first pitch: 7:05 p.m. PT
television: Channel 4SD
matchup: David Wells (1-2, 6.32 ERA) vs Aaron Harang (5-1, 5.04 ERA)
previews: Padres.com | SI.com
I wonder if we haven’t become so numbed by all of these numbers that we are no longer capable of truly assimilating any knowledge which might result from them.
–The Bill James Baseball Abstract 1988, p. 234
Maybe it’s because I recently “celebrated” a birthday or maybe there are other reasons. Whatever the case, I find myself increasingly interested in the narrative of baseball and in truths beyond numbers. I love stats as much as anyone, but I hope that when I throw tables full of data at you, I’m adding more than just noise to the conversation.
Balance is good. Sometimes we deconstruct a game at the subatomic level. Other times we tell stupid stories or just sit and watch. Or give someone a hot foot. That’s always fun. When I played tennis in high school, you never wanted to fall asleep on the team bus. Because when you woke up, your shoes would be tied together.
What the heck am I even talking about? Oh right, I was giving you my excuse for not providing any real analysis tonight.
Go Padres!
118 Comments
Let’s hope tonight’s game goes as well a last night’s.
Nice start for Boomer.
6′7″ 275lbs.! This guy should be playing football.
Conine is still playing? I had no idea.
Nice DP.
Man, Adrian is smooth. Beautiful 3-6-3 DP.
Nice DP boys. Nice.
Damn, Cameron hammered that ball.
Cammy is swinging the bat better lately. Talk about being Petco-ized.
I really thought that was gone.
I’ve just decided that I HATE Petco. That ball should have been a dinger for Cam, but no. Crappy-ass pitchers park. Did anyone catch comments from Mags about the wind-tunnel effect from left to right in the UT. Stalls the balls so they never make it out. That, was a perfect example.
11: Also interesting from that article was Mags saying that the person it hurt the most is Khalil.
I’d rather have a park like Petco than one like Coors.
That bat looked like it exploded!
Nice to see some of our pitchers making better moves with men on base lately.
This is turning out to be a very boring game.
#15: That move by Wells to nail Phillips was nice.
Anyone think Boomer is hearing footsteps with Germano doing well and Hensley due back soon? He sure is pitching like it so far…
18: Yeah Geoff, it kind of looks that way. Germano is an up and comer. Not so sure about Hensley. But Boomer isn’t getting any younger.
18: If it gets him fired up and leads to him producing like the HOF he’s supposed to be, that’s great.
Off the bat, that totally looked like a knock for Khalil.
Yep, I think Cammy is feeling it.
Cameron is showing signs of life, good to see.
C’mon St. Louis, mount the comeback. You’ve still got plenty of ABs.
C’mon Kouzy, great time to extend that streak to 4 games.
Damn you Cincy, damn you. Do it Boomer!
Boomer doesn’t even give an effort at the plate so this inning is over.
#26: I think he hit that ball hard just to spite you.
We’re lucky A-Gon didn’t pull a hamstring on that.
27: You may be right. If I can get him to spite me more this season, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings.
Well, St. Louis has tied it up, but Boomer is starting to look hittable.
Another nice play by Kouz. Ho-hum.
I just posted the balls and strikes charts from last night’s game over at Friar Watch for those that are interested.
Wow, that was a heck of a play by Kouz.
Nice play Kouz!
Freel owns the right-field line. He’s like a right-handed hitting Sean Burroughs.
Shit. Boomer falls apart in the sixth again.
We were lucky to only give up one.
After Boomer’s at bat I had actually typed this question but decided not to post it:
What do you guys think about pinch hitting in that situation? Boomer has pitched well but realistically won’t give you more than 6 innings anyway and the bullpen is rested. The downside to that strategy is Blum would probably have been the pinch hitter.
Wells hasn’t been awful this inning but I think anyone in our bullpen could have done the same.
I have to defend Wells. Nothing was hit hard that inning. Ground ball to the left side, ground ball up the middle, blooper down the right-field line. Boomer did a nice job of escaping with just the one run.
35: Ammending my statement. He didn’t fall apart, he handled that well. That should have been much worse.
That said, with the way Harang is pitching, one run looks insurmountable at this point.
38: Yeah, saying he fell apart was a little harsh, but last week’s game in Atlanta looms large in my memory. Two weak grounders that found holes and then a bloop double. Can’t blame that on him. The offense needs to pick him up.
Mudcat with the Talking Heads reference.
Nice!
I love those guys.
Wow, Crudge a stolen base!
#41: That was solid. Same as it ever was…
Nice job by Cruz. Get him in OG.
37 … I say Wells should have been PH’d for … take the 5 IP and *run*!!! *AND* get a hitter up there for the AB … even if it is Blum … the more ABs he gets, the clearer it will be that he needs to be cut, and so the sooner he will be cut …
Boomer should be able to get a win though, going six innings and only giving up a run. Time for Adrian to come out of his mini-slump.
Ugh, back to our old tricks. I liked seeing guys hit with RISP last night. That was fun.
47: It appears that Cincinatti has unequivocally figured how to contain Adrian.
Wonderful. Wainwright grooves a fastball to Furcal and he hits it for a bases-clearing triple. Ugh. Dodgers up 7-4.
Our offense REALLY needs to pick up Boomer.
Boomer is pitching great so far. Some of whatever was in Maddux’s arm must have rubbed off last night.
Our bats need to start working here. It’s not enough to have good pitching. Wells has done a stand-up job so far. He needs some offensive help.
Yeargh, our offense can be frustrating. Gotta credit Harang though, he’s pitching well.
Geoff, I really liked your write up in the Annual about Tony G’s 3000th. I think it epitomized everything we all were thinking at the time. Thanks.
Damn, Hamilton is fast. Khalil did everything possible on that play.
#53: Thanks, TD. Except for all the losing, those were some fun times.
OMG, fantastic play by Khalil.
54: Your right. But he just redemed himself.
What a difference offense makes. If the Padres scored 7 runs tonight we’d be raving about Boomer. Instead I feel like we’re pushing our luck asking him to go 8.
Wow, I thought Khalil had no shot on the catch or the throw
I could care less if he hits .240 with 80 RBI in a season. I’ll take that kind of D any day of the week.
Great outing by Boomer. Really did a nice job of keeping guys off balance all night. I know It’s cliche, but when he hits his spots, he still can be effective.
Boomer deserves better than a loss tonite. The boys really need to pick him up, right now.
It’s interesting that his best outings have been losses.
60: Agreed. When he maintains his temper, Boomer can be fantastic. I just wish our bats would show up.
#32: Very nice.
Blumer!!!!!!
Geez, Blummer crushed that one.
Blum: what a clutch player.
blum?
Petco-ized again. Blum must have been reading Ducksnorts and Gaslamp Ball lately, he’s playing like he wants to stay a Padre.
c’mon boys! David deserves better!
Oh my God. Let’s go Crudge!
We’ve had a couple hard hit balls tonite. Time for one of those to do some uber-damage.
OG drive it in!!!!!!!!!!!
Couldn’t we just get a past ball, or something?
Clutch balk! Woo-hoo!
come on OG!
HAHAHAAHAH!!!!!!
That freaking rocks!!
That should make the ESPN highlights!
thats one way to tie it up…
77: That, and KG’s defense.
If you gave Harang 10,000 more tries to do that, I’m pretty sure he couldn’t.
Man, Harang came SOOO close to saving that too.
My MLB.TV feed is clearly lagging tonite. I saw the “clutch balk” call before it happened. I thought Geoff was just building off of my passed ball request. Sadly, I was wrong.
80 … do what?
What a trip…
Why Hoffy here? Shouldn’t it be Taco? Or Cla?
It looked like he kind of stubbed his front foot when he planted it and lost his footing. I’ve never seen that before, and certainly not in that kind of a situation. Crazy.
84: My thoughts exactly. In fact, who is pitching next?
#82: LM, Harang stumbled while delivering to the plate, thus balking home the tying run. It was an unbelievably fluky play.
As Harang went to sweep his foot down to plant it going toward the plate he caught his front spike on the mound. Although the ball did eventually head towards home plate, it was only after a stutter step and clearly could not be called a continuous motion. Therefore, it’s a balk.
I’M amazed that Conine is still in the league. This is his 18th year! And, didn’t he get the first hit in Marlins history? Or he was 4-4 or something notable like that in the first game…
Our best bats up. But, can they make it happen? They obviously have to try for long ball.
re: 84,86
Trevor was already warm. You’re only gonna use him a single inning regardless… and by definition, the home team will not be in a save situation now. Why not use him rather than trying to warm someone else in a hurry?
wow – at 114 pitches and still in the game in the ninth…
Tells you something about the Cinncy bullpen, eh Marsh?
C’mon Khalil, time for a game winner!
This feels familiar
Damn, I really needed to go to bed early tonight.
Almost a spectacular catch by Adrian. At least we’ve got Dunn out of the game.
Great effort by A-Gon!
Nice punch-out by Scotty. Close it out Scott.
Linebrink is dealing.
Fantastic sequencs there by Liney. Awesome inning. We’ve got all the momentum, we’ve got to capitalize on it now.
2 HRs for LaForest + 1 for McAnulty tonight for Portland … http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2007_05_15_poraaa_rreaaa_1&t=g_box&did=milb … another not-very-good outing by Stauffer …
Headley still doing very well at AA … http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2007_05_15_coraax_sanaax_1&t=g_box&did=milb
Whoa, did we just throw out a guy trying to steal?
Bad throw by Bard, lucky call for us.
St. Louis is making a comeback, interesting to see what happens.
When did Weathers learn how to pitch? He used to lug a big ol’ can of gasoline around with him.
Maybe throwing that many fastballs in a row to Griffey wasn’t the best idea.
Why couldn’t that ball be Petco-ized? Grumble.
I wasn’t even looking and I could tell it was gone by the sound. It must be nice to have some power hitters on your team.
Let’s get Bell out, eh?
I hate games like this. It was a game that I had mentally written off before it even started, only to be pleased that we were still in it all the way, are gifted the tying run, cannot capitalize to win a game we probably shouldn’t have had a chance to win, and then blow it in the end anyway.
Well 1 run scored isn’t going to get the job done against anyone…anywhere. It isn’t like the Pads have even had chances to score
Damn. I was hoping Khalil would turn on that 1-0 pitch.
And the lack of offense rears its ugly head again. Oh well, we got Jake going tomorrow. Hopefully we can take teh series.
How many at bats does T. Sledge get while he is batting around the .200 mark before we cast him away and bring up cAnulty whose shorter and more compact swing well be better suited off for pinch hitting ?
Is it too early to call for Merv’s head? I hate the team’s approach when we get a pitcher is on: swing, swing, swing. Fat pitches, OK, but at least take some pitches make the guy work.
2 hits in 12 innings without very many good AB’s. Who is accountable for this? The players, sure, but I am starting to wonder about the free swinging approach we have adopted.
We are 14th of 16 in NL in pitches per PA. Games like tonight are a warning bell that something is wrong.
RE 116: McAnulty was 1 for 5 as a PH this year, and 3 for 13 last year. He may be a marginal improvement over Sledge, but if you are looking for pinch hitters, you need the rare guys like Mark Sweeney or Olmedo Saenz on your team. It can be tough to try to convert an everyday minor leaguer into a PH-primarily major leaguer. Few have that “gift”.
RE ALL: Harang is in the process of turning into a stud, if he is not one already. There is no shame in getting held down by him. On the other side, allowing Weathers to no hit you for three innings is sad, but he is off to an extremely hot start this year – 6/1 K/BB ratio is awesome.