first pitch: 12:35 p.m., PT
television: none
matchup: Jake Peavy (2-3, 4.17 ERA) vs Ben Hendrickson (0-0, 2.79 ERA)
previews: Padres.com | SI.com | ESPN
For the second straight night, the Padres had a tough left-hander on the ropes but couldn’t put him away. Fortunately, Chan Ho Park and some strong defense were able to shut down a powerful Milwaukee lineup and win the game, 3-0.
Observations from Wednesday’s Game
- Park did a great job of using his ballpark and the defenders behind him. The final line looks brilliant, but there were some pretty loud outs. Mike Cameron and Brian Giles both made spectacular catches in support of their pitcher. I still can’t believe Cameron caught that ball off the bat of Bill Hall in the fifth. Neither can Rickie Weeks, who was well past second base by the time it came down and nearly was doubled off first. Yesterday we noted that Park’s success this year is due in large part to improved command. How much easier is it to throw strikes when you know that even if a guy hits the ball hard, in that ballpark and with those outfielders behind you, chances are you’ll get an out? Park doesn’t have the overpowering stuff he once did, and he has to pitch smart. So far this season, that’s exactly what he’s doing.
- There is no middle ground with Mark Bellhorn. Either he is on fire and carrying the ballclub or he is completely sucking wind. Bellhorn got the Golden Sombrero last night — four at-bats, four strikeouts. In his third at-bat, he struck out on Chris Capuano’s 42nd pitch of the fourth inning, which if taken would have been ball four, forced in a fourth run, and likely chased Capuano from the game. Thankfully that didn’t come back to bite the Padres.
- I can’t watch Vinny Castilla’s at-bats. Fortunately they don’t last very long. He has put the first pitch in play 25 times in 118 plate appearances. The payoff? Castilla is hitting .240/.240/.280 in those at-bats. Also, in 64 trips to the plate at Petco Park this year, he is hitting .156/.200/.172. Yep, his OPS is below 400. Castilla seems like a really nice guy, and I hope he pulls out of it, but this is painful.
- I love our backup catchers. We’ve talked about Rob Bowen (who gets the start Thursday), but how about Josh Bard? I don’t know how the Padres managed to get Boston to throw in a minor-league reliever and “future considerations,” but I’m not complaining. Dude can play. He had some real nice approaches at the plate Wednesday, driving in the first two runs of the game with a double in the fourth. This came just moments after he’d won some admirers with the “None Shall Pass” routine he pulled on Corey Koskie to end the top of the inning. And how about the rapport between pitcher and catcher?
Quoth Park:
He’s the kind of catcher who makes you pitch aggressively. I feel very comfortable with him.
Quoth Bard:
I’ve just been telling Chan Ho to believe in himself and believe in his stuff … pound the mitt.
Can you feel the love?
- Ben Johnson got an at-bat in the eighth and drew a walk. I’d forgotten Johnson was still with the big club. If he can’t get the occasional start against lefties over Eric Young, I don’t imagine there’s much of a future for the kid in San Diego. It’ll be interesting to see where Johnson eventually ends up and what the Padres are able to get for him.
- I’ll never get tired of Trevor Time. No, he ain’t what he used to be, but ask Gabe Gross why they call Hoffman’s changeup “the icky.”
Thursday’s Matchup
Jake Peavy takes the mound for the Pads in the rubber game. Peavy’s strikeouts are down and his ERA is up in the early going, but he’s pitched well in each of his last two starts. The stuff has been fine, the command a little less so. Now would be a good time to change that.
Ben Sheets was supposed to get the start for Milwaukee, but he’s back on the DL with right shoulder tendinitis. Starting in place of Sheets is promising young right-hander Ben Hendrickson, about whom I know nothing other than he’s young, promising, and right-handed.
Day game at Petco. Get down there if you can. Otherwise, hang out and chat. It’d be nice to get a new winning streak going before heading to Chicago for the weekend.
Rich,
As I pointed out yesterday, with Vinny now at -6.6 VORP and 0.1 WARP, perhaps the Nats have gotten better production from Lawrence!
10 strikeouts for Peavy.
Ok, dumb question, but what are “VORP and WARP?” Are they anything like Bat Avg and RBI?
11 strikeouts for Peavy.
Meanwhile… Peavy looks back on track.
In a follow-up to Nate Silver’s BP study on WBC pitchers that Kevin referenced earlier, Silver says that he expects the WBC starters (relievers weren’t much affected by participating in the WBC) to revert back to expected levels of performance as the season progresses. I guess we can count today as a confirming data point.
8-0, 86 pitches, Arizona coming up, might as well get Peavy out of there.
u might have to call up the national guard or the swat team to get Jake off the mound today.. lol
By every measure we have, Castilla’s defense is slightly above average. Not nearly good enough to make up for the way he’s been hitting.
IF,
VORP is “Value over Replacement Level” – it’s a measure of offensive production and 10 runs of VORP is roughly equivalent to a win. If you have a negative VORP, it suggests that there are players available at the major league minimum salary (on your bench, in your farm system, or via the waiver wire) who would be out-performing you with a bat. Not a good thing.
WARP is “Wins above Replacement Player” and includes defensive contribution as well as offensive. So Castilla manages a positive number thanks to his glove, though by the tiniest margin possible.
Yeah, Peavy will definately got one more inning and try to complete it, unless he gives up a few hits.
12 strikeouts, just passed Randy Jones on the strikeouts list.
dprats, thanks. Boy, stats have come a long way.
13 is the career high
The job of a manager is to use his players the best way possible. There’s no reason to have Jake out there against the heart of the lineup throwing max effort pitches with an 8-0 lead. If he’d gotten through the first 6 with fewer it wouldn’t be a problem.
Brazelton hasn’t pitched since May 8. Somebody besides Jake had better be out there next inning.
There’s 13 strikeouts, tying his career high.
I guess the “icky” is working today, no?
That should be it for Peavy. Time to let Dewon finish the game. I’m sure the run support factored in to some extent, but it sure was nice to see vintage Peavy. Let this be the start of something good.
Here’s final numbers for Peavy …
IP H R ER BB K HR Season ERA
J. Peavy 7.0 2 0 0 2 13 0 3.61
Pitches-strikes – B Hendrickson 73-43; J Fernandez 46-32; C De maria 21-15; J Peavy 109-69.
Ground balls-fly balls – B Hendrickson 4-2; J Fernandez 3-4; C De maria 2-4; J Peavy 4-4.
Batters faced – B Hendrickson 17; J Fernandez 12; C De maria 6; J Peavy 24
… very nice (but how he walk’d only 2 guys while throwing 40 balls to 24 hitters is a mystery to me)! And also nice that we have a big enough lead (knock on wood?) to get him out after 7 innings … especially @ 109 pitches.
Well Braz is doing his best to make things exciting. Sheesh. This kid has as much of a case of the yips as Tank did and today’s Brewers’ starter.
Yes, yes, I knock’d on wood … I knock’d on wood!
Make it stop, Dewon … make it stop!
Hey, these guys can hit, if Braz can’t get em out, send in somebody else.
Cut him, bring up Sikorski!
its hard to remember how good the Brewers hitters really are when your ace is making it look so easy..
Okay, time to go, Brazelton. You can’t be trusted to finish out an 8-0 lead, we need to promote Sikorski or better yet promote a bench bat.
I’m with you TW on the bench bat, as long as it comes at the expense of one of our 3 catchers. We have 6 relievers now as it is.
LM,
No thunderclap today.
Sweeney did a good job … Lee is one good hitter! Whew … for now.
So much for our bullpen stats …
I don’t know why Bochy just didn’t let Embree start the inning.
I think the idea of getting Corey Hart from Brewers is a *GREAT* idea … he’s hitting well @ AAA …
Embree was PH’d for … so are you asking why he PH’d for him?
Didn’t see that about Embree. Thanks for pointing it out. Forgive my nitpick Boch.
Boch says all’s cool, Bruce … put another W in the May column
I don’t think the Brewers will give up Hart cheaply. He would be a great add though.
Hart’s no better than Leone. In fact Leone has shown more pop and plate discipline. He’s not going to cost you anything either. Vinny really does have to go, but I think they’ll give him another 50 AB or so (especially on this road trip – away from Petco) to show some pop. Why isn’t Piazza being thrown into this same category, by the way? He’s much more a liability (DP machine and defensively). Our early offensive struggles are directly attributable to Piazza and Vinny.
Well, if Braz was going to have another meltdown, that was the place to have it…eight run lead top play with.
Based on their track records so far, I don’t think there is any way you can say that Leone and Hart are relatively equal. Hart has outproduced Leone at every level, showing pop, plate discipline and speed, as well as the ability to play 4 positions competently. The only advantage Leone has is that we control him.
I am not sure what to do about Piazza, but I am willing to give him a longer leash than Vinny.
Hart and Leone have similar performance records, but Hart is 5 years younger. That’s a big deal. Leone can play other positions, too. I just don’t see the upside with Castilla. Not in winning games this year and obviously not in doing anything about next season.
Piazza has a 687 OPS, not what we hoped for, but still decent for a catcher. Vinny is at 569 from an offensive position.
Even if they had the same sucky numbers, Piazza was a legitimately great hitter. Castilla was the product of his home park. If you have to bet on one of them bouncing back….
WC @ BP is free today … http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=5068 … lots of good/interesting stuff … especially comments about Albert Pujols!
… and in case you skip WC’s column, here’s a link he provided … http://www.brewcrewball.com/special/milb+splits … Minor League Splits Database Home Page … WOW!
LM, you’re a day late on that link. Our fearless leader Geoff already directed us to Nirvana.
TW – ah, I should pay a bit more attention to GY’s blogin’s
Best news out of Mobile tonight is that the Bay Bears hung an L on Travis Chick … http://tinyurl.com/hor5h
Uh, that’s another swing&miss … Chick didn’t actually get the L … he only went 4 innings … and Mobile did win the game … close, but no cigar …
My .02 on why Piazza isn’t in the same boat with Vinny… Because Piazza is a future HOF and Vinny is a future manager in the Mexican League.
Here’s what I think is *GREAT NEWS* … excerpted from the AP news story of today’s game …
During Peavy’s last start, Saturday night against the Chicago Cubs, bullpen coach Darrel Akerfelds noticed that the pitcher’s balance was off.
“I was rocking a little too much and my upper body just wasn’t in sync with my lower body,” Peavy said. “I didn’t even know I was doing it. Ak even called down in the middle of last game and said, `Man, Peavy’s all out of whack.”‘
Peavy, pitching coach Darren Balsley and Akerfelds worked on it during a bullpen session Monday, “and obviously it made a whole lot of difference today,” Peavy said.
“I wasn’t as balanced as I need to be to make quality pitches on a consistent basis,” he said. “I knew I felt out of whack. You have starts like today when you can close your eyes and probably throw a fastball low and away, and you have starts where you’re trying to do everything in the book out there trying to get that feel.”
And here’s the bad news on Bowen … also from that AP story …
Bowen partially dislocated his left thumb when he was hit by Prince Fielder’s foul tip with two outs in the fourth. Bowen caught the last two pitches of the inning, then made way for Josh Bard. Padres manager Bruce Bochy said the rookie catcher is a candidate for the disabled list.
… rats, and I’d just picked him on my roto team … but this is why you can never have too many catchers!
Here’s what bullpen problems look like … http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/boxscore?gid=260511117&page=plays … ouch, that’s 2 teams with bullpen problems!
And I just realized that 2 of the Nats relief pitchers that blew it in the bottom of the bottom of the 11th will get *HOLD*s!!! What a dumb stat … shouldn’t ya hafta get someone *OUT*???
Dennis Tankersly is pitching tonight for the Memphis Redbirds … http://tinyurl.com/nfgem … not doing well … tonight, nor this season … it’s a tough game to play!
Here’s an Xavier Nady sighting … http://tinyurl.com/jv2qc … “Rowand breaks nose in first inning” … With the bases loaded and two outs in the top of the first, Mets right fielder Xavier Nady sent a Gavin Floyd pitch deep to center field. Rowand caught the ball running at full speed with his back to home plate and went face first into the chain-link fence in front of the bullpen.
WOW!