepool.
So, what we’re talking about with this year’s Padres is not merely bad relative to all other postseason teams since ‘95 but historically off-the-charts bad.
September 21, 2005 at 3:11 pm
Historically bad? The 1987 World Champion Minnesota Twins were 85-77 and had a -20 run differential for a 79-83 Pythagorean, or a -6 win differential.
This year’s Padres team can meet or beat a -6 win differential.
Please do not take the above post as any endorsement of the Padres’ playoff chances.
September 21, 2005 at 3:11 pm
Great stuff, Brian. I’d remembered the ‘97 Giants. That 1-12 record is rather ominous…
September 21, 2005 at 3:12 pm
Brian,
That post-season 1-12 record for those teams is sobering. But from the Ted Leitner Cup-Is-Half-Full Dept:
“What do you call the guy who finishes last in his class at medical school?”
“Doctor.”
Insert digital rim shot here, please, Geoff.
September 21, 2005 at 3:17 pm
Found it:
http://faultgame.com/images/rimshot.wav
September 21, 2005 at 3:51 pm
I’d like to see how many of those other mediocre postseason teams had a 24-6 run.
I don’t think the 75-75 record is representative of the Padres team that will be entering the playoffs. Much of what bogged down the team’s performance in June-July was injuries to key players who are now healthy for October.
September 21, 2005 at 3:54 pm
A while ago, someone at ESPN.com (Buster Olney I think) wrote about how the Padres shouldn’t be counted out in the postseason. It was an Insider article, so I didn’t read it, but I’m assuming he cited Peavy, the bullpen, and the thing I said about injuries.
September 21, 2005 at 4:11 pm
Look, anything can happen in the playoffs. But let’s not delude ourselves, this team, even at full strength, is only mediocre. Greene came back in late August; Hernandez was the last regular to return, on Sept. 2. So have the Padres turned the corner? They’re 9-9 with a -25 run differential in September - and “accomplished” that against very, very weak teams.
Anything can happen in baseball, and the Padres will absolutley need to depend on that in the playoffs.
September 21, 2005 at 4:24 pm
Two Giants-related notes:
(1) Matt Cain’s first five starts: 34IP, 15 H, 2.12 ERA. And he’s basically been a one-pitch pitcher. Yikes.
(2) Bonds just homered. Again. In a park that you’re not supposed to hit homers in (RFK). Fourth game in a row. Am I ever glad there’s only 10 games to go in the regular season!
September 21, 2005 at 4:26 pm
Eric: That would be an interesting piece of research. We’d need to identify which teams over the past X years had made the playoffs despite a negative run differential. Then we could probably use Retrosheet to find the best 30-game stretches? Thinking out loud here. Not sure what, exactly, we would be looking to demonstrate, but sometimes it is good to be surprised.
September 21, 2005 at 4:41 pm
Brian,
To confirm, RFK is 3rd toughest park to homer in this year:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/.....eason=2005
Guess which is toughest?
Bonds… hate the man, love the ballplayer.
September 21, 2005 at 5:48 pm
Man, you guys are throwing statistic catagories I never heard of…Pythagorean record….wasn’t he a Roman mathmatician famous for the P-theorum?
Me, I just spout off without any statistical footing. I’m lazy that way.
Yes, no illusions going into the playoffs, although anything can happen in BB, look at last night, stats don’t lie, especially that run differential stat. Ouch!
Remember 98 though. Houston was good and supposed to beat us handily, but no. The Atl was even better and we took that series in six. Oh the memories. And the Yanks were supposed to clean our clocks and….they did. Who remembers TGs tour of the Yankee Center Field museume?
Of course, in 96, we had to win three in LA and did it. Remember Hof in that series? Of course, the Bud Birds killed us in the playoffs.
And finally, 84 and beating the cub only to be rolled over by mowtown, although that was a little before my time, I was in college at the time.
To succeed in the payoffs with this team, its gonna be a “Cindarella story, out of nowhere, on the eighteenth green at Augusta, the crowd is in hushed silence….”
September 21, 2005 at 6:03 pm
Interesting list of the toughest parks to go yard in. Petco is number 30 (The hardest), of course, but Busch Stadium is at 26 and they seem to be doing ok.
How in the HELL! does petco get built as the best pitchers park in the MLB? Was that by design? I doubt it.
I feel a Petco as Mall rant coming…on…..Grrrrrrrr.
Pop and Slurp (sound of shot and beer).
Ok, better now.
I’ll be going to PetMall Monday to watch us clinch, I hope, I hope. Do they have wireless connection there somewhere? Most malls do.
September 21, 2005 at 6:35 pm
Dave Roberts = Winning machine
September 21, 2005 at 7:02 pm
This is what I felt like after seeing the Pads lost 20-1.
http://www.kenn.com/sounds/mora_playoffs3.wav
I looooove Roberts — think he’s a gamer that comes through in big situations. Definitely not one of your upper-tier CFs, though.
Seems like Peavy’s pitching well, although I’m watching the gamecast on MLB.com — oh the travails of a CT Padre fan!
September 21, 2005 at 7:12 pm
CT, eh? See, we’re taking over the world!
September 21, 2005 at 7:15 pm
Khalil comes through. Bad pitch.
September 21, 2005 at 7:22 pm
Roberts is going crazy tonight. Good deal . . it would be nice if he got hot right before the playoffs.
Just curious: Anyone think SD is going to make a run at Cameron for ‘06? Towers has said a couple of times that he’d like to have 2 CFs roaming the OF in Petco.
By the way, from Olney 9/2/05
Padres could indeed be dangerous
The San Diego Padres would be 18 games out of first place if they played in the NL Central. If the Padres played in the AL East, they would be 11½ games out of first place, far behind the Yankees, a game ahead of the Blue Jays. They’d be eight games out in the AL West.
But they play in the NL West and they’re almost certainly going to make the playoffs: San Diego leads the Dodgers by six games and the Diamondbacks by seven games. For anybody who thinks Arizona and L.A. are still seriously in the race, don’t forget that those teams have to occasionally win more than two or three games a week to make up lost ground in the standings. This is not like the Angels chasing the Athletics, or vice versa; those are two good teams.
The Padres will open the playoffs on the road, probably either in St. Louis or in Atlanta. I’m not saying they’re going to blow through teams and win the World Series, I’m not even saying they’ll win a series. I’m saying this: Whatever team they play better not overlook them in the postseason. They could be dangerous in a short series.
Oh, sure, they don’t hit for much power at home, they’re not very fast and the back end of their rotation has been a circus. But here’s the thing: They’ve got Jake Peavy at the front end of their rotation, they’ve got Trevor Hoffman closing games, they’ve got a good bullpen and they’ve got a lot of good — not great, but good — veteran players who won’t be overwhelmed by the pressure of October.
And because they’ve got that nice lead, they’ll have a chance to rest their regulars and to set up their rotation, and Peavy will be a tough matchup for anybody, whether he faces John Smoltz or Chris Carpenter. In some ways, he’s like Smoltz at the outset of his career — a tough and gritty competitor with incredible stuff, someone who will handle the big moment.
Peavy won’t win the NL Cy Young Award — he’s not even in the conversation — but think about these numbers: He’s got 197 strikeouts, the most in the majors, in 176.1 innings. He’s allowed only 138 hits, with just 41 walks. Peavy’s strikeout-to-walk ratio of 4.80 is the ninth-best in the big leagues, just slightly better than Carpenter’s (4.36) and significantly better than Smoltz’s (3.08). He is fully capable of beating those guys in a five-game series.
Twice.
I’m not saying that Bud Selig is going to be handing the trophy to Bruce Bochy. Not even saying the Padres will finish over .500. I’m just saying: Don’t assume they’re a pushover. Because they won’t be.
September 21, 2005 at 7:30 pm
seems like Peavy is easing off the strikeout pitches and keeping the pitch count low to go deep into the game. This isn’t the first time he’s done that following a bullpen burnout.
September 21, 2005 at 7:30 pm
seems like Peavy is easing off the strikeout pitches and keeping the pitch count low to go deep into the game. This isn’t the first time he’s done that following a bullpen burnout.
September 21, 2005 at 7:42 pm
Further to our earlier discussion, since division play began in 1969, three teams have won their division with a negative run differential:
SF97: -9
KC84: -13
Min87: -20
Also, the Rangers had a -84 differential when the strike hit in 1994.
That Yankee team in 1998 that beat us? They were at +309 for the season, best by anyone in the big leagues since the Yanks finished at +334 all the way back in 1936.
Deroit in 1984 was at +186. Padres were +52 that year, +89 in 1996 and +114 in 1998.
Last year’s +63 was the third best in team history. All three top differentials have come since 1996. Those also are the only positive differentials for the Friars since 1990.
Pads have been at -100 for the season on 10 different occasions: 8 times between 1969 and 1977 (the one year they weren’t, 1976, they were at -92), and then again in 2002 and 2003.
September 21, 2005 at 7:45 pm
By the way, Nana Mouskouri was born with only one vocal chord.
Yes, I looked it up.
It’s what gives her her ‘unique’ sound.
September 21, 2005 at 7:47 pm
LOL. Now, that is some fine research.
And a fine play by Fick to end the inning. Randa’s throw was off line but Fick made the tag on Atkins.
September 21, 2005 at 7:57 pm
You come to Ducksnorts to talk about baseball, then, POW, you’re off on an adult-oriented, MOR, Europop vocalist tangent.
Or, of course, boat racing.
And I mean that as a compliment.
Speaking of which, the Waco Brothers are playing tonight ($10). Go or no go?
September 21, 2005 at 8:01 pm
Trevor turns a potential DP into no outs. Tying run to the plate in Brad Hawpe. Ugh.
September 21, 2005 at 8:03 pm
I don’t know their stuff, but they sound like a fun band.
And Hawpe strikes out on a full-count icky in the dirt.
September 21, 2005 at 8:04 pm
Smart play by Khalil. Ball wasn’t hit hard enough to turn two. Let’s get that magic number down to 7.
September 21, 2005 at 8:06 pm
Survey says Barmes went around. Trevor picks up his 40th save, Pads win. Sweet!
September 21, 2005 at 8:09 pm
Again, I ask: Where is Kevin in the 9th when Hoffman’s in? I know he’s in DC but come on! I love that stuff!
September 21, 2005 at 8:17 pm
No kidding; it’s just not the same without him. C’mon Kevin, we need you!
September 22, 2005 at 2:24 am
Sorry, I watched the end of the game at a local bar.