Padres: Making Opposing Pitchers Look Really Really Good

The Padres lost again yesterday 3-1 to the Phillies. So despite having the best ERA in the National League, they are 6.5 games back in the NL West and haven't won back-to-back games since the first two games of the season.

The reason, of course, for the Padres poor win-loss record is their shameful hitting. Facing Roy Halladay yesterday, probably the best pitcher in baseball, the woes continued. Doc K'd 14 Padres and generally made the hitters look foolish. Even so, because Wade LeBlanc and other Padres pitchers are so quality, the game was there for the taking in the 9th, but once again the team couldn't get a big hit when it was needed.

It should surprise no one that 5 of the top 12 individual pitching performances in the NL this season have come against the Padres. There was Jaime Garcia on April 3 (86 game score), Tim Lincecum on April 6 (80), Carlos Zambrano on April 18 (85), Cole Hamels on April 22 (79), and Roy Halladay (83) yesterday afternoon. No question these are all good pitchers, including in Lincecum and Halladay perhaps the two best overall pitchers in baseball, but that is not a statistic the Padres should be proud of.

With Derek Lowe, Jair Jurrjens, and Tommy Hanson all slated to face the Padres at Petco in the next three days, I don't see how this gets turned around anytime soon.

At Least The Padres Have Mark Grant

Another night, another close loss by the Padres.

But I'd rather not talk about that. I'd like to talk about Mark Grant. Listening to the Padres broadcasts night after night, it's clear to me that the Padres are lucky to have Grant as their color man. He is consistently funny, knowledgeable, nice, and a great partner for Dick Enberg. Over the last few years Grant has had to adapt to a constantly changing partner in the booth - first Matty Vasgersian, then Mark Neely and Steve Quis, and now Enberg - and has handled it all with humor and professionalism.

That's why I was so pleased to come across Mark Grant's '90 Donruss card last night. My advisor Tom Teatro was throwing away some of his old baseball cards (who throws away baseball cards?) and kept all his Padres to give to me. Included in the stack he handed me was Grant's card pictured above (yes, that's Ghostbusters 2 in the background).

The back of the card, as all great baseball cards do, contains a bunch of great facts about Grant:

- he was acquired via a trade with the Giants on July 4, 1987, with Mark Davis, Chris Brown and Keith Comstock, for Kevin Mitchell, Dave Dravecky, and Craig Lefferts;

- he served as a right-handed middle relief man for the Padres in '89, ranking 5th on the club in ERA;

- he led the PCL in victories, complete games, and shutouts at Phoenix in '86;

- he led the Midwest League in wins, strikeouts, and innings at Clinton in '82; and

- the Giants made him the 1oth player taken overall in the June '81 amateur draft.

So choice.

Shutout Shutout Shutout ... Shutout Shutout Shutout

One mistake pitch to Ryan Howard was all that separated Clayton Richard's loss from Cole Hamels' win last night. In effect, Clayton had the better performance. After all, he had to pitch to the Phillies lineup while Cole just had to toss batting practice balls to the Padres AAAA lineup.

The good news is that, according to Baseball Reference, the Padres are 8th of 16 NL teams in attendance this season. So at least a reasonable number of folks are going to the games.

Shutout Shutout Shutout

If you're new to baseball, and have on your list of goals to see a shutout in a major league game, I'd recommend watching the Padres play this season.

After last night's 3-0 loss to the Phillies, the Padres have been shutout 5 times in 19 games. They have an NL-low .217 batting average, to go with an NL-low 60 runs, mixed in with an NL-low .326 slugging percentage. But they do have an NL-high 27 bags, so there's that.

Incidentally, the Padres are leading the NL walks but have the third-lowest team OBP in the league. That's astounding.

San Diego Rock 'N' Roll Marathon ... Padres Rocked In Philly

I'm out in the Diego preparing to run tomorrow's Rock 'n' Roll Marathon, while the Drinos are taking it on the chin in Philly.

Doesn't seem right.

Hopefully the Drinos can salvage a game in the series, and hopefully I'll be able to tune in around 10:00 PDT tomorrow to watch.

It shouldn't take me 4 hours to complete a 13.1 mile half-marathon, right?

Right?

Le Kouz

Kouz,

What a monster 3-run bomb you hit off Brad Lidge last night to put the Padres up 8-5 in the top of the 9th.

You're such a beast.

I have to tell you, too, that over the past few days you have been a topic of conversation among myself and a friend who plays fantasy baseball. I gave up fantasy baseball a few years ago after realizing that knowing a lot about the Padres does not necessarily translate into fantasy success. On occasion, however, I still consult with some of my friends when they have questions regarding the Padres.

With that in mind, I wasn't surprised a few days ago when my friend Geleaux e-mailed me this question: "What is the story with the Kouz? My boy Gordon is going under the knife. Need to pick someone up."

I considered Geleaux's question over night and then responded the next morning with the following e-mail:

I see Kouz doing one of two things this season. A) he "gets it" and starts getting more patient. If that happens he'll increase his OBP and become a very dangerous hitter, only slightly less the hitter than David Wright. I could see him hitting as high as .280 with 28-30 bombs if he puts it all together.

B) He'll continue more of the same from last season. Probably get you 20-25 bombs but with a lot of Ks and very few walks.

Also to consider: he had offseason shoulder surgery and, though he says it is fine, I've seen at least one report that residual pain is keeping him from getting to inside fastballs right now. That could improve as the season warms up, or get worse I guess. Time will tell. Generally speaking Kouz is a slow starter so if you get him now you may be buying low.

Finally, there is an outside chance that if he starts hitting but the Padres are out of it, he'll be traded for pitching so the Padres can move Headley to third and start giving outfield looks to AAA guys like Venable, Huffman and Blanks. I'd say there is a 20% chance of that happening. If he gets traded to a small park the bombs could start to flow like wine.

Now, Kouz, I don't want you to get traded. My hope is that you will follow prediction A and become the pure beast I know you're capable of becoming. Indeed, the pure beast you were last night.

So far, I like what I've seen this young season.

Best,
Bevormo

PS - Needless to say, Geleaux picked up Scott Rolen instead of you. I look forward to watching you continue to prove him wrong.

I'm Not A Good Padres Fan

Scotty,

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I missed your heroics last night. The only part of the game I watched was the final out of the top of the 9th and then the bottom half when Heath closed it out for his sixth straight - thrilling - save. I missed your bomb, your go-ahead double, Nick's bomb, Luis' bomb and Chase's laser from right field to nail Greg Dobbs at the plate and preserve the Padres slim 1-run lead in the 8th.

I missed all that and I have no one to blame but myself.

Actually, I guess I can also blame the cable guy who never fixed the television feed upstairs at McGee's, where I was for happy hour with Geleaux, McGally and Tatt Mareeco. Knowing McGee's has the baseball package, I asked the bartender promptly at 7 PM EST if he could put the Pads-Phillies game on one of the four upstairs televisions. He told me that the cable was broken upstairs and the guy had not come around to fix it yet. He was kind enough, however, to confirm that they were showing the Padres game downstairs. Literally, a six second walk down the stairs from where we were standing.

Of course we didn't go downstairs. The main reason, I'll admit, was that the bar was crowded and we didn't want to lose our spot by the upstairs bar. But also I happened to glance at the score around 7:20 and saw that the Phils were already up 5-0. I'm not gonna lie ... that put a damper on my desire to watch the game.

It wasn't until about two hours later that Geleaux happened to glance at the score again and said the Drinos were only down 7 - 5. Even then I didn't rush downstairs. Instead, I casually finished another Stella and by the time we got downstairs you had already put the Padres ahead with that choice double down the third base line.

I was extremely pleased but immediately felt the pangs of regret.

I promise I won't miss anymore of your heroics.

Best,
Bevormo