Padres (2-1) vs Astros (1-2)
Randy Wolf vs Shawn Chacon
12:35 p.m. PT
Channel 4SD
AM 1090, FM 105.7, XM 186
MLB, B-R
If Adrian Gonzalez catches Hunter Pence’s line drive, the game is over before Lance Berkman ever steps to the plate. If Jose Cruz Jr. doesn’t draw a two-out walk, Pence never bats. If Jose Cruz Sr. doesn’t have a kid, Cruz Jr. never bats.
On the bright side, at least now people can jump back on the “Trevor Hoffman is done” bandwagon. I was almost starting to miss them.
. . .
Randy Wolf makes his Padres debut in an afternoon affair. Assuming the rain holds off, I’ll be at this one as well as the Storm opener tonight.
98: Only if P-Mac makes an even stronger case to continue to start after Edmonds comes back (and maybe not even then).
99: Back to back nights and then a day game? I doubt Hoffman closes it.
RE: 99 nm/m I have my answer.
99: I’d guess it depends on how Trevor is feeling. If he’s ready to go, I’d have to believe Bud goes to him.
How about a bottom of the 8th rally, get Hairston a chance at the cycle… and make it a non-save situation.
With no one warming up behind Bell, does Bell go two innings today?
Hoffman won’t pitch. Bell 50/50, my guess.
Sweet defense on the 3rd out – pitchers’ fielding practice pays off!
Hell’s Bells.
TREVOR TIME!
Ok…. start holding your breath now…
It’s Trevor Time
(gulp)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kjh9lQXLWk
Hoffman’s pitching? Wow. This will be interesting.
This looks like it has more to do with getting Trevor right back out there after last night.
1 down…
Ground out to Greene.
Death.
Ground out to A-Gon.
Taxes.
Same three batters as last night, just a different order. Same result for the first two.
Weak ground out to first, you can thank the best changeup in baseball for that.
(exhale)
Ground out to Kouzmanoff.
Hoffman.
Elite Closer: someone who can slam the door in the 9th. Gets back on the mound after blowing a game and has a short memory. See…Trevor Hoffman.
whew! great win today!
Padres on pace for 121 wins.
That was fine. Didn’t have nearly the juice on his fastball (looked like he maxed out at 84) but his control was much better. None of the pitches were near the heart of the plate.
I think his last pitch was a slider or a cutter unless he threw an 80 mph fastball.
Outstanding. I’ll take 3 out of 4 games every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Great game.
Oh man, good game. Nice work guys. Great way to open the year.
Hoffman: 2-for-3 in save chances, lowers ERA to 13.50 from 30.86.
Career: 526 saves in 590 chances (.892 percentage).
First place baby!
What’s our magic number?
Of course, a quality start by Randy Wolf is always great.
124: I dont know if I am reading this right but MLB gameday says his fastball was 89
130: I think 84-85 was his high today. I could be wrong.
I just checked his fastball velocities from yesterday and today. His fastball was pretty much the same (between 88 and 90) to everyone but Berkman where it was between 84-85 (and the pitch that was hit for the HR was right down the middle). Today all 4 his fastballs were 89 (one at 88 to Wigginton), while he threw 3 sliders (none yesterday) and just the one change to Cruz where he grounded out to first.
So it seems like the real fluke was the AB by Berkman where he had nothing on his fastball and couldn’t control it.
All that mph data was from the MLB.com Gamecast and is measured from when the ball is released from his hand so it will be higher then Channel 4′s radar readings.
Bard and scouts say Trevor is throwing harder. Considering the surgery, I’ll go with MLB.com Gameday and not the channel that employs Steve Quis to sub as an announcer.
Nice! Hoffman is clearly done and we should start the search for a new closer ASAP!
Living in England, I like home Thursdays as it’s a chance to follow the game before a reasonable bedtime; but after this morning’s grim news (a Padres defeat laid at Trevor’s door is always that much tougher to take), I was happy to get taken out to the cinema (the wonderful Lars and the Real Girl), and even happier when I got back to find that they’d won, and no. 526 had already been clocked up. (The first half of the season, with all those low-scoring home games, could be pretty hard work for Trevor, and for the rest of us, come to that.)
But there was an additional pleasure when I turned to the mlb stats page to see how many home runs they’d scored so far; and there at the top of the team batting list after 4 games is the so inferior offense of the San Diego Padres, with an average of .336. Small sample, weak opponents, but at Petco, and still a very funny sight:
http://mlb.mlb.com/stats/sortable_team_stats.jsp
Ch 4 had Hoffman at 84 on the couple of fastballs that I noticed, about the same as the majority of last year……at the end I remember seeing 81-82 sometimes and thinking to myself s*it
Mark
134: I hear you on that. Quis is a joke.
63 & 64: Assuming a healthy season, Kouz will drive in around 100 runs. He’ll clear 80 with plenty of room to spare.
81: Sixty Minutes got it backward. James was among the first to attribute stolen bases to pitchers, rather than entirely to catchers.
Minor league games start TODAY!
First up is the A-level Ft Wayne Wizards …
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=milb&t=g_box&gid=2008_04_03_lanafx_ftwafx_1
… up 7-0 thru 5 … the a balanced offense and behind the pitching of Jeremy Hefner.
140: I was at the ballpark today, and I KNEW the minor league season had started as soon as I saw P-Mac in the lineup!
Great to see Trevor bounce back. I reviewed last year’s numbers and I did not see some big fade in the second half. In fact, he had great numbers right before his two blown saves at the end.
The 84 vs. 89: I buy that the different methodologies yield different numbers, both being correct. So, when I see 84 on TV and I am comparing it other FB’s numbers I see on TV or at the stadium. So, on TV, radar guns, Hoffman is tossing mid to low 80s. That was where he was before his surgery and after his surgery he got back to the upper 80s. In these first few outings, he is in the lower 80s. I hope that changes, because, as others have written, that leaves him a small margin for error.
Nice series. I think it illustrates the bizarro world we live in. We have a very solid offense, and coupled with decent but not outstanding pitching. Petco makes it look reversed, but just look at our road stats, for both pitching and hitting, and we towards the top in hitting and mid-pack pitching. I remember watching the first game on ESPN and the commentators first statement: “they are going to have to hit better to support this great pitching they have.” Shut up.
Also, I have not run the numbers yet, but we got unlucky in this series. I am guessing our team OPS is around .860 after this series, and that ought to lead to roughly 6 runs scored a game, or 24 for the series. Instead they scored 15. So, these games should not have been as close as they were.
94.
Regarding catchers, pitchers and stealing bases.
James could be wrong and right. A lot of times when stats say that “Pitchers don’t have any effect on base stealing rates” they really aren’t saying that… They are really saying that for the data as a hole, catchers explain most of the variance.
In other worse, it may be that pitchers are important, but most pitchers are similar enough to each other that usually, it’s the catcher who determines the outcome. Because the variance in catcher ability is higher than in pitcher ability.
But of course, we have some of the worst — esp CY, who is simply too big and righty — so they may land outside that variance.
In other worse, usually it’s the catcher. But maybe the worst (and best) pitchers can make a difference.
In our case, it’s the confluence of the two. If we had a gun behind the plate, no one would run. But since we have both, people run at will.
143: Cant say I agree. Pitchers make a huge amount of difference. Our pitchers seem to pay no attention to runners at all. They dont look them back or slide step. When I saw Wolf and Estes pitch in Anaheim it was the same thing, and they are lefties. Bard didnt seem to have as much of a problem throwing runners out in Boston. Sure the catcher’s arm will be the most easily noticed difference, but I think there is more variance between pitchers than you think. Someone else pointed out that Bill James actually said the opposite, that pitchers do count for a large part of stolen bases. When Lance Berkman and Michael Bourne are getting GREAT jumps, the catcher isnt even getting a chance.
Honestly, I could care less. Our starters seem to focus on making a good pitch rather than the runner, and most of the time the stolen base does not result in a run.
Holy cow … did you know that the Pirates gave Chris Gomez a job?
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/boxscore?gid=280403115
FYI
#98 Edmonds coming back is NO factor as to whether Hairston starts as Hairston simply moves to left field.
re 146: Yeah a lot of people seem to be talking about LF like it is open for discussion…..guys who hit a HR every 10 AB’s don’t get taken out of the lineup.
That deal for Hairston might end up being just as big of a heist as the deal for Cy/Agon.
Mark
Huge reason to be excited if you’re a Pads fan –Scott Hairston has the total look of a guy who is about to explode ! Yes indeed, it looks like we really have something very special in this guy.
Trevor Hoffman will slip a little but obviously is still a good major league pitcher who has the stuff to probably have another three or four more above average, productive years. I am very curious to see if he will stick around to pitch in other relief roles. Heck, lets all be honest, even if Trev became just a little less effective he is still better than most. How could anyone ever complain in any way when you got this arm in the pen.
Wonder if Hoffy will share a closers role in 2009 or 2010 or perhaps fill a key set up role for the Pads or someone else ?
141 … that’s a low blow and we’ll have NO MORE of that!
At AA San Antonio, Ekstrom got off to a rough start … but that’s a nice lookin’ lineup they’ve got …
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=milb&t=g_box&gid=2008_04_03_nwaaax_sanaax_1