Despite Kyle Blanks having his string of multi-hit games snapped at five (he singled and walked), Wednesday was a good day for the Padres. Will Venable knocked four hits out of the leadoff spot, Jesus Guzman drove in his 30th run to pull within two of active team leader Jason Bartlett (Cameron Maybin also has 30, and don’t look now, but here comes Alberto Gonzalez with 25!), and the bullpen held on to a huge lead despite their best efforts. I was fully prepared for Willie Harris to hit a game-tying grand slam in the ninth, but it didn’t happen.

Speaking of which, did you notice that the Dodgers blew a six-run lead in their game against the Phillies? The Padres have pulled to within one game of their neighbors to the north in the heated battle for fourth place. Hot damn, this is exciting!

Oh, and congrats to James Darnell for collecting his first big-league hit. He singled to left off Mets right-hander Bobby Parnell in the ninth, which inspired me to make a daft comparison between Darnell/Parnell and Julia Gulia on Twitter. Hey, it’s what I do.

Anywho, we have links…

Trade Deadline

• Trade Deadline Power Rankings: Part 2, the Victors (Grantland). Jonah Keri likes the Padres’ deadline moves. [h/t reader USMC53]
• Big Winners (Inside the Padres). Tom Krasovic offers his thoughts on the Mike Adams trade.
• 17 Favorite Midseason Trades (Baseball Prospectus). Old school… this one includes the trade that brought Mark Grant to San Diego.
• Trading for prospects? No thanks! (ESPN). Howard Bryant offers interesting opinions on the Padres’ situation. He apparently likes Billy Beane’s favored approach of letting free agents walk and collecting draft picks, aka prospects, better than Jed Hoyer’s of trading soon-to-be free agents for… uh… other prospects. Bryant also manages to praise Texas for turning Mark Teixeira into unproven youngsters, while chastising the Padres for doing the same with Adrian Gonzalez. There’s actually a good discussion at Gaslamp Ball that identifies some of the flaws in Bryant’s logic.
• Jed Hoyer: Seller (Woe, Doctor!). This sums up the Adams trade rather nicely: “Basically, our pitching just gained some much-needed depth for, hopefully, years to come while all we gave up was 100 IP from a talented yet soon-to-be expensive pitcher that doesn’t fit into our future plans.”
• How the Padres Blew Trade of Type A Free Agent Heath Bell (Websoulsurfer). One observer wishes the Padres had traded their All-Star closer.

Minor Leagues

• Prospect of the Day: Blake Tekotte, OF, San Diego Padres (Minor League Ball). John Sickels compares Tekotte to David DeJesus, which sounds reasonable if everything breaks right. [h/t reader Didi]
• Hagerty attempting to overcome struggles (Padres.com). The 23-year-old switch-hitting catcher has found Double-A San Antonio to be a bit of a challenge.
• Time will tell: Top prospects who were traded (MLB.com). Jonathan Mayo weighs in on Robbie Erlin and Joe Wieland, acquired in the Adams deal. Mayo ranks Erlin and Wieland among the top 10 traded prospects; he also puts both in the Padres top 10 list, which doesn’t include the recently recalled Darnell… make of that what you will.
• Touring The Bases With…Fort Wayne TinCaps President and GM Mike Nutter (Seamheads). Norm Coleman chats with the head of the Padres Class-A affiliate.

History

• “Hi, I was part of a starting Padres double-play combo. Nice to meet you.” (Padres, Chargers, Illini Blog). Ryan looks back at each season’s primary double-play combo, and tells us which he likes most and least. I’m partial to Mark Loretta and Khalil Greene, but I came to Padres fandom late in life. How was Jeff Gardner and Ricky Gutierrez ever an option? Oh yeah, fire sale.
• Get uniforms right and be who you are (SweetSpot). Count Steve Berthiaume among those who favor brown and gold for the Padres.
• Matt Stairs retires from MLB (CBC). Good for him. He finishes his career with 265 homers, which is pretty amazing when you consider that he didn’t get his 1,000th plate appearance until he was 30 years old. [h/t BBTF]. Apparently Stairs was quite popular, as Chris Jaffe, Joe Posnanski, Brad Johnson, and Christina Kahrl (among others, I’m sure) penned pieces on him this past week. The Wonder Hamster? I had no idea.

Whatever

• These Questions 3: Shawn Green (Baseball Nation). As someone who has had a more than passing interest in Zen Buddhism at various times, I find this to be a fascinating interview and may even have to grab myself a copy of Green’s book.
• Ballpark Review Roundup (Mop-Up Duty). Somebody loves Petco Park.
• Is The Six-Man Rotation Here To Stay? (Baseball Nation). Well, it might give clubs the excuse they need to carry a 14th pitcher on the staff…
• Why When You Go Matters (Baseball Prospectus). Jeremy Greenhouse examines the value of a stolen base.
• Advice from a social media expert for Orlando Hudson’s Twitter Team (Gaslamp Ball). I have no clue what I’m doing on Twitter either, I just keep doing it. And by “on Twitter,” I actually mean, “in life.”
• Analyzing “Six-Man Baseball” (Wezen-Ball). Who needs a diamond when you can use a triangle instead?

Rise and shine, folks. Thursday’s finale of the four-game set in New York starts at 9:10 a.m. PT. Southpaws Cory Luebke and Jonathon Niese get the call. A split would be nice…