Padres (2-0) vs Astros (0-2)
Greg Maddux vs Wandy Rodriguez
7:05 p.m. PT
Channel 4SD
AM 1090, FM 105.7, XM 184
MLB, B-R
With southpaw Wandy Rodriguez on the mound, Justin Huber likely will make his Padres debut, getting the start in left field. Nathan at Oz MLB Players profiles the Melbourne native, while Jeff at Royally Speaking is sorry to see Huber leave Kansas City and thinks the youngster was mishandled.
taxes
94: It counts as a steal unless it is a case of “defensive indifference.” Many official scorekeepers screw this up, assuming that not drawing a throw is evidence of indifference. If the first baseman was holding the runner, however, the defense was hardly indifferent.
Two quick outs by Hoffman.
Taxes…
my connection is updating really slowly. Stepping on toes again Lance…
I know the gun only said 83 but Trevor’s fastball really looks different to me. It seems like it’s faster than that.
104: I hit in a 85 MPH batting cage all the time. He’s really throwing 83.
100.
Don’t start talking like that Cubs fan guy that told us we were loosing because Michael Barrett is cursed and no team with him will ever win.
I agree, this is probably his best game as a padre.
Walking Jose Cruz, Jr … bleh …
I think Grant is right, Trevor’s fastball does look a little faster then last season — the mlb.com Gamecast is clocking him at 89 mph out of his hand, I think he was usually around 86-87 last season.
Too bad Meredith’s inattentiveness is going to cost Maddux career win 348.
Trevor, stop doing this to me.
Toon is up…
104.
So do I. The 85 plus at Stadium Golf and it looks faster than that to me.
Shit.
Well that an f-ing bummer!
Gonzalez really needs to catch that…
Or maybe not.
That’s what you get for walking Jose Cruz.
Damn, thought Adrian had that.
Ugh. The walk to Cruz comes back to kill us.
SHIT!!!
This officially blows now…
Don’t get me wrong. I like Trevor. But I think he’s seen his better days.
Yuck, this feels vaguely familiar.
Christ.
Maybe back to back isn’t ideal for Hoffman.
Again, how can you walk Jose Cruz with the bases empty and two outs? That’s three bad outings out of four. Is Trevor done?
That was craptastic.
But today is almost the 10 year anniversary of Steve Finley’s bottom of the ninth grand slam against the DBacks. It’s not over…
111: The Stadium Golf cages overstate the velocity. I hit at a facility that doesn’t blow sunshine up its customers’ butts. Let’s go hit sometime, though. Lemme know when you’re up for a couple hours of cage time.
Berkman just blew it open.
Cue all the “Trevor is done” guys prepping their SDUT emails and 1090/1360 sports radio calls for tomorrow.
It was actually April 10, 1998. Check Retrosheet or Baseball-reference.com
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SDN/SDN199804100.shtml
Brown gave up 3 hits in the first inning, the DBacks got 2 hits the rest of the game.
Well you have to be concerned with the bullpen so far. Bell is the most worrisome at the moment. As the paper reported this morning, his velocity is down considerably from last year. We probably should replace Ledezma with Zarate or another right-hander, otherwise Meredith and Bell are going to be run into the ground.
Still, how do you walk Cruz for the second night in a row? Both Young and Hoffy pitched around him like he was going to take them yard.
Ausmus is playing second???
127: Sounds like you already checked.
And to all those wondering, Hoffman IS probably finished as an elite closer. Fortunately, we’ll be figuring that out during a season in which we had little chance of winning anything, anyway.
And Brad Ausmus is playing second base….
125.
I’m so down. I’m not claiming I’m big time or anything but if it’s straight I can hit it. I can’t hit a curve or a change or anything with a wrinkle but if it’s straight I can hit it.
132: I believe you… and I’m not claiming I’m big-time either. But we should get to the cages sometime.
Last inning sucked donkey balls.
133.
Or Big Foot’s dick, whichever you prefer.
what article had the info about Bell? I can’t find it…
133.
I’ll email you at the address you gave for tomorrow’s ticket.
I hate Jose Valverde!
Re: Bell
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080402/news_1s2padnotes.html
At the bottom of the article.
Donkey balls or Big Foot’s dick… I’m torn.
Either way, the end of this game sucked at least one of those things.
Thanks. A lot of pitchers have a “dead arm” phase early in the season. crosses fingers, knocks wood.
Count me in the group that does NOT thing Hoffman is done. Walking Cruz is bad, I grant you that. But last night he made two Astros look silly, including Berkman, had two quick outs here and a line drive off the glove a AGon. Changeup still looks good, just missed a few pitches.
In fairness to Hoffman, that was a bit unlucky. The walk to Cruz was inexcusable yet Bourn’s hit was a ground ball that found a hole and The Toon’s game tying hit did glance off of AGon’s glove.
I thought that maybe pitching Hoffman on back to back days was the problem but Hoffman was better last year on 0 days (oddly he was awful on 1 day of rest).
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/psplit.cgi?n1=hoffmtr01&year=2007
Small sample size so it’s probably a fluke.
139.
Agree
141.
Agree
rotoworld.com says this about Hoffman’s outing …
The home-plate umpire’s lack of generosity definitely played a role in the poor outing.
… but I’m not hearing any of you that were watching it say anything about ball/strike calls … what could they be talking about?
I’m vexed on my feelings about Hoffman. The guy is one of the best at what he does. However, there comes a time when we all have to say that we are too old and tired to do what we do.
My commentary is stupid given we’ve only really seen him twice so far and I feel guilty even making these comments.
144. I thought the first few pitches to Berkman were borderline calls that didn’t go Hoffy’s way, putting Berkman in a hitters count and forcing Hoffman to throw basically a BP fastball down the middle. Considering Berkman was 0-7 going into tonight and Carlos Lee was on deck, I don’t blame Hoffman for going after Berkman. Again, this would not have happened had he got one of the first two pitches (which I assume were outside, maybe high on the second pitch).
Either way the game had been tied at this point and the save blown.
144:
I don’t remember seeing any pitches that were close that were called balls — unless they expected an Eric Gregg-Livan Hernandez strike zone.
That was an odd blown save by Trevor. Usually you can tell right away when he’s going to have a bad outing as his fastball velocity is way down — anytime I see it sitting at 83-84 I know it’s going to be ugly. But he was fine the first two batters and then lost control of his change to Cruz (and didn’t throw a fastball). Then he left his fastball up to the next three batters. Trevor has such a fine line for success and if he doesn’t have good control, he needs luck to get outs (hope the ball gets hit at someone). Unfortunately he didn’t get the luck tonight.
147. What I don’t understand, is not challenging Cruz. If Cruz takes him deep I can live with that, but walking the weak hitter?
148: I was yelling at my tv when he walked Cruz. I still don’t get why he didn’t give Cruz a chance to hit it at someone.
Capitol blog you’ve got over here Pads fans. Rickey shall return.
http://ridingwithricky.blogspot.com