Padres (12-21) @ Braves (16-15)
Randy Wolf vs Tim Hudson
4:00 p.m. PT
Channel 4SD
AM 1090, FM 105.7, XM 186
MLB, B-R
I saw Hudson’s big-league debut, against the Padres at the Q. Despite his dominant showing that evening, it took me a while to accept Hudson as front-line starter. From July 2001:
I’ve been slow to jump on the Hudson bandwagon but he’s making it very difficult for me to maintain my position. I was at his big-league debut, and while he struck out 10 Padres that night, I attributed it to the fact that he was facing a pretty bad lineup and nobody knew who he was. I’ve been waiting for hitters to stop biting on that splitter and it just hasn’t happened. Hudson has become a much better pitcher than I’d expected. There are no chinks in his armor. He prevents hits, keeps the ball in the park, has great command, and sports a ridiculous groundball/flyball ratio. He’s a young, healthy Kevin Brown. Throw out April, during which he allowed half of his 12 homers, and his ERA is an even 2.00.
Well, I don’t know about Kevin Brown. Then again, Hudson’s most similar pitcher through age 31 is Mike Mussina, a potential Hall of Famer. That’s not bad company to keep.
Did anyone else notice Hoffman waving PMac to 3rd. Good thing PMac didn’t pay attention to him.
Bravo announcers are commenting on McAnulty’s most recent baserunning blunder. Tonight (and yet again) he doesn’t pick up his 3rd base coach and loses a bag.
#51@Turbine Dude: He had third easily, he was moving on the pitch.
Its an offensive explosion tonight!
Four double plays for Padres.
Eight of Wolf’s 16 outs have come on four pitches.
PMAC makes at least one blunder every night he plays. The guy is a brutal outfielder.
I doubt that tonight will be the first time the Braves win a one run game, I don’t see how the Padres can keep them from getting blwon out here.
What did we say this morning about Thatch and hi-leverage situations? Yeah…case in point…
So now he’s allowed 6 of 8 inherited runners to score? I know, Matty V, it’s a misleading stat.
Black mismanged Wolf and the bullpen.
#57@JP: He does not have a great arm but he is one of the few OF the pads have at the moment who does not look totaly lost at the plate.
How long till football season?
Just kidding…..This sucks!!!
#60@Stephen: I know, the relievers job is to come in and shut it down. Not to maybe give up a run, maybe not.
#64@Kevin:
Vasgersian, as much as I enjoy his PbP, is a guy who before every game recites a team’s fielding .pct as if it’s the measure of that squad’s defense. So it was funny to hear him refer to another stat as misleading.
#61@Kevin: Yup…they were just talking about Black’s lack of confidence in the bullpen on the postgame show. Tonight was case in point…hanging on with Wolf too long, then bringing in the wrong guy to keep it quiet…pitcher management cost us the game tonight.
My avatar says it all.
This is getting really ugly.
So uhh… Do you think Stephen Strasburg will sign for slot in ’09? if we are going to suck this bad then I am going to find something about it and right now the 1st pick in the ’09 draft is all I got.
Here is an analysis of the game:
http://www.padresnation.com/kevinbrewer/game34.html
69: Well said, Kevin. Yup, I am getting fed up with Bud Black mismanagement of his staff. This game tonight is the latest example of trying to get lucky one too many inning. He’s done it several times last year despite GY’s surprising finding of Bud Black’s quick hook. It’s possible that the hook isn’t being used often enough or more appropriately. I wouldn’t even give Pepe Negro a credit for not using Rusch, though, using Thatcher was very much questionable. So is the manager’s tendency to not ready the bullpen whenever he’s gambling for another inning from the starter. He did it with Germano and he did it again with Wolf tonight.
One would think that having been a pitching coach for quite a while after being a ML pitcher that he’d know when a pitcher doesn’t have it.
70: BTW, Hoffman hasn’t pitched since April 30. Isn’t it time to get him in a game?