Housekeeping
Good news: After two days and much correspondence with tech support, ducksnorts.com appears to be out of DNS purgatory. Woo-hoo! Seems the domain was moved to another machine, but nobody told the DNS (domain name server).
Again, I apologize for the inconvenience. Meantime, check out what you may have missed:
In other news, since pictures of Petco Park are now accessible from the navigation bar, I’ve replaced the link in that little green box at the top of the blog with a short listing of what I’m listening to and reading at the moment. This may or may not interest you, but I’ve seen other folks do it, and I’m nothing if not derivative. Hey, it’s more honest than pretending to be original.
But enough of that silliness. Let’s talk baseball.
Game 3
Death by papercuts, this one.
San Francisco 5, San Diego 3 (ESPN)
The Good
- Pads drew nine walks. Getting on base is half the battle.
- Xavier Nady hit his first big-league homer. The ball landed in the next section over from us, a couple rows up. Basically about 20 feet away from where we sat. Having watched him the past couple years at Elsinore, I’m thrilled to have been in attendance for his first bomb as a Padre. I’ll not soon forget that.
- Sean Burroughs continued to have (mostly) good at-bats.
- The infield defense was brilliant, turning three double plays and generally getting it done.
- The bullpen was solid, working five innings of one-hit ball.
The Bad
- Oliver Perez. He was all over the place, walking six in four innings and uncorking back-to-back wild pitches in the second. Of the 21 batters he faced, 9 of them went to three-ball counts. That’s terrible, as is 45 strikes against 42 balls. I don’t think this is what anyone had in mind when they talked about efficiency. Perez needed just 25 pitches to get through the first and fourth innings, but a whopping 62 for the second and third. Four games above A-ball before reaching the big leagues. He has a world of potential, and one game doesn’t mean a whole lot, but this is not encouraging.
- Xavier Nady in right. This isn’t really fair, because he almost made a spectacular catch of a Marquis Grissom drive to end the third. Instead, he dropped the ball when he hit the wall and three runs scored. That’s your ballgame right there. He also allowed Ray Durham to take third on a fly ball by Jose Cruz Jr. that wasn’t particularly deep. I do worry a little about his arm. Anyway, Nady almost made a tremendous catch and he did hit his first big-league homer, so we’ll cut him some slack.
But I had to mention it. - LOB: 12. Like I said, getting on base is half the battle. Driving ‘em in is the other half. There was absolutely zero clutch hitting last night. The Padres aren’t an offensive machine; they need to make the most of what opportunities they get. And last night, it didn’t happen.
The Ugly
- Giant fans. With the exception of the gentleman sitting directly in front of me, they were a pretty unruly lot. On the plus side, they seemed to have mastered the phrase "he’s a bum" by the end of the evening. Gotta give ‘em props for that.
- Garlic fries. Best ballpark food ever, but the aftermath ain’t pretty.
More on the game:
Today: Dodgers. Kaz Ishii vs Jake Peavy at the Q. Game time, 2 PM. Television: none.
Recent Comments