first pitch: 7:40 p.m., PT
television: Channel 4
matchup: Woody Williams (7-11, 4.85 ERA) vs D.J. Houlton (5-8, 5.23 ERA)
Hey, welcome to analysis-free Friday. As Rich Campbell points out over at San Diego Spotlight, the Padres’ magic number is at 17. Even the thought of having to face D.J. Houlton again can’t bring me down from that.
Anyway, that was perilously close to analysis. We’re not going there. Instead, we’re going here:
Friday Links
- Behind the Scenes with Padres GM Kevin Towers (Portland Beavers). Towers, who grew up in Oregon, talks about Clay Hensley, Ben Johnson, and a whole slew of other stuff (Sean Burroughs behind the plate?). Great interview, full of the candor we’ve come to expect from Towers.
- You Can Count on It (Hardball Times). I’m loving the analysis (oops, there’s that word again) these guys are doing. We know Brian Giles is good at getting into a hitter’s count, but now, thanks to Dan Fox, we know exactly how good he is at it.
- Matt Varner finishes second in Rolaids Relief (Scout.com). From the article: “Four different closers in the San Diego Padres system led their respective league in saves.” More curious than meaningful, but there it is.
- Prospects expected to be long gone by now (Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette). Sarah Trotto takes a closer look at youngsters Mike Ekstrom, Matt Bush, and Yordany Ramirez. She has another piece on Matt Lauderdale.
- Rocket from the Crypt Calls It Quits (San Diego Blog). Nothing to do with baseball, but these guys have been a big part of the local music scene for a long time and they rock.
- Last, but certainly not least, check out Dictionaraoke, where “the fun of karaoke meets the word power of the dictionary.” Seriously, if you can visit only one link today, make it this one. [Tip o' the Ducksnorts cap to my favorite copy-editing blog, A Capital Idea.]
That’s all for now. Go Pads!
We throw around the word “great” so loosely that sooner or later everybody and his brother will have been described as “great,” but RFTC was a truly GREAT band, and among the very rawkinest of the hundreds of live acts I’ve seen.
That Dictionareoke site is…well…strange. Must take a while to put those together. Not sure I understand the point, but then again I am getting older and these crazy kids today are so groovy, I mean cool, wait, I mean hip or is it bad, or down? So confusing.
Magic number is 17 wins? Or combination of 17 wins loses b/t Pads and chasers?
Is it right to feel sorry for the Raiders? NE passed at will, but Green Day was fun (I didn’t know they were GD, but I liked that song). Ouch, feeling old now-a green day fan.
Re: the discussion last night on the dip in Padres blog activity. It’s not just the blogging… see Nick Canepa’s column this a.m. about Padres attendance drop from last year… and the Padres brass scratching their heads about it.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/canepa/index.html
But no need to scratch their heads, I think it’s pretty straight forward. Despite being in first, our Padres are arguably a worse team than last year (e.g., they’d need to go 17-6 in their last 23 games to match last year’s record). And with that product on the field, the playoff buzz won’t boost interest until the playoffs themselves are upon us (altho’ if the Padres do even moderately well in the playoffs, an attendance boost should be seen in ’06).
Combine mediocre team and being post-”new ballpark boost”, and interest in general is down – at least a little.
Still, I’m with Lance… very happy to be going to the playoffs (BP says 96+% chance), where the sun sometimes shines even on the mediocre.
PM: Don’t worry about liking Green Day; they borrow a lot from the Beatles. And the “17″ is the number of Pads wins and/or LA/SF losses.
dprat: Thanks for the Canepa article. I’m with you and Lance; get us in the playoffs and anything can happen, esp. if B-Law and Eaton keep pitching like they have the past couple nights.
A good read on non-analysis Friday … http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/baseball_1.html
Good read about KT, but I still wonder whether he will be calling the shots in a few months time. BTW, it looks like they were talking about Bozied at catcher and not Burroughs, since the question asked about what other options you might have with “him” with his back and knee injuries, and the follow-up question then asks about his surgically repaired knee. That doesn’t sound like Sean to me.
Bruce, I re-read that part three times because it didn’t make any sense to me to stick Burroughs behind the plate. I’m reading it again now and if it refers to Bozied, then that is poor editing because the last name mentioned before repeated use of the pronoun “him” is Burroughs. I confess, I’m baffled by the entire passage.
Me too???