first pitch: 1:05 p.m., PT
television: Channel 4SD
matchup: Chan Ho Park (1-1, 4.62 ERA) vs Derek Lowe (1-1, 3.77 ERA)
previews: Padres.com | SI.com | ESPN
Apologies for the extreme lameness of this post, but I’m trying to keep my level of effort commensurate with that of the Padres. I was at the game Saturday night, and I heard people chanting “Padres suck.”
And then the Dodgers fans started chanting.
Thanks, you’ve been great. Don’t forget to tip the bartender.
Numbers driven line up (logic: get your OBP leaders up early, your slugging guys in 3-4-5, dregs in the bottom)
Player OBP SLG
Giles 402 358
AGon 316 371
Greene 303 410
Piazza 277 424
Belhorn 269 538
Barfield 303 386
Cameron 208 436
Roberts 313 333
Pitcher
What is striking is how awful these numbers are. Lead-off at .313 OBP? Only Belhorn has an OPS over .800; Giles’ numbers are that off a lead off guy, so put him there. At least he does not create outs as reliably as Roberts.
I died a little bit inside looking at those numbers. It’s not as if Bochy has any really great options, nobody, nobody is hitting. It seems like we’d be better off with Gonzalez at 1st and Bellhorn at 3rd against Lowe, because Castilla, as is normally the case, stinks against RHP. But Gonzalez isn’t tearing things up himself.
listening to the dodger broadcast, they brought up a question that I also had been thinking. Why aren’t the Padres trying to steal off of Navarro? He hasn’t thrown out a runner all year. Sure would cut down on the gidp and we need all the help we can get.
The nightmare continues…; is this a weird, collective blip in our offense, or is this going to be one of the most anemic offenses in the history of baseball?
Our hitters are probably so shocked to not make an out that they’d miss a steal sign.
There’s the Chan Ho we know. 5 runs in 5 innings.
That’s a real shame, Khalil made a hell of a play and it didn’t even matter.
Good queston Jay. They can’t blame it on the park because other teams don’t have too much trouble hitting here. It’s not like we’ve seen a bunch of long flys caught at the fence. It’s bad approaches at the plate, anemic ground balls with men on first, strike outs in key situations. Except for Giles, Gonzalez and Greene no one is doing anything right.
There’s just not that much offensive talent, and some of what little talent we do have is embodied in two rookies.
I still blame Magadan. And if you don’t blame Mags, then you can’t give him credit if they ever do start to hit. And if he’s not gonna get him any of the blame or the credit, then he should be fired for not doing anything.
He should at least be sacrificed to satisfy the fans lust for blood.
I ALMOST turned the broadcast off. I sure would have been psssst if I had. Great comeback!!!
Bonus baseball! Was anyone else thinking about the ’98 division clincher when the Pads came back from 7-0, I think, to win 8-7 – courtesy of many free passes, against the Dodgers? Okay, not a perfect comparison, but was just thinking of happier days.
Why do they do this to me? Every time I think I’m out, they PULL ME BACK IN!
wtf is going on with Bellhorn? that freaking scrub is outhitting the rest of the entire team..
Oh well, a win is a win and Ill take it regardless of circumstances..
dprat, I was actually thinking about the extra innings game in late April last year, which started us off on the great May. Let’s hope they can build off this one, too!
There’s been a Sean Burroughs sighting … this note from today’s D-Rays game …
The Devil Rays got the run back in the bottom of the fourth when Sean Burroughs snapped a season-opening 0-for-10 slump with a two-out RBI single.
Why is Bellhorn a “scrub?”
Well I guess that’s just my apprasial of him. I tend to not think very much of a guy who isnt very good defensively, can’t seem to hold a starting job, has a career .238 batting average and .400 slg pct. His obp wouldnt be so bad(.350) if it werent for the fact that he strikes out one out of 3 ab’s. The fact that he once hit 27 homers for the Cubbies and he played well in the post season with Boston seem to be his only saving grace. I am very open to being wrong. Hell we could use someone to get some clutch hits right now.
I didn’t mean to sound combative, sometimes Bellhorn’s just plain not very good, but at least he’s had some success at some point in his career. If Barfield didn’t have a good spring, He’d be our starting 2b, and I wouldn’t be unhappy with that. He’s gonna whiff a lot, but he’s a good bench guy.
I’d rather have him starting at 3rd than Castilla.
We took this picture in the timeframe between posts 5 and 6 in this thread, now a week ago…and still amazed that I left these killer seats at the top of the 9th and heard the cheers…on the concourse…for the Lakers OT win over the Suns…more than anything the Pads had done…and then for the Pad heroics to tie and then win…as we motored home from Petco, It would have been cool to be there…but they weren’t showing anything from 1 to 8 that excited.
Thanks goodness they are now! Go Pads!!
VO
P.S. Would it be cool to be able to post to this thread live from the ballpark, taking camera phone pictures or moblog audio / video posts adding to the interaction of the community watching via cable / etc. and comenting on what they are experiencing.
You’d have to be able to pre-load the thread URL (the event announcement)?), so that you could then post something about the game (or any event…radio show) using most any device and add some relevance to the game thread.
Thanks for the inspiration Geoff…VO
Oops…I failed to insert the HTML Anchor of an IMG tag from Flickr. this may not even work and if it doesn’t, please excuse me Geoff and Ducksnorts …
Here’s the direct link to the picture from the April 30 game, Miles with his Jeff Kent foul ball (assisted by sure-handed fan-mate), and the rest of us…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vo/137746148/
I wish I could post a photo of the game…from my standpoint…within the threadd of the game / discussion…that would make for an interesting archive….anyway…good work Geoff…I’m going to borrow liberally for the new TNJT platform at http://TNJT.com.
Keep blogging…
Vince: Thanks for dropping by!
Unfortunately the photo didn’t make it; if you use just the URL, a link will be created (the photo won’t display here but folks can follow the link).[Vince's comment was in moderation so I didn't see that he'd successfully added the link till after I'd responded.]The moblogging idea is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I would love to be able to send photos, text, etc. from the ballpark in real-time. Still working on a plan for that…