No airplane metaphors today, just links…

Home Team

• Monday (Inside the Padres). From Tom Krasovic: “At some point, the Padres have to hit better than they have over the last few weeks, don’t they?” As Hemingway would say, “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
• Hairston Jr.’s season ends with stress fracture (Padres.com). This is a tough blow for Hairston and the Padres. He’s meant a lot to the team this year (more than I expected he would, that’s for sure) and I wouldn’t mind seeing him return in 2011.
• Father inspires Bell to work harder (Padres.com). Fun fluff piece on everybody’s favorite closer and peanut butter sandwich connoisseur.
• Astros claim righthander off waivers from Padres (Houston Chronicle). Former first-round pick Cesar Carrillo continues his world tour. I hear the Far East is nice.
• Stauffer’s Survival (FanGraphs). Tim Stauffer is probably my current favorite baseball player. To overcome the kinds of obstacles he’s had to overcome and just go about his business without making a fuss… that’s my kind of people. [h/t reader Didi]
• Tejada Fitting in San Diego (FanGraphs). Yes, he certainly is. [h/t reader Didi]
• vid of me at soccer game in Istanbul getting 60,000 Turks 2chantPadres! (Steve Poltz). Our pal Steve is taking his message to the streets… of Istanbul (not Constantinople).
• Towers’ new job, Simmons’ decision to leave unrelated (U-T). Ted Simmons won’t be returning in 2011. That’s too bad; I get the impression he’s helped in the development of Nick Hundley. Still, Simmons probably deserves a shot to manage somewhere, so it’s good for him.
• Going to a Padres game should be like a party (Gaslamp Ball). Dex offers an interesting take on Petco Park: “People complain that it’s so hard to get into and out of Qualcomm, but that journey is part of the experience.” That “journey” is also why I don’t experience it. With all due respect to the history of that place, I hated watching baseball games in Mission Valley.
• Padres’ David Eckstein has made ‘little’ go a long way (Los Angeles Times). Quoth Eck: “They want to see stuff that translates on paper. I don’t translate to paper.” [h/t reader Didi]

Division Rivals

• Troy Tulowitzki: NL MVP? (FanGraphs). You want to know what I think of Tulowitzki? It’s along the lines of Tommy Lasorda on Dave Kingman (link is to Google, so you won’t hear all the F-bombs… unless you want to, of course).
• Four Factors: Kemp’s Down Year (FanGraphs). Dear Dodgers: Please trade him.
• Rockies’ humidor system has a few skeptics (San Francisco Chronicle). My feeling on the whole humidor thing is that, whatever effect it might have on baseballs is dwarved by the way it has gotten into opponents’ heads. Beating the Rockies at Coors Field is hard enough without having one’s focus taken away from the actual playing of games. Well done.
• Another meek finish for Dodgers (ESPN). From the article: “The Dodgers are now 4-13 against the Padres, Giants and Rockies in the past month. So much for playing spoiler.” [h/t BBTF]
• Twelve Thoughts: Towers in Arizona, Car-Go and A’s, Kirk Gibson’s Future (MLB FanHouse). Kras offers his thoughts on the Diamondbacks’ recent hiring of Kevin Towers as GM.
• Dodgers Fan Makes Most of McCourt Divorce Case (New York Times). Congrats to my Hardball Times colleague Joshua Fisher for getting a nice little writeup.

Shattered Bats

• Colvin in hospital after bat punctures chest (MLB.com). Yikes. This is much worse than what happened to Clay Hensley a few years ago. I wonder what it will take for MLB to intervene and do something about the bats?
• Colvin hit by shattered bat, pierces chest inches from heart (IIATMS). Jason offers his own thoughts on the situation.
• Of Tyler Colvin and maple bats (Hardball Times). David Wade checks in as well.
• Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson thinks maple bats are more dangerous (Arizona Republic). Gibson’s take is interesting because it comes from a woodsman’s point of view. [h/t BBTF]
• Rush – The Trees 8-18-2004 (YouTube). What if the maples form a union and demand equal rights? Hey, it could happen.

Other Stuff

• Cueto-LaRue: Legal implications… (Hardball Times). I’d missed this story when it happened, but catcher Jason LaRue’s career appears to be over after sustaining a concussion in a brawl.
• How Not To Use Park Factors (U.S.S. Mariner). Dave Cameron sums it up nicely: “The sabermetric community currently uses one-size-fits-all park factors right now only because, to this point, we’ve been too preoccupied with other things to actually put in the time and effort it takes to do them right. In a few years, once we’ve applied component park factors based on handedness to each player’s performance, we’ll look back and laugh at some of the conclusions that using one park factor for every player forced upon us.” [h/t SweetSpot]
• Could MLB’s Postseason TV Ratings Be Down? (FanGraphs). No Red Sox? No Chicago or Los Angeles teams? Only one team from New York? Yeah, it’s safe to say network execs are not enjoying this.
• THT Annual number 2011 (Hardball Times). Studes provides a sneak preview of what’s in store for the new book. This year’s edition includes contributions from Dave Cameron, Craig Wright, Vince Gennaro, Sean Smith, Craig Calcaterra, Tom Tango, John Dewan, Rob Neyer, and many others (including moi). Fun stuff…
• Visiting Cooperstown [Part 1] (Baseball-Reference). Steve Lombardi shares photos from his recent trip. I’ve visited twice, once in 1988 and again in 2007 for Tony Gwynn’s induction. With any luck, I’ll get out there again when Trevor Hoffman’s turn arrives. Part 2 of Steve’s article is here.
• Numbers game: Felix Hernandez, the Cy Young race and the meaning of stats (WEEI). I sometimes forget that people still use wins and losses to judge a pitcher’s ability. [h/t BBTF]
• Moving Image of the Day: RBI Baseball (BBTF). I don’t usually go for nostalgia, but this gets me all misty-eyed.

This isn’t really part of the links, but I kind of like doing it, so here you go…

Results, Odds, Matchups

• LA 3, SD 1 – Bleh… Will Venable is hitting .375/.407/.518 in September.
• Ari 10, Col 9 – Arizona completes the sweep. Someone should ask Jim Tracy what he thinks about Kelly Johnson’s performance. The Rockies are 31-46 on the road this year. Their next six games are at Coors Field, then they finish with four at St. Louis. In a perfect world, they take two out of three from the Giants, drop two out of three against the Dodgers (yeah, right), then get eliminated by the Cardinals.
• SF 13, ChN 0 – My hope is that the Cubs will bring this type of effort to San Diego next week.

Here are the current playoff odds:

Tm   W-L  BPro Cool
Atl 86-67 74.8 77.4
SF  86-67 63.6 70.0
SD  85-67 56.7 49.2
Col 82-70  4.9  3.4

The Padres are down 11% from yesterday per Baseball Prospectus, 13% per Cool Standings.

And here are Friday’s matchups:

• Atl @ Was, Tim Hudson vs Jordan Zimmerman, 4:05 p.m. PT
• SF @ Col, Tim Lincecum vs Jhoulys Chacin, 5:10 p.m. PT
• Cin @ SD, Bronson Arroyo vs Chris Young, 7:05 p.m. PT

Go Padres, go Nationals, go Rockies!

Tagged as: bat-fu, cesar carrillo, clay hensley, cooperstown, dave kingman, david eckstein, felix hernandez, hall of fame, hardball times annual, heath bell, humidor, jason larue, jerry hairston jr., johnny cueto, kevin towers, kirk gibson, maple bats, matt kemp, miguel tejada, nick hundley, park factors, playoff odds, rush, steve poltz, ted-simmons, the mccourts, tim stauffer, tommy lasorda, troy tulowitzki, tyler colvin