first pitch: 7:05 p.m. PT
television: Channel 4SD
matchup: Clay Hensley (1-3, 7.86 ERA) vs Matt Chico (2-2, 5.70 ERA)
previews: Padres.com | SI.com
Just a few quick comparisons:
| Year | AB | BA | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stats courtesy of ESPN. | ||||
| 2006 | 682 | .276 | .346 | .400 |
| 2007 | 115 | .296 | .346 | .435 |
| Year | AB | BA | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stats courtesy of ESPN. | ||||
| 2006 | 621 | .274 | .315 | .415 |
| 2007 | 111 | .297 | .350 | .414 |
| Year | AB | BA | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stats courtesy of ESPN. | ||||
| 2006 | 665 | .275 | .340 | .386 |
| 2007 | 99 | .303 | .415 | .586 |
I miss Josh Barfield and Dave Roberts, too, but the team seems to be over them…
111 Comments
At the game last night. Had a great time. KK surprised us with that deep hit to the right corner. Then that surprise sqeeze play. Whoa! All in all, that was the best game I’ve seen the Padres play this year.
Great comparisons Geoff. I think a lot of people were judging this team in the off-season purely on sentimental value, and not on performance. I’m entirely pleased with Marcus, and I’m loving Crudge (both of them).
If Kouz can hit anywhere near his past history, we should be fine.
“If Kouz can hit anywhere near his past history, we should be fine.”
That, and let’s get Cameron going. We’re good top to bottom if they play to their career numbers. It’s going to be a lot of fun once they start coming around. Until then, it’s still a little frustrating. I love good pitching and defense, but it’s tough to watch them not get wins when they pitch well.
Not a good start so far.
That inning could have been much worse.
I’ll take giving up only one run after having a runner on 3rd with no one out. Let’s try to avoid having that situation again this game.
We sure have a way of making bad pitchers look awesome.
Man. I really thought we’d do more damage than that. He’s missing spots up left and right. The problem is, we’re only swinging at the pitches that hit the freakin’ target down in the zone.
Not a good sign for a ground ball pitcher to get his first 4 outs on fly balls.
“Testing the testes”?!
Paging Justin Germano…
Justin Germano, come on down! Too bad about Clay…
Hopefully, we won’t see Michael Thompson because he has some options to burn…
Okay, two quick things, as I’m trying to catch the end of lost (great episode): (1) how sad is it when the link to todays game on padres.com reads “Padres trying to stay hot” (um, we won 1 game on something like 4 hits); and (2) I really, really wish that I hadn’t seen Hensley throw that warmup pitch (I think I felt the pain in MY groin)
The way he was messing with his cup I was afraid it was a crushed testicle.
pulled groin. no doubt about it. that must have hurt like hell.
Whoa, wtf. MLB.TV just switched feeds. What the crap is this?
Doug Brocail hits lefty? He looks like a little league kid that decides to turn around and hit switch on the last day of the season.
Not able to watch…what’s up with Clay? Strained groin? Serious? any word. Let me know.
19: I would have let you know had I not lost Matt & Mud. Stupid Nats broacast.
holy shit, does anyone see the bombshell sitting next to Jim Bowden?
what’s the over-under on how much she costs for the night? for an hour??
21: Good call, they just showed another clip of her. The fur coat is a dead giveaway.
Lay off the off-speed Khalil!
Greeney is starting to make those Right-Center triples a principal part of his repetoire.
3 triples? Who knew Khalil was a speedster?
NICE JOB KG!!
2 of those triples have been stand-up triples too.
Here’s a question:
Do we sacrifice some HR power from Khalil for more extra base hits into right?
Too bad Robles isn’t up here
I love seeing KG hit the ball the other way.
Cameron, make him pitch to you.
C’mon Kouzy. Make it count buddy.
It’s got to be hard to be patient when you’re struggling. Nice AB from Cameron.
COME ON KOUZ!!! HERE’S THE DEFINITE SLUMPBUSTER!
Why the f**k is f**king Geoff f**king Blum on f**king deck?
Sorry. That’s just the hieight of frustration for a Padres fan.
That’s a RBI for Kouz. Was that ball four?
oh well, decent poke and a good r.b.i.
Blummer!
And the bonus is now he can’t pitch hit later on.
So, Brocail hasn’t hit since ‘96….. are we sure he isn’t a better option than Blum??
OMG, Blum got lucky!
Great. Blum lucked out and now he’s “clutch” again. Wonderful.
OMG, we brought in men on base! Glad to see us breaking this open early.
this is amazing! is it a full moon???
OK, now we’ve got a ball game.
Nice heads up play too by Marcus to take the extra base on that.
That play by Belliard is HUGE now.
To quote the Commodore from Space: Above and Beyond – I want you to go out there, find this bastard, and you pile on!
Nice to have NOG back in the lineup…
I predict that Blum will get lucky and get a hit about 10 to 15% of his at-bats … really!
48: That wasn’t a hit. If the Nationals aren’t running a team of collective little-leaguers (ok, so maybe that’s a little harsh), that’s an out and the rally’s dead.
Seriously, that’s an out almost any other time.
Last night at the ballpark I was yelling out “OG” and “Crudge” and people were looking at me funny. I then told them about Ducksnorts and all of us baseball geeks.
OT … Soria with Save #4 for Royals tonight … http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/boxscore?gid=270502107 … I mention it just because it is so interesting to me that a total unknown one year can be a “closer” the next. Hey, I follow the Padres minor league system closer than 99% of y’all … and I didn’t know him … he pitched 11 innings as a 22 year old at Ft Wayne last year … http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/S/Joakim-Soria.shtml … just amazing … how did KC know? (ie. what made them take him in the Rule 5 draft?)
Thank you Nats broadcast for the protracted look at Manny Acta’s face.
damnit! if you’re going to show Bowden, then show the bombshell too!
49 … tell me more … I didn’t see it … where did he hit it? Thx
He hit a shallow bloop fly about 15 feet past first base that everyone thought was going to be foul and feel in between 3 people.
Antonelli with 3 hits so far for the Storm this evening … http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=milb&t=g_box&gid=2007_05_02_inlafa_lesafa_1
55 … thanks … you said “bloop fly”, but I’m sure you meant “clutch fly” … as in “hit ‘em where they ain’t” … that’s all that matters right? I’d rather be lucky than good? Uh …
I’m no expert but Wagner looks like an arm injury waiting to happen.
Damn. That should have gone farther into the stands.
Where’s that fan that got in the way when Gonzalez tried to make a catch last night?
59: Seriously. Fick reacted like he missed it at first too.
Oh well, I’ll settle for a triple if he gets nothing else tonite.
Hmmm, wonder why Bell only went 1 inning? I guess he can’t go 2 every time out … but I’m not sure why not …
61 … who “he” you talking about?
barry bonds just put one out….. I hate that guy
62: With the day off tomorrow Bud probably wants some guys to get a little work.
Another hard shot from Kouz that manages to find a glove. The poor kid cannot get a break.
KOUZ HAS NO LUCK!! but, at least he’s putting some good wood on the ball…
Wow, Clam just routinely makes hitters look terrible at the plate
C’mon Cla, keep the scoreless inning streak alive!
Damnit. Now its a two-run game.
This does not look good, Cla is getting creamed.
What the hell is up with Cameron?
Guess he should have let Bell go two and Cla go one. Oh well. It had to happen sometime.
72: Did you just notice today that he’s playing like he could give a shit?
C’mon Scotty. You can get out of it.
Khalil Greene + Adrian Gonzales = Defensive Masters
Let’s get some back now boys. Get back up on top.
74 … prolly meant to point to 72?
72 … describe why you ask … what’d he do this time?
It was another booming double to deep center that Cameron played off the wall. It would have been close had he gone for the catch, but I thought that one of the balls hit in the first could have been caught by him.
Ray King’s ERA is > 10 … GO FOR IT, BOYS!
OT … http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=Av_8gtW4zAwAZbQKaB9.Qss5nYcB?slug=ap-athletics-piazza&prov=ap&type=lgns … Piazza to miss 4-to-6 weeks with shoulder injury
Ouch. Piazza is on my fantasy team
56 … a cool line in the Storm box score tonight … one of the opposing pitchers threw 0.1 IP (ie. one-third of an inning pitched) with 2 K’s
82 … that means your playing either AL-fantasy or mixed-fantasy … that’s breakin’ one of those “Man Law”s, me thinks …
AL only… what can I say, I’m from New England so I grew up an AL fan. Even worse, I have David Ortiz and Frank Thomas on the same team.
Rox go up 3-2 on Gi’nts in top of 8th … I don’t believe it matters in the long-run … but just in case, I s’pose it’s good to get them both to trend towards .500 …
Anyone else not like that slide by Zimmerman? It’s one thing to slide at a guy, quite another to target his knee like that.
Yo Adrian!!!!!!!!!!!
Who says you can’t hit em out at Petco?
mijo!
87: He went straight into the bag, NOG was standing right in his path. It was just one of those things, the ball was hit so softly that Giles had to hang around second too long.
91: I know I’m probably being overly homerish here, but on the replay it really looked like he elevated his legs to get to NOG’s knee.
Nice play by NOG to hang in there. Barfield would have gotten creamed.
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070502&content_id=237183&vkey=news_milb&fext=.jsp
05/02/2007 11:34 PM ET
Carrillo facing Tommy John surgery
Padres prospect diagnosed with strained elbow ligament
MCamy with a double … that gets Sledge an AB … seems like a good thing …
When was Kevin Cameron’s last appearance? Did he pitch on Sunday? I cannot recall, and I’m mildly surprised we haven’t seen him at any point tonite.
I love Trevor, but it’s nice to not have to use him tonite.
If MCam is heating up and Kouz is making consistent contact May is going to be a good month.
Nice shot by Oscar. Guys are putting otgether some nice ABs right now.
94 … yup, ’twas a good thing … Sledge with an RBI double … cool … and that gets Oscar an AB … seems like a good thing also … only downside is now the bell prolly won’t ring, will they?
98: Our Crudge situation in LF has been very productive. If Cameron does indeed continute to struggle, I’d feel comfortable with a Crudge OF on a daily basis.
95: KCam pitched on the 29th, he had to throw 49 pitches in 2 innings.
Robles is so much better than Blum. Why are we carrying both again?
100 … hopefully just awaiting Branyan’s return …
100: That’s right, Cameron struggled mightily on Sunday. It’s probably a good thing they’re giving him a couple days rest.
With the off day tomorrow, would it be possible to adjust the rotation so that Clay could miss about 8 to 10 days without having to call up someone else? This is of course assuming that his groin issue isn’t overly serious.
The difference between good teams and bad teams:
Royce Ring is our lefty out of the pen. He makes the minimum
The Nats are paying Ray King $850,000
KT has really fleeced some other teams these past few years. Ring & Bell for Johson and Adkins?
Mirabelli for Meredith & Bard?
Aki & Eaton for Adrian, CY, and Sledge?
It’s a matter of time to see if Barf for Kouz works out in our favor, but NOG is clearly a much better player than Barf already.
Way to come back from the tough opening game and take the series boys.
104: Don’t forget B Law for Vinny Castilla. Vinny was a washout but B Law hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since 2005.
105: I just read today that he might sign with the Pads AAA team.
Just got back from the game. Bummer about Hensley (he’s been placed on the 15-day DL), but what a great team effort. Seven innings from the bullpen, three solid at-bats by Kouz, an absolute monster of a homer by Adrian, NOG back in the lineup. I know it’s just the Nats, but we needed this one.
#30: Couldn’t agree more. Teams have to start respecting KG’s ability to go the other way, which makes him that much more dangerous at the plate.
#38: LOL, Anthony. That’s almost exactly what I said to my wife at the game.
#50: Solid. Thanks, TD!
#58: Wagner looks like a completely different pitcher than when he first came up with the Reds. Scoreboard gun had his fastball barely into low-90s.
#87: A lot of people booed at the park, but Zimmerman’s slide looked pretty clean to me. I’ve seen OG do worse.
I am very encouraged by what I’ve seen from Kouz the past couple nights. Here’s hoping this is the beginning of better things from him.
Fun game.
Hate to see Clay go down, but if any starter is going to have some DL time, it would be him. Let that blister and groin heal.
My observations:
Aside from Brocail and Ring, our relievers looked tired. The rest will do them some good.
I have taken to watching Cam and KK’s AB’s in slo-mo detail, and, tonight, I liked what I saw. KK had pretty good pitch recognition and didn’t expand the zone too badly (it was close, but his sac fly looked like ball four and his line to 3B a little inside) but nice. He has power (duh).
Cam actually went with a pitch in his line/fly out to RCF. Bad results, but it was a much better swing. And his double was nice too.
Robles continues to have decent looking swings. Not much power, but like his approach.
KG is intermittent with his going the opposite way. He pulled foul of 3B a bunch of outside sliders, but then he stays back on the triple. Hopefully he will continue to do that.
Given we had a pretty low week, it is nice to be only 2.5 back and over .500.
108 … nice analysis … thanks … do it again, please!
108: I took inspiration from your observations and posted an analysis of Kouz’s sac fly over at http://friarwatch.com. Kouz swung only at fastballs, didn’t miss any and only fouled off one.
111 … awesome, Anthony … for others out there, that link is MUST READ!