Blogging the San Diego Padres… established 1997

Thought I’d try something a little different: a running commentary on last night’s game. Enjoy…

4:52 p.m. Filthy slider to Derek Jeter. My goodness. No chance.

4:54 p.m. Interesting play by Greg Colbrunn. Easy inning for Randy Johnson. Too easy.

4:58 p.m. Huge break for the Yankees. That ball stays in the park, Tony Womack is on third.

5:00 p.m. Give ‘em credit, Diamondbacks have come out fighting.

5:02 p.m. Luis Gonzalez swings at ball four, up 3-and-0. Oops.

5:04 p.m. Nice play by Alfonso Soriano to double up Gonzalez. Easy grounder by Colbrunn to end the inning. Pettitte gets out of the first allowing only one run.

5:08 p.m. Jorge Posada first pitch swinging. Second straight inning Johnson gets the first out on one pitch.

5:11 p.m. Tino Martinez singles to center off Johnson after looking helpless on an 0-1 slider. Impressive.

5:12 p.m. Johnson makes it through the first two innings with just 17 pitches. What’s up with that?

5:16 p.m. First shot of Matt Williams’ wife. Is that really the babe from Blame It on Rio?

5:17 p.m. Reggie Sanders hammers a pitch to dead center for a double. Two runners in scoring position, nobody out. Arizona needs to score some runs this inning.

5:26 p.m. Womack comes up big, again. Pettitte is in trouble.

5:31 p.m. Danny Bautista battles Pettitte, drills one over shortstop, 4-0. Scott Brosius’ poor throw to the plate on Johnson’s grounder is looming large.

5:33 p.m. First Jay Witasick sighting. I smile every time I see him. Thanks, George.

5:34 p.m. Pettitte needs 32 pitches to get through the second. Maybe there will be a Game 7 after all.

5:37 p.m. Brosius takes the first pitch of the third. That’s more like it.

5:40 p.m. Pettitte lines a single to left. Are you kidding? Lefties are 2-for-2 against Johnson tonight.

5:50 p.m. Bernie Williams draws a walk after fouling off a few 3-2 pitches. Jorge Posada steps to the plate as the tying run.

5:53 p.m. Posada strikes out on a pitch in his eyes. I thought only Soriano swung at that pitch. Yankees do not score.

5:58 p.m. Damian Miller draws a walk. Nice at-bat.

6:02 p.m. Matt Williams up. Do something big, so we can see your wife again.

6:03 p.m. Williams drills a double over the head of right fielder Shane Spencer, after just missing a double down the left field line. Pettitte is out of the game. No shot of Williams’ wife.

6:06 p.m. Two former Padres face each other. Witasick versus Sanders.

6:07 p.m. Base hit left Sanders, 5-0.

6:09 p.m. Base hit left Jay Bell, 6-0. Witasick is useless.

6:11 p.m. Chants of "Yankees Suck" begin. Base hit left Miller, Sanders holds at third. Bases loaded, nobody out, Johnson up.

6:12 p.m. Randy Choate up in the bullpen.

6:14 p.m. Johnson singles past a drawn-in Soriano, 7-0. Someone needs to tell Witasick this is not batting practice.

6:16 p.m. Womack goes down on three pitches. One out, bases still loaded.

6:17 p.m. Base hit center Bautista, 9-0. This is embarrassing.

6:18 p.m. Base hit left Gonzalez. Nice play by Posada to cut off that critical 11th run.

6:19 p.m. Base hit center Colbrunn, 11-0. Replays show Posada didn’t tag Bautista for second out.

6:21 p.m. Double to right-center Matt Williams, 12-0. Still no shot of his wife. Now that there’s going to be a Game 7, do you pull Johnson after five so he can maybe face a batter or two tomorrow?

6:28 p.m. Fox poll asks whether Bob Brenly should pull Johnson early. Spencer strikes out.

6:30 p.m. Yes: 64%, No: 36%. Johnson’s at 56 pitches right now; if he can make it through five with 70-75, I think about it.

6:36 p.m. Strikeout, wild pitch; Bell reaches first. Poor Witasick.

6:38 p.m. Miller misses a homer to dead center by inches; double scores Bell, 13-0.

6:39 p.m. Yes: 69%, No: 31%. Tim McCarver is convinced Johnson wouldn’t be able to give anything in Game 7 but I’m not so sure.

6:42 p.m. Joe Torre finally pulls Witasick after Womack singles to left. Enter Choate. After going on record as saying I’d be surprised if there would be a Game 7, I’m hoping crow doesn’t taste too bad. Ah well, pizza is on the way.

6:46 p.m. Soriano botches routine grounder, 14-0. McCarver asks whether this is bad or ugly. Ugly is perhaps too kind.

6:47 p.m. Base hit left Gonzalez, 15-0. My fingers are getting tired. David Dellucci pinch-runs for Gonzalez. This is a remarkable display of character by the Diamondbacks.

6:51 p.m. Joe Buck manages to get excited by a nice barehanded pickup by Brosius.

6:58 p.m. Knoblauch grounds out to short to end the fifth. Johnson has thrown 69 pitches. If ever there is a time for Bobby Witt to pitch in a World Series game, it’s now.

7:36 p.m. Pizza was excellent. Johnson is still in the game, up 15-2 in the seventh. Did you see him screaming after the first Yankee run crossed the plate last inning?

7:39 p.m. I don’t mean to sound unpatriotic but I’m really looking forward to hearing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” again.

7:41 p.m. Yuck. I thought anybody could sing “God Bless America.” Guess not.

7:43 p.m. Clay Bellinger enters the game in left field for the Yankees. Witt begins to warm up for Arizona.

7:50 p.m. Erubiel Durazo bats for Johnson.

7:53 p.m. Durazo strikes out against Mike Stanton. Nobody cares.

7:56 p.m. New battery for the Diamondbacks. Witt on the mound, Rod Barajas behind the dish. Yawn.

8:02 p.m. Troy Brohawn sighting.

8:10 p.m. Buck is still talking about Johnson possibly being available for Game 7. Uh, Joe, let it go. The guy threw 104 pitches.

8:17 p.m. Enter Brohawn. He hasn’t pitched since the regular season? Easy chopper back at him, one out in the ninth.

8:21 p.m. Is that graphic right? The Yankees outscored the Pirates, 55-27 in the 1960 World Series and lost? Yikes.

8:23 p.m. Bellinger just misses hitting the most meaningless homer in World Series history.

8:24 p.m. Bellinger strikes out swinging, game over. “New York, New York” over the PA after the game? That’s pretty tacky.

8:27 p.m. Johnson tells Jeannie Zelasko he will be available for Game 7.

Well, it was a heckuva game. I really thought after Games 4 and 5, and particularly given Brenly’s propensity to make boneheaded calls, the Diamondbacks were toast. I give them ultimate credit, though. They came to play and thoroughly dismantled the defending champs. If this was a test of character, the Arizona club passed with flying colors.

Game 7 between Curt Schilling and former mentor Roger Clemens promises to be a classic.

Fascinating. I noticed the Diamondbacks were up 2-0 after seven last night, so I broke my “no Yankees on television” rule to see how Bob Brenly would manage to blow this one. Actually, that’s a bit harsh. What I really wanted to see was how he would try to end the game without his closer, Byung-Hyun Kim, who presumably would be unable to work after throwing 62 pitches the previous night. But I did tune in fully expecting to see the Yankees win.

What I didn’t expect was for Brenly to bring Kim in again. In fact, when Fox did their little poll, I scoffed, thinking, “Even Brenly’s not stupid enough to bring Kim in after overworking him last night.” When he did call on his nominal closer, I was stunned. What the hell was Brenly thinking? I know he doesn’t like to be second-guessed (try a different line of work, Bob) but if you couldn’t see this blowing up in his face from a mile away, you probably weren’t paying attention.

Kim, to his credit, despite having poor stuff and worse command, battled and damn near bailed out his manager. But with two outs in the ninth, for the second night in a row, he served up a game-tying homer, this time to Scott Brosius.

Then it became a battle between Mariano Rivera and Mike Morgan. And Morgan, to his credit, kept Arizona in the game. But eventually Brenly’s luck ran out and the Yankees won. As they always do. Others will analyze this more and probably better than I can, but for me, one of the most telling stats of the past two nights is pitch counts. Schilling, one of the best pitchers in either league, throws 88 pitches; Kim, nominal closer and one of the few guys in his bullpen Brenly seems to trust throws 77; Batista, third or fourth starter, throws 126.

What in God’s name is Brenly thinking? Hasn’t anyone explained to him how to use a pitching staff? You don’t pull a guy with a reputation for going deep into games after he’s thrown only 88 pitches and replace him with a guy who seldom throws more than 25 pitches only to leave him in for 62. And you sure as hell don’t bring the second guy into the following night’s game to throw 15 more!

I understand that managing a big-league ballclub must be a very difficult task, and I’m sure Brenly has his strengths as a manager but as the past two nights have shown, in-game strategy is decidedly not among them. I feel badly for Kim, who gave up game-winning homers in back-to-back games against the Padres the first weekend in September. I didn’t feel too badly for him then, although my wife did. But this time, I feel terrible. His manager set him up for failure two nights in a row, first by leaving him in way too long, then by bringing him back exhausted. Honestly, the way Brenly has treated Kim, I’m hoping all he blows is the World Series. I don’t want to put some kind of jinx on Kim but if he does come down with a major arm injury next season, we won’t need to look too far to figure out why.

I’ll be honest; I don’t care for the Diamondbacks much as a team. I don’t care for the way the organization is run, and I don’t like their attitude. But I feel badly for the fans. If I were one of them, I’d be furious at Brenly. Heck, I’m furious at him and I don’t even like the team he manages. And yet, like a car wreck, it is horribly compelling to watch a manager almost singlehandedly give the World Series to his opponent.

I could go on at great length but I’ve taken up enough of your time already. Here are some other items of note:

• The Closer: San Diego Padres (ESPN)
• The Curse of the Balboni (ESPN)
• More on (not “moron”) Bob Brenly’s work in Game 4: Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Primer

Finally, if you’re interested (or even if you’re not), our group won the “Something-Dreadful-Made-Fun Award” for our interpretation of Monty Python’s Spanish Inquistion. Which proves that once again the judges had no idea what we were doing. If they had, they would have given us the “Something-Hysterically-Funny-Made-Mildly-Amusing Award.” But hey, we got more recognition this year than we did last year for dressing up as members of the Borg collective.

My cultural reference points are all screwed up. Maybe next year we’ll dress up as the New Kids on the Block. They’re still insanely popular, right?