Not The Pitching Too ...

The Padres lost again last night to the Brewers, this time 8-6 in a game that at one point the Brewers led 8-0.

Small consolation.

Still, if the Padres win this afternoon, they'll be at .500 for the month, and no worse than 6 games back of first. That's not bad considering they have the worst hitting in the league. Nor is it bad considering their starting pitching, one of the team's few strengths in April, has been up and down this month.

Let's look at the starters numbers through the first 10 days of May (April ERA in parens):

Aaron Harang: 1-1 4.50 (3.90)
Tim Stauffer: 0-0 0.00 (3.12)
Dustin Moseley: 1-1 3.75 (1.99)
Clayton Richard: 0-2 8.64 (3.82)
Mat Latos: 0-1 4.63 (4.98)

After today every starter will have made two starts this month. But other than Tim's choice start against the DBacks last Friday, none of the guys has improved on his April numbers (Mat's middling improvement can hardly be counted). Aaron had a good start against the DBacks on Sunday, but that has to be paired with a disastrous outing against Pittsburgh on May 2. Moseley likewise had a great outing on May 1 against the Dadgers, only to be rocked Saturday against Arizona. And Clayton has been just bad, albeit the victim of some poor defense in his May 4 start against the Buccos.

If this up-and-down trend continues, Tim may be due for a dicey performance today. But I hope that doesn't happen.

How's that for an inspirational pregame speech?

The Inevitable Dustin Moseley Shutout Win

What goes around comes around.

The Padres have been shutout 7 times this season, and only scored 1 run in Dustin Moseley's first four starts, but yesterday reversed the polarity of those two trends, and won 7-0 over the Hated Dadgers.

I wasn't able to watch the game, but in looking at the highlights, Dustin's pitches had a lot of bite. Most notably, he K'd Matt Kemp looking in the 7th with a pitch that bit at the absolute last moment over the outside corner of the plate. Pure nasty.

After six starts Dustin's ERA stands at 1.63, good for second in the National League, and fourth best in all of baseball, behind some no-namers like Josh Johnson, Jered Weaver, and Dan Haren. He's not doing it with gaudy peripherals, but like the saying I just made up goes, why worry about peripherals as long as you're keeping earned runners from scoring?

If You Can't Score Runs At Minute Maid Park, Maybe You Can't Score Runs

The title of this post is negative, but the post itself will focus on the positive from yesterday's 1-0 loss to the Astros at Minute Maid Park in Houston.

Here's what I liked from yesterday's game:

- Orlando de la Noche's continued run of impressive at bats. Orlando walked twice and singled yesterday (and stole his 6th bag of the season) to raise his average to .326. He couldn't drive in the tying run with a runner on third and one out in the 8th, but you still have to like Orlando's approach so far this season.

- Ryan Ludwick's catch and throw to double up Brett Wallace at second base in the second. Ludwick had misplayed a Brett Wallace double on the play before, but he made up for it by catching Bill E. Hall's liner and firing a strike to second to double up Wallace. Doesn't quite make up for his 0-4, 3 K performance, but still, a nice play.

- Dustin Moseley's outing. Dustin pitched 6.2 innings and gave up 1 run. He only struckout 1 guy, but he limited walks and induced 18 ground balls (as opposed to 8 fly balls), a very important statistic at a place like Minute Maid. On the season Dustin is 0-3 with a 1.83 ERA and 1.27 WHIP. If he finishes the year 0-18 but with a sub-2.00 ERA, you have to give him a Cy Young vote, right?