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Nobody Ever Paid Money to Watch an Umpire Assert His Authority

In the eighth inning of Saturday night’s loss to the Brewers, Padres first baseman Adrian Gonzalez and manager Bud Black were ejected by home plate umpire Rob Drake for arguing balls and strikes. Of course, this is well within Drake’s right, as stipulated by Rule 9.02(a) of MLB’s Official Baseball Rules, which reads: Any umpire’s [...]

April in Review

The first month of the 2010 season certainly didn’t turn out as I’d expected. The Padres finished April with a 15-8 record, 1 1/2 games ahead of second place San Francisco. Whether they can sustain their success over the long haul remains to be seen, but at the very least, they have given fans a [...]

Saturday Links (1 May 10)

Hi there, and welcome to a very special “Day Job Kicked My Keester This Week” edition of Saturday Links… Padres Win Streak Ends; We go To Lake Elsinore to See The Storm (Avenging Jack Murphy). Mike visits The Diamond at Lake Elsinore and, like everyone else who goes there, falls in love. Latos vs LeBlanc [...]

Garland Arrives in Style, Everyone Speculates about Gonzalez

It was nice of Jon Garland to finally arrive at the party. Sure, the ERA has been pretty, but that’s mostly because he keeps putting his defense to sleep. I fell asleep a few times during Tuesday’s victory over the Marlins, although Garland isn’t to blame (I’m fighting a little bug, nothing serious). He pitched [...]

Tuesday Links (27 Apr 10)

The Friday links are getting a bit unwieldy, so I thought I’d try a different approach. Rather than dumping a boatload of links at the end of the week, I’m going to post shorter lists… well, whenever. This should make them less daunting and more timely. We’ll see how it goes; if you have thoughts [...]

Looking for a Heartbeat

The Padres got whooped right good on Monday in Miami. Positives: Only 10,924 people witnessed the event in person. When Sean Gallagher coughed up his inevitable homer (to Dan Uggla in the fourth), it increased the Marlins’ lead from 7-0 to 9-0, so no harm done. I forgot to set the DVR. Negatives: Everything else. [...]

Padres Take Series in Cincinnati

Two out of three in Cincy? Sure, another sweep would have been nice, but I’ll take it. We are perhaps getting spoiled by the early success, no? (Oops, I see my inner Hercule Poirot has escaped again.)

Seven Bullets for Seven Wins

Random thoughts from Friday night’s victory over the Reds… Kevin Correia did a nice Adam Eaton impression, dominating and then unraveling. Correia had a no-no through five but couldn’t make it out of the sixth. The Padres have scored 35 runs in his four starts. Or, to put it another way, 47.3% of all runs [...]

Friday Links (23 Apr 10)

A friend of mine recently attended a wedding where “Dust in the Wind” played at the reception. How does that work? “Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky… Hey, baby, relax… don’t you know that you’re the earth and I’m the sky?” Whatever. Go read stuff… Earth Bullpen Usage (Daily Baseball Data). Here’s a [...]

Padres Guilty of Possession… Sole Possession

I love small samples. We can’t glean much from 15 games, but at least we can say the Padres are in first place all by their lonesome little selves. That’s a nice place to be. A guy could get comfortable there. Break out the deck chairs and stupid hats. Never mind. It’s too early to [...]