first pitch: 4:05 p.m. PT
television: Channel 4SD
matchup: David Wells (2-2, 4.85 ERA) vs Tom Gorzelanny (5-3, 2.51 ERA)
previews: Padres.com | SI.com
The road has been unkind to David Wells so far this season. Opponents are batting .388/.449/.688 against him away from Petco Park. That’s sort of like 1942 Ted Williams.
But hey, it’s only four starts.
In other news…
| Player | 2006 | 2007 | Diff. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stats are through May 28, 2007, and courtesy of Baseball-Reference. | |||
| NOG | 3.88 | 3.33 | -0.55 |
| Greene | 3.90 | 3.44 | -0.46 |
| Cruz | 3.99 | 3.61 | -0.38 |
| Cameron | 4.08 | 3.92 | -0.16 |
| Bard | 3.70 | 3.56 | -0.14 |
| OG | 3.67 | 3.54 | -0.13 |
| Kouzmanoff | 3.74 | 3.78 | +0.04 |
| Gonzalez | 3.90 | 4.09 | +0.19 |
I’m not prepared to draw any conclusions just yet, but file under “I” for “interesting.” Go Padres!
78 Comments
Yes!!! Finally a weekday game I can come home and watch after work!
This is really the way life should be.
Am I gonna have company?
I’m here as long as I can stay awake. My ability to stave off sleep depends greatly on what we see of Wells in the first inning or two.
Nice to see Cammy working the count after GY drawing attention to the Padres low P/PA numbers.
1: Give me about 45 minutes, and I’ll be at home watching the game too. For now, I’m relegated to Gameday Audio.
Encouraging start thus far with 2 guys on and Adrian up.
Whoa, Khalil walked.
Alright, I’m calling it right now… Grand Slam
Nice AB by Khalil, hopefully that helps him get a bit of confidence and see the ball better. He’s a lifetime .400 hitter at PNC, so here’s hoping he gets the monkey off his back in a big way.
C’mon Kouz, get it and rip it.
Crap.
I guess we should be happy about the high pitch count, eh?
Nice AB by Kouz. Runs would have been nice, but at least Gorzelanny threw a bazillion pitches.
Darn, that would have been the perfect opportunity for Kouz to break out of his mini-slump.
At least we got Gorzelanny to throw over 30 pitches in the first inning.
Good sequence to Bay.
And the other ex-Padre gets us. Nice effort by Kouz.
FSN Pittsburgh had horrible replays for the Nady single. How far was Kouz from the ball? Did it go under/over him or was it farther to his right?
13: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: These announcers suck.
Why o why can we not get a leadoff double over to third with less than 2 outs? Need NOG to pick us up here.
First off, that pitch to NOG was low. Second, how come the plate umpire had to think about it so long?
Strike 3 was clearly down and in. They should start drug testing the Umps.
15: Even if Sledge had done that, was Wells really going to be able to drive him in? The productive out is pretty much pointless there; Sledge should just have been trying to get a hit.
Joe West has always been a thorn in our side.
I want Sledge to succeed but with his struggles against lefties maybe it would be a good time for the front office laptop to suggest to Black that P Mac should start from time to time.
#13: On the replay it looked like he drew leather.
Listening on XM, Pirates announcers just said that NOG got booted …
Hallelujah, it’s Robles, not Blum.
#22: Yep, Robles is in. Congrats to the umpires for stealing the show this early.
Fanned him all the way.
David Wells has been hanging out with Jake Peavy. 4 K’s through 2.
I hate Joe West. Stupid Ump!
Still, NOG shouldn’t get himself thrown out.
28: Yeah, if we all know West’s reputation for escalating conflict, NOG should as well and know to be more careful.
I think they should throw fans out for even trying to reach over and catch a ball that’s still in play.
At least we didn’t waste a lead-off double this inning. That’s progress.
Damn, at least we kept him from advancing.
Death by paper cuts. Very heads-up play by Khalil, although you have to wonder what Paulino was thinking.
Man, so much for elevating Gorzelany’s pitch count, eh? We gotta have better ABs than last inning.
I hope the umpires get this right.
I thought I saw that ball bounce.
#36: It absolutely bounced. And now they’ve gotten the call right.
LOL to Matty’s reference: “Jane you ingnorant slut.”
Adrian is so slow…
Why couldn’t have hit that when he had bases loaded?
Kouz hammered that pitch. Missed a homer by about a foot or so.
We just got a lucky break.
NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Why is Blum swinging a bat?!?!?!
Finally on the board.
2 outs…why not Branyan here?!?
They don’t even put Blum’s average next to his name on GameDay. But he’s got to run into one sometime, right?
Why didn’t an out by Silent L suprise me?
46 – not this time apparently
Okay, we got a run and Blum is done. If we can get into their ‘pen soon, I like our chances.
Or not. He could continue to be the suckiest suck that ever sucked.
49: I like your ‘glass half full’ outlook Geoff.
Um. Or not…
Oh, Green nice play. I’ll let you marry my daughter.
The Claw’s first HR allowed this year.
53: Greene
Wow, a Kevin Cameron sighting.
56: I think its just an illusion created by the machines to get us to work our brains harder.
Kevin Cameron? I was starting to think he was as mythical as the Loch Ness monster or WMD. We’ve been playing one or two men short for the last month.
Surprisingly effective for a guy who hasn’t pitched in a game in 2+ weeks.
Pirates go to the lefty with Sledge due up. Right-handed bats on the bench: Bowen, Peavy, Maddux.
I’d give my eye teeth – maybe one eye tooth – for a RH hitter worth a darn.
How hard could it possibly be to find a right handed hitter capable of putting up a 750 OPS against lefties?
Seeing Sledge bat against left handed pitching is painful ( 0 for 18 for the year against lhp). Pads are in absolute desperate need of any sort of right handed hitting off of the bench and for spot starts in left field or right. Heck, I am not picky. I would take Jerry Hairston Jr. to start in left rather than Sledge.
I don’t expect an ALL STAR/big bat to be acquired by the Padres. But I don’t want them to settle for Sledge batting against left handed pitching.
Craig Wilson was freely available recently. He would have been a fine fit. Somebody to start against lefties other than Sledge, and somebody to pinch hit against lefties other than Blum.
Also, Branyan should have been pinch hitting for Robles there.
Well, there’s always tomorrow.
We appear to be terrified of changing the roster. Wilson was a good choice. There are RH hitters available. But we continue to send Blum up there. At the very least use Branyan, who has a better eye and 2x the power.
Very lethargic effort this afternoon. Oh well…
So that was the good Pirates starter we’ll face, and that was our bad starting pitcher. Next two days should be different.
I was going to advocate Branyan hitting there, but then I saw Branyan, in 91 AB in the last three years against lefties, has a 571 OPS with 51 K’s. So he has no business hitting against lefties.
Think how much trouble we’d be in if we hadn’t signed Cruz in the offseason.
This game highlights the difference between the Padres and truly dominant teams – dominant teams sweep the weaker teams regularly. The Padres have been unable to sweep the Nats, Cards, Bucs, Reds, Rockies, Giants, Cubs or Marlins. All of those teams are under .500 and one would hope that we would sweep at least two of those series.
Yes, we swept the Brewers, but they’re .500 or below against the East, West and interleague. Their record is a indication of their weak division.
To win in October means winning series against good teams and sweeping the crummy ones regularly.
Down on Farm … 3 HRs so far tonight for Storm … http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=milb&t=g_box&gid=2007_05_29_lncafa_lesafa_1 … 2 by Blanks + 1 by Freese …
At AA San Antonio, C Nick Hundley with a 2B and HR (good for 6 RBI) … plus a coupla more hits for Chase Headley … http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2007_05_29_sanaax_spraax_1&t=g_box&did=milb … Sean Thompson? Not so good …
Huge news (imo) out of Portland tonight … Mike Thompson with a “quality start” (7 IP, 8 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 Ks) … http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2007_05_29_iowaaa_poraaa_1&t=g_box&did=milb … OK, it’s not a *great* start … but it lowered his ERA to 9.73 … and so I’ll call it a huge sign of progress … who knows, we might need him at some point down the road!
Royce Ring with 4 Ks in 1.1 IP for his first save this season … ERA @ 0.82 …
I was also surprised that we didn’t make a move for Craig Wilson. He would have been an ideal fit. As I was watching today’s game I was trying to think of outfielders who hit right-handed and play on teams that are going to be out of the race and therefore might be available…anybody think that KT might want to go after X. Nady now that Bochy is gone? I also thought about Emil Brown in Kansas City. We’ve got to find some offense out of left field. I’m really hoping that the White Sox really fall out of the race and we can go after Jermaine Dye. Dropping him into the 4 spot behind Adrian really makes our middle of the lineup quite a bit better.
Latest on Latos:
http://padres.scout.com/2/647504.html
“We have made our final offer,” Grady Fuson, Padres’ vice president of scouting and player development, said. “I am not optimistic.”
75: I think our left field production will be fine when we can go back to a Cruz/Sledge platoon out there. It’s when Sledge is starting against lefties and Cruz regularly against righties that we’re in trouble.
I love the idea of trading for Jonny Gomes to be the right-handed bat off the bench or spelling OG in right against lefties.