Blogging the San Diego Padres… established 1997

That sucked.

In case you’d forgotten how 2007 ended, the Padres gave a nice little encore Sunday afternoon in San Francisco. They battled back from a deficit, took the lead in extra innings on a two-run homer, then watched Trevor Hoffman give it back, with the game ending on a bizarre defensive play.

As was the case with Scott Hairston last October, Adrian Gonzalez‘ dramatic home run is now just a footnote, not the story. Nobody cares that he pounded the first pitch he saw from rookie left-hander Alex Hinshaw over the center field fence at PhoneCo Park. Nobody cares that he sat on and crushed a breaking ball after watching Hinshaw throw a steady diet of them to Brian Giles, who was caught looking at a particularly nasty one on 3-2 that kissed the inside corner.

No, the story is that Hoffman blew the save and the Padres lost the game. Some people have dubbed me a Hoffman apologist, but the truth is, I’m an evidence apologist. I look at things and try to figure out what’s happening. In this case, Hoffman is struggling. His command isn’t as precise as it has been in the past and he’s paying for it in a big way.

Hoffman has had successful stretches this season — he dominated between April 13 and May 30 (14 IP, 1.93 ERA, 11.57 K/9), but that’s cherry picking. The trouble is, he keeps getting nicked up here and there, and every once in a while he implodes. it’s happening now more often than in the past few years:

This table is a little weird, but basically, Hoffman is coughing up at least one run in a game roughly 2 1/2 times as often now as he was in 2006. It would be nice if that were an illusion, but it’s not. Neither is this:

I haven’t looked at a breakdown of his pitches, but my suspicion is that either Hoffman isn’t throwing as many change-ups as in the past or nobody’s biting on the pitch. Heck, maybe both. Regardless, this is a disturbing trend.

The weird part is that Hoffman is striking out more batters than he has at any point since returning from surgery in 2003. That and the fact that we’ve never before seen him struggle like this.

I still don’t know what you do with Hoffman if he’s not closing games. Modern setup guys typically work 70+ innings a year, which he hasn’t done since 2000. I suppose if the ‘pen were deeper, you could let him split seventh-inning duties with someone (presumably Heath Bell would work the ninth and Cla Meredith the eighth — yes I know, but this is how teams use their relievers nowadays).

The other thing that’s worth noting about Sunday’s game is the way it ended. Edgar Gonzalez got the start at shortstop, spelling Khalil Greene. It’s a nice idea, because you don’t want to wear down your regulars over the long haul, but coming into the contest, Gonzalez had played just 22 of 895 professional games at short, none since 2006.

We saw this with Callix Crabbe earlier in the year, and the theory is that with a 12-man pitching staff, you want extra bats on the bench, not defensive specialists. That said, this is the second time I’ve found myself lamenting the loss of Geoff Blum (or at least Oscar Robles). Why a big-league team refuses to carry a backup shortstop is quite beyond my comprehension.

Anyway, after Fred Lewis slammed a badly misplaced pitch off the top of the wall in right-center, the Padres had a chance to escape the 10th without further damage when Hoffman induced light-hitting Jose Castillo to roll to shortstop for a possible inning-ending double play. Randy Winn was running on the pitch, and it would have been close at second, but E-Gon never looked in that direction, deciding instead to focus on Lewis coming home. Except that E-Gon never threw the ball, so the game ended with him holding the baseball in his hand.

Again, I can’t really fault Gonzalez for not making the play. He was put in a position to fail, and that’s exactly what he did.

I dunno. Losing stinks. We need to blame people. Today I’ll go with Hoffman, Bud Black, and E-Gon.