Blogging the San Diego Padres… established 1997

The Padres didn’t complete the sweep against the Diamondbacks, but they still took the series. Time now to take a look back at the first month of the Padres’ 2005 season.

NL West Standings

     Actual  Pythag*
       W  L    W  L   RS  RA
LA    15  8   14  9  126  99
Ari   14 10   11 13  104 112
SF    12 11   12 11  117 116
SD    11 13   12 12  105 105
Col    6 15    8 13  105 137

*Using the 1.85 exponent.

What Went Right?

• The Padres started to figure out how to use Petco Park to their advantage, winning 7 of 10 games at home and outscoring opponents, 43-24. A closer look at how the Pads did at home in April:

              AB   BA  OBP  SLG BB SO
  Padres     358 .274 .357 .377 46 58
  Opponents  359 .195 .264 .276 31 78
  

  The pitching has been outstanding at Petco:

     IP  ERA  H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9
  100.0 1.71 6.30 0.27 2.79 7.02
  

• Speaking of pitching, Jake Peavy has been spectacular and Adam Eaton has been solid. Peavy, averaging more than 7 innings per start, fashioned a 1.77 ERA. He held opposing batters to a .210/.248/.355 line. Perhaps most critcally, Peavy averaged just 14.4 pitches per inning (as opposed to 16.2 in 2004). As for Eaton, after a poor first start at Coors Field, he’s been pretty consistent. His biggest issue right now is lack of pitch efficiency (18.6 per inning), which kept him from going more than 6 innings in any of his April starts.
• The running game: Padres stole 19 bases in 24 attempts in April. They stole 52 in 77 attempts in 2004.
• New additions to the bullpen performed. Chris Hammond and Rudy Seanez were nearly unhittable, while Dennys Reyes was merely very good. Here’s what $1.85M got the Padres in April:

    IP  ERA  H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9
  40.1 1.79 5.80 0.22 2.68 7.14
  

  By comparison, here’s what $10.67M got the Tigers (Troy Percival) and Giants (Armando Benitez) in April:

    IP  ERA  H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9
  19.2 5.03 8.69 1.83 4.12 4.12
  

• Ryan Klesko (.260/.387/.468) found health and started hammering the ball again. Half of his 20 April hits went for extra bases. He also drew 15 walks in 23 games.
• Xavier Nady (.246/.325/.493) and Geoff Blum (.271/.328/.458) did a great job subbing for injured regulars Dave Roberts and Khalil Greene. After seeing his playing time reduced on Roberts’ return, Nady’s production dropped off considerably, but he established pretty firmly that he belongs in the big leagues as a starter.
• Ramon Hernandez (.286/.341/.452) did his usual thing. He played in all but one of the Padres’ 24 games. A few days off here and there to let Miguel “Maytag Repairman” Ojeda (he and Woody Williams finished April with 12 at-bats each) play might help the club down the stretch.
• Once healthy, Roberts (.300/.349/.450) became an immediate contributor. Sean Burroughs (.319/.392/.377) overcame a slow start, hitting his first ever Petco home run in the final game of April.

What Went Wrong?

• Poor pitching on the road:

     IP  ERA   H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9
  117.1 5.45 11.35 1.30 3.07 7.06
  

  Interestingly, not only are Padres pitchers having much more success at home, but the hitters appear to have lost a little of their mojo away from Petco:

              AB   BA  OBP  SLG BB SO
  Padres     476 .225 .311 .397 56 91
  Opponents  483 .306 .361 .497 40 92
  

  I use the word “interestingly” because we’ve only got one month’s worth of data. To call it anything more than “interesting” would be premature, but this is something that bears watching over the summer.

• Defense. Pads committed 18 errors in 24 games, leading to 15 unearned runs. Visual observation tells me that the fielders aren’t getting to as many balls as they should be. What do the numbers say?

                2004        2005
               RF   ZR     RF   ZR
  Nevin      9.12 .816   9.46 .915
  Loretta    4.97 .832   4.91 .882
  Burroughs  2.62 .787   2.72 .864
  Blum                   4.09 .952
  Greene     4.22 .847
  Klesko     1.70 .866   2.03 .872
  Roberts                2.58 .885
  Payton     3.01 .885
  Giles      2.15 .924   1.98 .857
  

  I’m not crazy about range factor or zone rating as a metric, but it’s what we have. Not a lot of huge differences here in range factor; Roberts isn’t matching up to what Payton did last year (Payton did lead the league in RF), that’s about it. Huge jumps in zone rating pretty much all around the infield. Hefty drop for Giles in right. Klesko is putting up better numbers in both categories than last year.

  What do I get from all this? Simple: I still don’t trust these statistics. My eyes tell me that the defense has been sloppier so far than last; I’ll stick with that for now.

• Not enough production from Mark Loretta (.297/.383/.337), Phil Nevin (.229/.262/.458), and Brian Giles (.202/.361/.381). Loretta is getting on base and stealing bases (6 in April, after 5 in all of 2004) but not driving the ball at all (27 of his 30 hits were singles). Nevin managed to work a career-high 13-game hitting streak into those numbers, and he led the Padres with 20 RBI (all the more baffling when you consider he hit .185/.200/.370 with RISP; somehow that translated into 13 RBI in 27 AB). Giles just isn’t getting very many hits. The power is there, and he paced MLB with 22 walks. Oddly, he didn’t drive in a run at home in April.
• Injuries to Greene and Eric Young. Pretty self-explanatory. Greene arguably was the guy the Padres could least afford to lose, while Young gave the club additional flexibility.
• Poor starts out of the gate from Williams, Brian Lawrence, and Tim Redding. The first two came on strong toward the end of the month, while Redding is still trying to figure it out and appears to be on a very short leash.

Bottom Line

On the one hand, it’s early and there’s no need to panic. On the other, the NL West should be one of the tighter divisions in baseball, with very little margin for error. Giving away games early in the season could come back to haunt the Padres come September. In order to succeed, they’ll need to execute better on defense, start hitting in clutch situations, and get more consistent production out of the back of their rotation. If it makes you feel any better, the Padres finished April with a better record than the New York Yankees (10-14). And they did it for a lot less money.

Such was the battle cry set forth by Nick in the comments to Wednesday’s In-Game Discussion. I don’t know if it’s quite time for that just yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s time to try someone other than Tim Redding. Here are Redding’s starts so far as a Padre:

                 IP H R ER HR BB SO
Apr. 10 vs Pit  5.0 5 4  0  0  2  1
Apr. 17 @ LA    5.0 6 5  5  3  1  6
Apr. 22 @ Ari   3.1 9 5  5  2  1  1
Apr. 27 @ SF    3.1 6 6  5  1  3  0

It’s only four games, but something isn’t right here. Those are bad, bad numbers. Opponents are hitting .351/.410/.649 against him. As a point of reference, Albert Pujols hit .331/.415/.657 last year.

Stauffer? Looking good at Portland:

G   IP  H R ER HR BB SO
4 25.0 22 8  6  1  4 17

But I don’t think there’s any hurry to promote the kid. For one thing, the local media is still pining for a guy who had a 5.53 ERA last year. It’d be nice to see someone have success in that #5 spot before throwing Stauffer out there. Can you imagine him coming up, pitching well, but losing his debut? “Rookie Pitcher Looks Good but Succumbs to the Curse of Valdez.”

Please.

My suggestion would be to stick Darrell May in the role for a while, see what he can do. Meantime, maybe Redding can straighten himself out in the bullpen, taking May’s spot as mopup guy. It may be time to move Redding out of the rotation, but it’s not time to give up on him altogether. I still like the trade that brought him here – in a Jay Witasick for D’Angelo Jimenez kind of way.

Besides, there are bigger problems on this team right now than who the #5 starter is. Finding a way to stop playing atrocious defense immediately leaps to mind.

We’re all a little testy right now. Don’t believe me? Check it out:

• Change Starts at the Top (Padres RunDown). Peter is ready to see Bruce Bochy move on and give someone else a try.
• Pads: Making the Grade? (GaslampBall). JBox offers his thoughts on how individual players are doing so far.
• Mailbag: Slow start puzzling to Padres (Padres.com). John Schlegel responds to questions about the Friars’ early season funk, what to do with the #5 spot in the rotation, and more.
• Bochy: ‘As bad as it gets’ (U-T). Quoth the manager: “We’ve played some ugly games, but that’s as bad as it gets.” Let’s hope he’s right about that last part.
• Prospect Retrospective: Derrek Lee (MinorLeagueBall). John Sickels looks back at the Padres’ 1993 first-round draft pick.
• Conversation with J.J. Furmaniak (Portland Beavers). Padres’ minor-league infielder talks about his goals and what it will take for him to reach them. [via PDX Beavers]

Arizona’s in town this weekend. First game is Friday night, 7:05 p.m. PT. We’ll get the In-Game Discussion going about an hour or so before first pitch. With luck we’ll have something good to talk about for a change.