| time: | 7:05 p.m. PT |
| tv: | 4SD |
| sp: | Greg Maddux (7-7, 4.35) vs John Maine (10-5, 2.91) |
| pre: | Padres.com, SI.com |
If you want to feel bad for a team, how about the Baltimore Orioles. They traded John Maine and Jorge Julio to the Mets for Kris Benson. New York turned Julio into Orlando Hernandez, so essentially, the Mets parlayed Anna Benson‘s overpaid, broken down husband into two good starting pitchers.
Nice trick, that…
HE DOES IT! I don’t believe it!
Geoff…. my man!!!!!!!!!
98: Surely you jest. Is my feed that slow?
thats was no cheap hit ether, thank you Blum!!! Marcus would had struck out there
Do you believe in miracles?!
The bad thing is, he redeems himself and stays on the roster.
Thtat’s called reputation rehabilitation. Attaboy, Blummer.
106: He will stay until we have someone who can actually replace him haha
98: Great. Now he’s guaranteed pinch hits for the rest of the month.
In all fairness, it was a nice AB by Blum. Khalil got it started with a walk, Kouz gets a single, and Blum brings it home.
He was swinging away at 3-1. That shows a lot of confidence. At least he still believes in himself.
110: Someone’s got to, right?
I know he’s hard to watch a lot of the time, but Blum really is not a terrible utility guy. He seems to save his bullets for when it counts. He’s already had like 3 game winnings hits this year?
To be honest, these situations seem like the only time Blum gets hits…
DONG
I hope Trevor is sharp. It’s been a while since we’ve seen him.
I think Black has finally started to use Blum wisely now. He’s giving NOG and Khalil occasional days off and not pinch-hitting except in emergencies. And it was probably even the right move to let Blum hit there instead of Branyan or another pinch hitter, considering the relative value of a single compared to a walk or extra base hit, the game being tied so still having guys on the bench was important, and how poorly pinch hitters in general do.
More often than not, he is hitting into DPs and ruining innings. Sorry, he’s not that good of fielder either.
Trevor Time!!!!!!!!!!!
Think about this: If Trevor saves this, the win goes to…
You guessed it, Scott Linebrink! He’ so deserving!
Trevor’s change up is scary.
Man, that change was incredible.
Death. Taxes. ?
#118: After the way Maddux pitched, that is just sickening.
Hoffman.
122: I know. Stupid pitching stats.
Hey, Linebrink was just getting the hard hitters out of the way so Trevor could get the easy save against the bottom of their lineup. Linebrink had faith in Blum to come through in the bottom of the inning to make it happen.
122: Maddux so deserved the win.
Hey, it was ugly, but we got it done. I’ll take it any day of the week.
Linebrink basically stole that win from Maddux
Ben, put the lighter down and step away from the crack pipe! LOL
I’m paying a lot more attention to Trevor’s pitches this year than in year’s past, but before this year I don’t think I’d ever recognized Trevor throwing the slider. This year he throws it at least once or twice per outing. Is that a change from years’ past, or is it just me paying more attention?
It’s just you paying more attention.
130 … good question … go ask Anthony, he’ll give you a good answer …
http://www.friarwatch.com/
I hate to be cliche but there’s an article out in the UT tonight/today that says 1st rd Supp pick Mitch Canham is out requiring testicular surgery after getting hit in the protective cup.. Talk about a kick in the balls and also another reason to wear a cup.
Ch.4 just reported that NOG is going to be benched until Saturday.
Huge Padres fan from Carlsbad now living in Plano, Tx.. Saw the Missions in person tonight as they played Frisco (TX) and won 4-1. Some quick observations. Matt Antonelli went two for four –fought off two tough pitches, serving them both into short right center for bloop singles. He has three homers in a week as a Mission and yet he still shortened up and took what they gave him at the plate. Impressive. Defensively he made a couple of nice plays at second. He also has some surprising speed as he almost beat out what initially appeared to be an easy grounder in his last at bat.
Josh Geer threw a 3 hit complete game –he doesn’t throw hard at all, spinning up curves at different speeds and spotting his fastball, not walking anybody…..sound familiar? This guy might be a sleeper and may be well suited for a big ballpark like Petco. Geer is now 10-4 3.33 era. Also, Colt Morton in his first game at AA hit one about 500 feet tonight TO LEFT CENTER –It was a mammoth shot – for a three run blast to win the game -
Whew, just got back from the game. A few comments:
#83: I’m done defending Linebrink. Tonight was disgusting.
#135: Thanks for stopping by, JP. Antonelli is such a treat to watch. His speed is deceptive. He always seems to be ahead of where you expect him to be. Glad to hear Morton is doing well, too. He will hit some tape measure shots — very strong kid.
Also, on a more general note, Maddux looked fantastic. Pulling him after five was the right move even though Linebrink almost single-handedly caused it to backfire. Bottom line, we won the series. It doesn’t always have to be pretty, it just has to work…
I was at the game tonight. I know it’s sacrilege to even say this, but can’t Trevor Hoffman come into a game in the 8th inning? I know the crowd loves the bells and crap (they were doing a vigorous wave as Linebrink was melting down), but how ’bout once in a while, we ask the HOFer to get the most important outs, and not just the 25th-27th?
He hadn’t pitched in 11 days (excluding the All-Star Game), and this was an important one.
136: 3.12 ERA, 1.15 WHIP but it sure doesn’t feel that way.
136: Agreed. Linebrink is now officially as dead to me as he was last year. His good stuff in April/May was apparently just an unsustainable attempt to have a good FA year. Reminds me of Aki before we traded him. Great rep, but always seem to blow the game when I tuned in. Hopefully we’ll be smart and get as much for Liney as we did for Aki. Draft picks would be great since I don’t the the FO is going to break up the bullpen this year.
#137: I’m pretty sure Trevor isn’t physically capable of going more than an inning at this point. Last time he did was September 2004…
140 … Chris isn’t asking Trevor to pitch the 8th and 9th … just the 8th, in a game like this, when the tough hitters are due up in the 8th … makes sense to me!
#141: Well, that certainly isn’t going to happen.
I know this is a dead horse, but I’ll never understand why otherwise-intelligent managers allow one statistic (and a silly one, at that) to shape their in-game decisions.
141: Good idea… but it will NEVER happen, just like you are almost gaurenteed to see Linebrink in the 8th even if he has blown over 4 leads since June
#143: To be clear, I agree with LM (#141) that this is a good idea. As for why managers allow the save stat to dictate decisions, that’s a tricky one. Part of it has to do with using guys in roles they’re comfortable with (a whole other debate), and another has to do — I believe — with player salaries. Closers are paid more to save games than setup men are to “hold” them. That doesn’t make it right, but it’s the way bullpens have evolved over the past 30 or so years. Eventually clubs may figure out that this isn’t always the most efficient approach, but given baseball’s typical slowness to adopt change, I wouldn’t expect it to happen anytime soon.
Also, apologies to LM for my flip response in #142. I gave a weak effort there.