The Padres returned to their winning ways on Sunday, beating the Colorado Rockies, 2-1, in 10 innings. Jake Peavy held the visitors mostly in check for seven of those innings while waiting for the offense to break through against Aaron Cook, whose nasty sinker baffled the Padres for most of the afternoon.
With two out in the eighth, Jose Cruz Jr. laid into a Cook offering and drilled a solo homer just above the yellow line in front of Petco porch. The ball didn’t travel very far, but Cruz demonstrated to all who were watching that if you hit the ball in the right direction, you don’t need to hit it a long way. Something to remember when batting at Petco Park.
The Padres then put runners at the corners with one out in the ninth against Cook, but Josh Bard bounced into an easy double play to end the threat and send the game into extra innings. Hello, battle of the bullpens.
After Cla Meredith and Trevor Hoffman each worked a perfect frame, Scott Linebrink did the same in the 10th, extending the bullpen’s scoreless streak at the beginning of the season to 18 2/3 innings. In the bottom of the 10th, Khalil Greene delivered a one-out triple to the gap in right-center on an 0-2 mistake from LaTroy Hawkins. Then Kevin Kouzmanoff, who probably needed a hit more than just about anybody on the team, smashed a ground ball just under the glove of a diving Todd Helton to win the game and bring the weekend to a satisfying conclusion.
Let’s Not Wake Sleeping Giants
Bruce Bochy hasn’t gotten off to a real good start in his new gig. Although I’d be lying if I said this surprised me, it’s good to remember that the season is very young and a lot can happen between now and October. Still, The Most Expensive Pitcher in Baseball has been shelled in each of his first two starts, and Bochy already has gotten himself tossed from a game. At the risk of being too blunt, Bochy doesn’t have the collection of talent he had in San Diego.
What he does have, though, are a group of veteran players who aren’t going to roll over after six games. He has guys that fit snugly into his comfort zone — Pedro Feliz probably is everything Bochy hoped Vinny Castilla would be, which is scary if you think about it. He also has Barry Bonds, and all that that brings. I guess what I’m really trying to say is that even though the Giants appear to be the worst team in the division, it’s best not to take them too lightly.
Pitching matchups for the series? Tonight’s is the best of the lot. In a rematch of last Thursday’s game at PhoneCo, Matt Cain squares off against Chris Young. Matt Morris and Clay Hensley hook up on Tuesday, with Noah Lowry going against Greg Maddux in the finale.
Other Stuff
With complete and utter disregard for graceful transitions, here are a few things I’ve gotten myself involved in that might also interest you:
- I’ve mentioned this before, but you may have noticed a little blue badge at the bottom of each article. This allows you to “hype” Ducksnorts stories over at Ballhype, which is like Digg for sports. Why would you want to do this? Aside from feeding my enormous ego, you can help give Ducksnorts and the Padres a little more visibility in the blogosphere. Add me as your friend. Join the Padres Nation group. Go on, it’ll be great. We’re trying to take over the world here, remember?
- I recently appeared on Joe Aiello’s BLBR Extra podcast to talk about the Ducksnorts 2007 Baseball Annual. Joe’s taking some heat for picking the Padres to win the NL West, and he’s giving away a copy of the book to the person who best helps justify his choice. I know you’ve already bought the book, but I also know that you’re the most qualified folks to win this contest and you have friends who maybe don’t have a copy. Bearing in mind that we’re trying to take over the world, I think you know what to do.
- The good folks at Channel 4 recently started a blog. It’s written by friend of Ducksnorts Ed Barnes, head researcher for the Padres telecasts and all-around good guy. Stop by when you have a moment, and tell ‘em I say hey.
That’s all for now. I’m a little behind on my del.icio.us bookmarks, but I’ll be updating those throughout the day and week. We’ll get the IGD up and running around 6 p.m. PT. Until then, have an excellent day!
Greene turned a double into a triple and should get credit for a risky play that turned out well. The ball hit as he slide into third. I guess that means he beat the throw. Would somebody tell the Giles brothers that double headlocks can give a guy whiplash, although the double pie-in-the-face was funny. Guess its double trouble in the locker room this year. Go Padres.
According to the UT KT said that the Padres will spend $10 mil on this years draft.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070409/news_lz1s9minors.html
According to Ken Rosenthal, a little drama building in the Mike Cameron extension signing. Yikes, I sure hope the can come to an agreement. According to MLB Trade Rumors, in a TV interview Mr. Rosenthal feels the Braves will snap him up if the Pad’s can’t sign him.
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6643552
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/
In that same Rosenthal article, he talks about two (ex) Padres he thinks deserve a chance in the show. Jack Cust and Ben Davis. OK, OK Cust is not an ex-Padre yet, but I think he will soon be.
Davis had a chance and wasted it.
Anyone know how Bochy’s record in April stacks up to the other months? Seems like the Padres always started slow when he was here, now it’s the Giants who are stumbling out of the gate.
Hey, if Sammy Sosa can get a second chance, why not Ben Davis? As long as it’s not in San Diego.
RE: 3
Did they even try to sign him to a long term deal this past offseason or did they just pick up the option? I thought they could have gotten him to agree to a three year deal this winter (assuming he would have asked for four) instead of trying to get him to agree to a two year deal now that he wants three.
I hope they remember what Mathews Jr got in FA before they risk letting him walk.
Nice summary, Geoff, but one part of it touched one of my sore spots:
The ball didn’t travel very far, but Cruz demonstrated to all who were watching that if you hit the ball in the right direction, you don’t need to hit it a long way. Something to remember when batting at Petco Park.
This sentiment drives me a bit crazy. I feel a hitting coach would definitively answer this, so acknowledge that I am speaking from layman, unskilled perspective, but my guess is that when hitting, you want your hitters to recognize the pitch, put a swing on the ball this appropriate to the location. In cases like trying to get a sac fly or hit the right side of the infield, you may make some extreme adjustments, but “aiming” for a particular part of the ballpark seems like a horrible idea. My fear is that it would add one more element into the hitter’s thinking, one that I doubt is helpful. This is actually why I think the other teams out hit us at Petco because they are not thinking about these things, while the Padres hitters, having seen a lot of balls get caught that would not in other stadiums, are thinking things like “line drive only” or “right field porch” and that screws things up.
I further guess that keeping the swing intact and consistent, recognizing the pitch, etc, is more than enough for the hitters. Adding in an “aiming” element is destructive.
Sorry to ramble so long, this just touches on my frustration with the heavy bias of Petco. My analyses strongly suggest that heavily biased stadiums (either towards hitting or pitching) hurt the home field advantage of the team. Given that we have one of the most biased stadiums in existence, my perspective is that Petco is taking wins away from our team.
So, when people say “well, if they just aimed better, duh”, it begs the question, if that were a skill that could be usefully learned, wouldn’t we be seeing that happen? Wouldn’t the players adjust? I think what we are seeing is the effect of too much adjustment (or the attempt to adjust) rather than not enough.
Go Pads, Go Ducksnorts.
Right, Jay; expecting batters to “aim” where they hit the ball is silly. Sorry I wasn’t more clear. My point is that batters shouldn’t be so concerned about conditions beyond their control that it keeps them from focusing on the task at hand, i.e., putting a good swing on the ball. If they continue to have good at-bats, results will follow. It’s heartening to see Greene, Branyan, and Cruz all go deep in the first home series. I hope their success will reinforce the notion that even the Padres can hit at Petco Park and use it to their advantage.
I feel a bit like Rossanna Rossanna Danna: oh, never mind. I still wish the Padres would consider altering the dimensions to make it less biased. I think it is costing us 3-6 wins a year.
No worries, Jay; we all have our hot spots. One of mine is hitters complaining about the dimensions of Petco Park. Now that those guys are no longer on the team, I should probably get over it.
That was a good series. Being a Rockies fan, I was bummed we lost two of three, but the Padres are a good team. I expect more from the Rockies this year, but I don’t know if its realistic to hope for playoffs with the Padres and Dodgers both looking to have great seasons.
Hey Ryan…
The Rockies were very impressive; we saw great starting pitching and you have a strong offense. My questions are about the relief (blindingly brilliant insight) and if the quality of the rotation we saw was indicative of the overall quality. If so, you are almost there if not there.
I have not seen the Dbacks or the Dodgers yet, so it will be interesting after those series. I expect them to be tough; with the exception of the Giants, I could see any of the remaining four take the crown.
How is the world would altering the dimensions make the stadium less biased? People do realize that if you make the stadium smaller you not only help the batters but also hurt the pitchers? Why does that make any sense? Hurt half of your players to help out the other half? In reality, you aren’t doing anything, just shifting around the players who look better at first glance.
My feeling is that since it appears to be easier to find good hitters than good pitchers, it doesn’t make any sense to have a stadium that favors batters. If you do, you end up with a team like the Rockies, with a team full of batters who look to have awesome stats but in reality are just league average or worse. Since your batters appear to be good you won’t replace them even though there are probably easy to find replacements.
I’m pretty worried about the comments lately from Hensley. If he’s really hurting, then I’d like to see him sit for a start and let Thompson take his spot. I’d really hate to see Hensley carry this blister for several weeks and have several sub-optimal starts. In years past, I would have told him to gut it out, but I really think that Thompson and the rest of our pen can pick up the slack for an emergency start. Okay, this might have been better for an IGD, but I couldn’t get it off my mind…
Re: 14
A bunch of things. First, I am advocating a neutral park, one that neither favors hitters nor pitchers. The Rockies environment, pre-humidor, did create a good winning environment at home (they did have a strong home field advantage) but the characteristics that made them good at home did not translate on the road, leaving an overall mediocre team.
Second, on a anecdotal level, one has to notice that the Padres hitters fared horribly at home vs. the road, while the SD pitchers had little advantage. Why? Who knows? My hypothesis is that the SD pitchers, seeing the hitting struggle for reasons described earlier, became very self-conscious with their pitching, knowing that they had a very thin margin to work with. That would hinder the advantage of the ballpark.
Third, on an analytical level in my analysis of this, I looked at the OPS of hitters on the road and home for team plus the OPS allowed for pitchers at home and on the road. I measured home field advantage as net OPS gained from hitting at home and net OPS gained from pitching at home. The teams that maximize this, as measured by this (I called NOG for Net OPS Gain, but “Non-Orange Guy” eclipsed that), are neutral parks. The more biased you go, one way or another, you start to lose home field advantage. The data does not fit perfectly, but it is pretty strong.
So, knowing Petco is at the pitching end of the spectrum, I did a rough calculation of the expected performance of SD hitting and pitching at home based on their road performance, and calculated that Petco is costing the Padres 3-6 wins a year.
About Hensley’s blister: is it better to let it heal and then re-wound the fingers or is it better to let the blister heal itself while the skin on the fingers adjusted to the condition they need to be? Or is it a different kind of blister altogether?
It was good to see both Greene and Kouzmanoff (?) went the other way on last night’s game. Also, Adrian seems to be adjusting to the park just fine. All this talk about the park dimensions is just that. A good hitter hits.
17: I agree completely with your last paragraph. It woudl be really nice to see more RHBs start going the opposite way.
#17,18 Cameron notably tried to pull a an outside fastball on 2-0 last night with a man on second (swung and missed). Later, same at bat grounded to the left side. The little things are big.
10 … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanne_Roseannadanna … I just *love* wikipedia
10 … otoh … I really think you were refering to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Litella … but really … “never mind”
Woody does his job today … http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/boxscore?gid=270409116
Rox up on Dogs in 8th … http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/boxscore?gid=270409119
19: I completely agree. That was an awful atbat.
17: Hensley explained the blister when he was on 1090 last week: He cut the nail too short so when he grips the ball the flesh on top of the finger pushes against the edge of the nail and creates a blood blister. It wasn’t caused by the finger rubbing against the ball. So if he lets it heal and lets the nail grow out he should be fine. If it’s feasible to push his next start back I think they should do it.
Kemp and Schmidt both injured today in the Dodgers loss. Schmidt pulled a hammy and Kemp went to the hospital for x-rays on his shoulder after bouncing off the auxiliary scoreboard.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2831244
25: Thanks. I’d definitely like to see him let it heal. Better now than later.
Ft. Wayne pitchers working on a combined Perfect Game into the 8th.