For the working magician, the best tool in his toolbox is a little thing we like to call the false expectation. If played right, it can stun an audience into total submission.
1973 Draft
Need a break from the current season? My article on the ‘73 amateur draft is now up at Hardball Times. Where’s Dave Winfield [...]
Nice to hang on for the win Wednesday night (box score). Congrats to Jake Peavy for tying Andy Benes’ career mark for strikeouts by a Padres pitcher.
The game wasn’t without its white-knuckle moments, aka the ninth inning. Several folks have noted that the Padres are having difficulty closing out games, and I’m happy (or unhappy, [...]
Seeing Brian Giles reach base three times in the leadoff spot and score two of the Padres’ three runs Monday night (recap | box score) is great. Seeing how he did it is even better.
In the first inning, Marlins right-hander Sergio Mitre retired Giles on three pitches. Call it a mulligan. Next time up, leading [...]
Good to see the boys wrap up the road trip with a couple of wins in Chicago. Even better to see Mike Cameron playing well again. Since May 1, he’s batting .288/.341/.532. That’s more like it.
The fight on Saturday? I’ll be honest; I hate that aspect of professional sports — nobody walks away from a [...]
I can’t even begin to tell you how glad I am the Padres came back to win Thursday night. I’m not sure how much enthusiasm I could’ve faked if they’d lost to Shawn Chacon. Nice to see Khalil Greene render the umpires’ confusion regarding Josh Bard’s 11th inning “double” irrelevant by driving home pinch-runner Rob [...]
It’s not often that a 9-0 victory takes a backseat to a draft signing. Then again, it’s not often that the Padres sign a guy like Matt Latos.
In case you missed it, the Pads and Latos agreed to terms late Wednesday evening. Jim Callis at BA has the bonus at $1.25 million, well off what [...]
For the second straight start, Jake Peavy worked extremely hard in the first inning and then settled down to pitch a good game. I’m mostly encouraged by this. It’s great that Peavy is showing the ability to pitch to contact; maybe next he can figure out how to do that out of the gate:
Jake Peavy [...]
Vintage Maddux? I didn’t watch enough of Greg Maddux during his prime, but I can’t imgaine him (or anyone else) pitching much better than he did on Monday night against the Reds (recap | box score). How good was The Professor? According to the U-T, Jake Peavy, who charted the game, said that Maddux “missed [...]
Tough loss Tuesday. Justin Germano comes up from Triple-A and pitches the game of his life, and the normally brilliant bullpen blows a late lead (recap | box score).
Of course, if the batters could get a key hit every now and then, the bullpen wouldn’t be under such constant pressure to be brilliant all the [...]
I don’t have the heart to watch this one a second time on TiVo, so we’ll have to rely on my impressions of Wednesday night’s game (recap | box score) as viewed from the upper deck. Scary proposition, I know, but there it is.
David Wells pitched a beautiful game. Honestly, I don’t know that he’s [...]
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