April 8, 1969, San Diego: Padres 2, Astros 1 (box score)
In their first ever National League game, the San Diego Padres sent right-hander Dick Selma to the mound against Houston’s Don Wilson. A crowd of 23,370 gathered to watch the expansion Padres debut at what was known then as San Diego Stadium.
The 25-year-old Selma had gone 9-10 with a 2.76 ERA for the New York Mets the previous season, his first as a (mostly) full-time starter in the big leagues. The Padres nabbed Selma with the fifth pick in the 1968 expansion draft, and manager Preston Gomez promptly installed him at the front of his rotation.
The first batter Selma faced was Jesus Alou, who smacked a single to right and then stole second. After a Joe Morgan walk and a fly out, Doug Rader singled home Alou for the first run of the game. Selma escaped the inning without further damage and proceeded to settle down in a big way.
On the other side, Wilson held the Padres hitless through four innings. Then, with one out in the fifth, third baseman Ed Spiezio stepped to the plate and dialed a solo homer to left, tying the game.
The Padres took the lead the next inning. Wilson plunked second baseman Roberto Pena to lead off the sixth. One out later, Ollie Brown drove a double to left to plate the Padres’ second run of the contest.
Selma, meanwhile, proceeded to stymie the Astros. He allowed just one hit — a single to Alou — after the fifth inning, fanning seven of the final 14 batters he faced. Selma’s final line: 9 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 12 SO. He also collected two of the Padres’ four hits on the day.
Trivia: Second base umpire Doug Harvey graduated from SDSU.
What does everyone think of Black so far?
#1 — I like what I see. I still think he needs some time to get to know his players a little better. One fun thing I noticed last night was Bobby Meacham jumping up and down in the middle of the rest of the players after AGon’s double last night. No quiet, “keep your emotions in check” for him.
That win last night made me feel much better about this team. The Rockies had our number all last year, the Petco Curse seemed to be alive and well, the home opener was more of the same. But last night, we got the usual good pitching and great bullpen, AND some clutch hitting, the ingrediant missing the last coupla years. Its only one game and June gloom is gonna be around at home for a while, but a little bit more hitting, and the Padres are a good team.
I like him. First, I believe he will not have the same biases that Bochy had: too much reliance on veterans over youth, stats be damned; rigid heirarchy and situational criteria for relief use. Also, and this is probably emotional, when I watch him watching the game, I get the idea he is thinking and assessing. With Bochy, he did that, but I felt that his bag of decisions from which he pulled was much more limited. As though you could easily predict what his next move was going to be, so that it would be easy for the other team to counter.
For right or wrong, he is showing a lot of confidence in the lower tier of the pen to get some leverage situations. So far, they have delivered.
To ramble a bit about Bruce, I think he is perfect for SF. He has a veteran team, and he is more flexible with moving veterans around (remember putting Ojeda in right instead of Nady) than younger players, so may get the most out of the team. He was quick to yank Feliz after a few bad games. He just has limited tools to work with, and his pen does not really have the clear structure ours did (Hoffman, Linebrink, Meredith = top, then everyone else).
That all said, that team is looking at 95 losses.
ramble, ramble, ramble…
Geoff, a request (I had this on another post), that after we play all the teams in our division that we have a “guess the wins” contest, like you had a “guess the roster” contest? If not, fine, but I think it would be fun.
Also, a great thing last night, Channel 4 was on MLB Extra Innings; a first! I thought they were not on the network…
I haven’t gotten to see any of the games yet (being in the East I’m kinda stuck waiting for them to play NY), so it’s tough to judge Black from the boxes alone.
My opinion of Bud Black is colored by the fact that Geoff Blum has gotten three at bats. That is awful and must stop. I also would rather have seen Meredith than Brocail last night when Wells was pulled, but that’s just a matter of taste since Brocail got the out. Other than that it’s been good.
Driving home from the game last night, I was listening to the postgame show on XX, and several callers spoke glowingly of Black’s decision to have NOG bunt, saying there’s no way Bochy would have made that call. When did Bochy shy away from using the sacrifice bunt? Maybe it’s because I generally hate the sac bunt, but I seem to recall Bochy being quite fond of it.
RE 8: the sacrifice is way over-used mainstay of the “old school”, and definitely in Bochy’s bag of tricks. Maybe people were just glad it worked, thus like Black, but that criticism of Bochy, as you said, is way off.
8: Boch didn’t bunt very often. When he did, it was usually with a guy who couldn’t or shouldn’t ever bunt.
Yes, I remember reading in an interview/article that Bochy doesn’t like the bunt, which is doubly confusing when, as Richard mentioned, he’d bunt with a player who shouldn’t/couldn’t, e.g. Cameron’s failed bunt last season.
And Geoff, I’m enjoying reading the descriptions of the 1969 games. It’s fantastic.