Monday, September 14, 2009

Padres give one away to Diamondbacks

Monday September 14, 2009

The San Diego Padres gave a game away to the Arizona Diamondbacks tonight at Petco Park, leaving the bases loaded twice and men in scoring position 2 other times.

They also looked like minor leaguers against a pitcher, Billy Buckner of the Diamondbacks with a 7.30 ERA coming into this game.

Kevin Correia went 6 1/3 and gave up 2 runs on 7 hits and 2 walks with 7 so. Adam Russell gave up 2 runs on 3 hits and 2 walks in the 10th to take the loss.

Tony Gwynn went 3-5 but disappeared when it counted, twice failing to even be able to put a bunt on play. It was a sad display of ineptness at bunting. If you cannot hit for power or average you BETTER be able to bunt.

Drew Macias went 2 for 2 with a walk to raise his average to .226 on the season.

We got to see both Sean Gallagher and Aaron Poreda pitch tonight. Gallagher was wild while facing just 2 batter in the 9th. Poreda threw just 1 pitch to get the final out in the 10th.

Padres win 6th Straight Series

Monday September 14, 2009

The San Diego Padres rebounded from an opening game loss to the Colorado Rockies to take the next two games and win their 6th straight series and 8 of 10 over the last month.

Only the St Louis Cardinals have been able to take a series from the Padres during a stretch that saw them play 5 contending teams and 2 others that entered the season expected to contend. Only the Nationals were a sub .500 team over that stretch.

That HAS to give both players and fans confidence in this young team going into 2010.

Sunday the Padres scored a run in the 2nd only to see starting pitcher Clayton Richard get wild in the 4th and give up 3 runs on 2 walks followed by 2 hits. The Padres clawed and scraped to get a single run in the 5th to narrow the gap to 3-2 and then Rockies starting pitcher Jason Marquis suffered from his own bout with wildness in the 6th, walking 4 (1 intentional) and giving up 2 hits, and the Padres were able to put 3 runs on the board in that frame to take a 6-3 lead that they never relinquished.

Oh, You want to know what happened offensively? Adrian Gonzalez went 3-5 and Will Venable went 2-5 with his 11th home run of the season, a solo shot in the 2nd.

Adam Russell, who joined the Padres in the Peavy trade, got the win. Richard, who was pulled in the 5th for pinch hitter Edgar Gonzalez, did not figure in the decision.

Jason Marquis took the loss for the Rockies, his 11th of the season against 15 wins.

Next up - the Arizona Diamondbacks


In other Padres News:

Today the Padres called up RHP Ernesto Frieri and OF Luis Durango from AA San Antonio after the Missions were eliminated from the Texas League playoffs.

Ichiro Breaks "Unbreakable" Record

Monday September 14, 2009

One of the most amazing baseball feats was accomplished on Sunday.

Was it the lead story or even a major story on the national sports media? Nope. It was mentioned just as if it was an everyday event.

Jeter passing Lou Gehrig to take over the lead in hits for the Yankees was frontline story on ESPN and Fox Sports and the MLB Channel, but this story wasn't even mentioned until more than 10 minutes into Baseball Tonight. On Sportscenter it came after they talked about Donovan McNabb's injury about midway through the program. An afterthought almost. It seems that all the national sports outlets are interested is how big is the media market the record was broken in, not the magnitude of the record broken.

Its a shame, because the MLB record broken has stood for more than 100 years. It was one of those "unbreakable" records because no one had even come close since.

What record am I speaking of?

Wee Willie Keeler's record of 8 straight seasons with 200 plus hits.

How tough was it to break? Think of it in these terms, Tony Gwynn had five 200 hit seasons in his career, Albert Pujols has had one, in 15 seasons Derek Jeter has had six, Ty Cobb only had eight in his career and hits record holder Pete Rose had only nine in his 24 year career. Wade Boggs, a human hitting machine, was the only player to even come remotely close to breaking it with a seven season run with 200 hits. He never had another season with 200.

So who broke it? Ichiro. Possibly the greatest pure hitter the major leagues has seen since Ted Williams. The only other players that really come close are Albert Pujols and Tony Gwynn.

Earlier this week Ichiro passed 2000 hits for his incredible 9 season career in MLB after 1,278 in Japan. He already holds the MLB record for most hits in a season with 262 hits.

Considering Ichiro is still only 35 years old, he has a pretty good shot at getting 3000 hits in MLB to add to the 1278 he had in Japan. (Remember, through 2000 they only played 130-135 games a season.)

The major media should be praising him loudly and at the front of every broadcast, but instead their silence is deafening. Hopefully they are not so quiet when it comes time to vote him into the Hall of Fame.