Padres vs Braves
1:05 p.m. PT
Channel 4SD, DIRECTV 740
AM 1090, FM 105.7, XM 188
MLB, B-R
Saturday night’s game can be broken into two distinct categories:
Good:
- The ‘98 team was honored before the contest (Gaslamp Ball has sweet photos).
- Chase Headley drew his first walk of the year.
- Greg Maddux stole a base.
- The post-game fireworks show rocked.
Not so much:
- A Braves fan sitting near us kept asking Tim Hudson for his warmup jacket throughout the game.
- Joe Thatcher gave up a mammoth homer to a Ferengi (I’m pretty sure that violates at least one rule of acquisition).
- The fireworks show included “Hero” as sung by Bob Dylan’s kid; seriously, if you can’t scrounge up David Bowie’s version, just don’t bother.
On the bright side, things could be worse… Well, not really, but if we can’t lie to ourselves, then who can we lie to?
28 Comments
Remember when they’d say Maddux has won 15 games every year since he came into MLB?
“Oh he’s good for at least 15 wins/year….”
The Padres fixed that. I know he’s not like the old Maddux, but c’mon.
I’ll be at the game today in the good old bleachers……playing in the sand…..
The Good:
Fans Cheered for both Kevin Brown and the remembrance of Ken Caminiti (you never know some times what fans will do…
Chipper Jones missing the bare handed play when he could have easily used his glove and still thrown Maddux out by 3 steps at first.
Maddux becoming the oldest pitcher in history of the game to steal a base (although I don’t know if he was breaking his own record or not).
Dollar sodas and dollar hot dogs
The Bad:
Men on 2nd and #rd with one out and not scoring a run
Maddux taking another underserved loss
Joe Thatcher in a Padres uni instead of Hensley
Having a mean that consisted of Peanuts, cheap tortilla chips and processed cheese…
inman pitching right now in the futures game, as the padres only rep
#3@saintjoel: 1-2-3 inning
Inman just looked good in a 1-2-3 inning in the Futures Game. He struck out a hitter, induced a weak pop out to right, and caught a pretty soft liner back to the mound. He has a little bit of an unusual delivery; I can see how he’s struck out as many hitters as he has.
Buster Olney thinks that the Red Sox may kick the tires on Khalil Greene with Julio Lugo out for 4-6 weeks.
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2008/07/olneys-latest-s.html
Lots to like in the Red Sox system. I’d be all about Jed Lowrie or Ryan Kalish or Michael Bowden…
that was a pretty awesome ceremony before last night’s game…ill be honest…i felt goosebumbs a few times my eyes may or may not have watered up slightly when towers carried out Caminiti’s jersey.
#6
I’ll take Lowrie and Bowden for Greene. Bowden will make a lovely addition to hte staff and combine with the four AA guys we got now, we could have a full pitching staff ready to roll in a year. Lowrie and Antonelli could be a great 1-2 lead off speed/on-base punch (assuming Antonelli can recover).
Carlos Marmol (4.13 ERA) named to All-Star team. Player voting sure did work.
#6@Paul: I was just thinking about Greene to Boston the other day, but does Boston put all of Lugo’s salary on the bench? Greene’s a possible 35HR shortstop in Boston.
Done right, trading a few pieces could set us up for a few years. Done wrong and we have a pocketful of magic beans.
Speaking of Greene, that was a great play.
8: I think that Lowrie OR Bowden is quite a bit more realistic. Maybe a lower-tier prospect in addition to one of those two.
10: Given Lugo’s performance, I wouldn’t be that surprised to see them bench him. I agree that Khalil could be a dominant offensive player in Boston. The depth in Boston’s farm system really makes it tempting to deal with them…
Boston’s also got a kid SS named Oscar Tejada and former SDSU pitcher Justin Masterson who would be interesting as centerpieces of a Khalil deal. Like I said in the previous post, I’m a big Kalish fan as well.
Sean Burroughs was MVP of the Futures Game in 2000.
#12@Paul: Yeah, the days of getting a lot back for Greene have passed. They may come again, but there are fewer of them now.
If we want a lot from Boston, I expect Heath Bell needs to head east.
#14@Kevin: Dude.
#16@Tom Waits: I was reading about the game when I saw that.
#17@Kevin: Oh, so was Justin Huber.
Is it November yet?
I dont think Greene will bring much at all. I don’t understand what Boston
is going to get out of Greene that we can’t. Is he struggling because he does’nt have a Manny or Papi in the lineup? No, he struggles because he is terrible.hitter. Falls behind in the count and gets killed on the outside curve/slider balls. The book on Greene is written and
and everyone in MLB knows it. Hard for me to believe thaT the fans in Boston are going to love his act.
#20@Pudge: He has extreme home-road splits, at least in most seasons.
#20@Pudge: Boston’s a smart front office. They know Greene’s stock is down, but they also know he’s been a league-average hitter with above-average defense every year but this one. He’s not hitting well anywhere this year, but his extreme fly ball splits would play well in Fenway. He’s the kind of player a smart front office buys low and hopes to cash in on. And there’s little risk for them, because he’s not making much and is only signed through next year.
It may be the wrong time for us to sell on Greene, but that doesn’t mean it’s the wrong time for someone else to buy.
Tom W. Could you look at my comment #14 yesterday and weigh in on what those #’s mean to you, if anything?
#23@malcolm: Off the top of my head, and a head which has been testing a 60 Minute IPA most of the afternoon, I’d say:
1. Too small a sample to do much with., and really not that much variance. 10 points of road slugging seems pretty small.
2. It takes relatively more offense to plate runs in a low-scoring environment. The runs you score with a 700 offense on the road might require a 780 OPS in Petco. Maybe.
I’m sure there are people like MB who could do the underlying math way better than me, even if I hadn’t spent the last few hours contracting my mind.
Tom, I agree with both points,yet it’s the variation in the ratio of OBP an SLG and the resulting RPG which goes against current thinking here that is interesting. Reviewing the #’s I see that although the OBP% was higher at home by 10%,BA was lower— .251 on the road and .244 at home. From a pure statistical standpoint, I’m thinking the high ratio of walks in the home OBP caused the RPG to be lower when the OBP% was higher than SLG. I suspect that the OBP value in relationship to SLG is much closer to1:1 than 1.8 or higher to 1 for the Padres, when OBP has a high % of BB. Larger universe would be interesting.
KLaw dismissed Inman. (scouts laughed at his delivery, fringe-average fastball, throws severely across his body)
26: He did seem to throw pretty severely across his body. He’s been discounted for his whole career, but he continues to strike people out at a 10/9IP rate at every level.
#26@Stephen: Same with Joe Sheehan at BP:
“Today, Inman provided a great lesson in the value of observation versus stats. He’s had solid performance lines in his four professional season, and the stats make him look like a midrotation prospect. In person, he’s…awkward. I’m not sure how you get to the third-highest level of your profession and still do things the way Inman does, but he has. He has the longest arm action I can remember seeing, the kind of motion you cringe while watching. It also should leave him very exposed to lefthanded hitters. I could see him as a Jeff Nelson reliever, which limits his innings and lets him chew up righties. Anything else…unlikely.
I can’t emphasize what an eye-opener this was. I’m not going to sit here and say that performance analysis is invalid and I’m headed over to start a Web site devoted to the advancement of scouts, but the gap between what a player does and how he does it-and what that means for his future-was really put into stark relief by watching Inman.”