Good News and Bad News, which do you want first?

Saturday April 10, 2010

The Good News
Chris Young will probably not be traded this season.

The Bad News
The reason Young won't be traded is he is injured already.

The San Diego Padres announced yesterday that Young will not make his scheduled start on Monday for the Padres home opener because of "tightness" in his surgically repaired right shoulder.

Young threw 6 innings of 1 hit, shutout ball in his first start of the season on Tuesday in Arizona, but felt tightness on Wednesday. He was pulled from the start after just 86 pitches, but Black and Young both said it was just being cautious since it was his first start since June of 2009 and the Padres had a 5 run lead at the time. Many who were watching his velocity decline sharply during the game wondered if something was wrong. I guess we now know it was more than just cautiousness.

In 2009 Young went on the DL to stay on June 14th after having been held out of several starts earlier for extra rest because of tightness in the same shoulder that he is experiencing tightness in now. He eventually had debradement surgery on the shoulder.

Grrrrr. Looks like another injury filled season is coming for Chris Young and the Padres.

Young looks good, Blanks shows off speed

Tuesday March 9, 2010

 

Photo of my favorite meal in Peoria courtesy of Jorge Arangure of ESPN.

In the field:
Kyle Blanks continues to impress in ST, with a booming double and a legged out triple today. He is not just fast for a big guy, he is just flat out fast. Blanks is hitting .455 this spring, 5 for 11 with 2 doubles and a triple in 4 appearances.

Will Venable also added a double and triple today in a Padres loss.

Matt Antonelli continues to produce in a reserve role, going 1-1 and scoring a run to improve his spring totals to 4 for 9 or a .444 batting average in 5 appearances. What we have seen this spring from Antonelli was what the Padres expected in the past two years and didn't get from him.

As is typical early in camp, the guys that have already won their spots in the starting roster like Adrian Gonzalez and David Eckstein are not seeing much time yet.

Logan Forsythe got some time at 3B today, but still not seeing game time at 2B, although he did take some grounders there in practice.

I was surprised that there were not more home runs today as the jet stream blowing straight out to center.

On the bump:
Padres starting pitcher Chris Young looked good again today in his 2nd appearance of camp, only giving up a single hit over three innings while striking out 2. His fastball once again sat around 87-88 mph with good movement and his slider showed nice bite.

Radhames Liz gave up 2 hits and a walk in 2 scoreless innings. Many were saying he might not make it through camp after getting bombed in his first outing.

Back home to San Diego tonight. It has been nice to be in Phoenix this week, but I can't wait to get home and see my wife. Will Cotijas still be open for a shrimp burrito?

Some Quick Padres Notes

Thursday March 4, 2010

Just a couple of quick notes.

Chris Young pitched today and looked very good. Velocity in his first outing of spring was as high as Padres fans have seen in 2 seasons. He consistently hit 86-88 mph and topped out on my gun at 89. Noticed most others were saying he topped out at 88. Nice movement on the fastball and more bite on his slider than I have seen from him in years (2007?) Threw 33 pitches and gave up 3 hits and 1 run in 1 inning pitched.

Correia looked good in his two perfect innings. Sitting 93-94. Used all his pitches and seemed to have added a 2 seamer, although he may have just been taking a little off his fastball. Heard one guy ask if it was a cutter. It was at about 87-88. Guess someone should ask him.

Radhames Liz looked bad.  Kid has stuff, but no game. Nibbling early and then up across the plate late. It could have been much worse than it was, but he kept giving up hits late in the count instead of walking people. if that is any indication, he won't make the team or even be retained in the minors.

Matt Stairs looks 10 years younger with all that weight off, both in appearance and his swing. He looked like he is enjoying himself and has not changed his grip it and rip style. All the weight loss did not seem to affect his power either as he hit a frozen rope to right for a home run in the 5th. I was as impressed as I can be by a 42 year old player.

Forsythe got a single in his only at bat, but played 3B, not 2B which was manned by Hairston and Antonelli.

Might have more tonight when I get back to the hotel. Sorry about no links. May fix that later tonight as well.

Another Padres Pitcher Lost to the DL

Wednesday June 17, 2009

With the shoulder injury that forced Luke Gregerson onto the DL, the Padres now have 6 pitchers on the DL.

6 Pitchers on the DL. Most teams don't have 6 PLAYERS on the DL.

In addition to Gregerson, the Padres also have on the DL:

• Mark Worrell who is lost for the season,
• Cha Seung Baek who is on the 60 day DL and not expected back this season,
• Shawn Hill was just moved onto the 60 day DL and may not be back this season,
• Luis Perdomo who is on the 15 day DL and due to his Rule V draft status may not be activated until late in the season if at all
• and Jake Peavy who is out until the All Star break at the least and probably until August.

Add to those 6 pitchers the Padres hottest batter, Scott Hairston, and a promising young and speedy shortstop in Everth Cabrera, and you can see why the Padres are having such a hard time winning games on a consistent basis. Not enough major league players left healthy on the major league roster.

Currently the Padres are on pace for 1140 player days on the dl, or the 2nd most in MLB records. Only their 2008 season's total of 1244 exceeds that number. It means 30% of the team is on the DL on average all season. That is Astounding bad luck!!

And now we find out Chris Young may be headed to the DL as well.

That would leave the Padres with just 4 pitchers who spent significant time on a ML roster in 2008. Corriea, Bell, Adams, and Meredith.

It will also leave the Padres with a starting rotation that consists of Kevin Correia (our new #1), Chad Gaudin, Walter Silva, Wade LeBlanc and Josh Geer (or Ekstrom or Banks).

Does that sound like a AAA rotation? It should. It would be the AAA rotation on any other team in MLB and should be even for the Padres.

Once again, injuries have shattered any hope of a decent season for the Padres.

Should the Padres trade Chris Young?

Saturday May 30, 2009

I know alot of the focus has been on the Padres dumping salary by trading away Jake Peavy, but I think the Padres may be able to get more value in trading Chris Young.

Young is pitching well and because of his relatively low salary requirements over the next 2 seasons ($4.5 million in 2009, $6.25 million in 2010 and a club option at $8.5 million in 2011) and being locked up for 2 seasons without a no trade clause, Young may actually bring back more value in trade than he is giving the Padres.

Lets face it, while a good pitcher, Young is not a stopper like Peavy. If you have one game you absolutely must win you are not going to run Chris Young out there.

But Young's numbers are very good and he holds high value.

The Phillies have a big need for pitching with Myers out for the season and they have some great young arms they could send back in return.

The White Sox obviously need pitching and would probably send the same package minus Lance Broadway back in trade for Young. The big question is how would he do in that bandbox?

The Marlins are looking for pitching help and could be tempted by Young's low salary in 2010 and 2011, although it is a bit more than they normally pay. Straight up for Uggla?

The Mets could use another starter and Young would be a perfect fit in that huge park. Would they be willing to part with Fernando Martinez and a couple of low level pitching prospects?

Seattle could use another starter and they are rumored to be shopping Bedard which would great a big hole in their lineup. The Padres were very interested in Garrett Olson prior to the season. Could a trade for Olson and a couple of prospects be in the works for Young?

Obviously there is a need on several teams and a couple that may even be good fits for a flyball pitcher.

I have had my say. Now what do you think?

Padres shut out in Coors Field

Saturday May 30, 2009

A shutout in Coors? yup. The San Diego Padres lost 3-0 to the Colorado Rockies last night in Denver.

From what I have been reading there have been less than 10 shutouts in Coors field history and the Padres have been part of 4 of them.

Chris Young pitched well, allowing only 2 hits and 1 earned run in 6 ip, but both staffs got squeezed a bit by home plate umpire Jerry Layne and Young walked 6.

If Kouzmanoff does not allow a ball to slip under his glove in the 6th, this could have been a 1-0 game.

1-0 In COORS FIELD!

Adrian Gonzalez was pitched around in this game walking 3 times and will continue to be pitched around until a Padres hitter can prove he can consistently hit in the #5 slot.

Right now Padres #5 batters are hitting a MLB worst .231/.286/.319/.604. They badly need someone to step up and make teams pay when they put Adrian Gonzalez on base.

Scott Hairston is howing he is not the answer and has begun his annual swoon vs RHP. In two weeks he has dropped from .297 to .268 against right handed pitching while still hitting .389 against LHP.

Soon the Padres will be forced to platoon him in most situations and Gwynn is no Gerut against RHP.

Still, the Padres should be able to take 2 of 3 against the slumping Rockies. I guess it will depend on which Josh Geer shows up today.

Padres Sweep the Home Stand!

Sunday May 24, 2009

Today San Diego Padres fans got the chance to witness something that the Padres had never done before in 40 years as a franchise.

With a 7-2 win over the Chicago Cubs today, the Padres swept a 9 game home stand!

That is amazing!

In the 1200+ games I have attended in San Diego over the last 24 seasons I thought I had seen everything with the exception of a Padre no hitter or a Padre hit for the cycle.

I was wrong.

So are the no hitter and cycle coming soon?

Chris Young took a no hitter into the top of the 5th, but a single by Mike Fontenot to CF broke it up. Young has taken 2 no hitters into the 8th inning in the past 2 seasons. Will he be the one to finally get a Padres no hitter? Or will it be Jake Peavy who has been lights out in his last two outings.

Today's game was scoreless going into the bottom of the 5th and was shaping up to be a low scoring pitchers duel. Then after a fly ball from Nick Hundley for the 1st out, the Padres strung together a single, double and an intentional walk to load the bases for pitcher Chris Young.

Young came through with a single to center to drive in two runs. The next batter, David Eckstein laid down a suicide squeeze that scored Josh Wilson and Cubs pitcher Ted Lilly threw the ball away so everyone was safe.

The Cubs never seriously threatened even after Reed Johnson hammered a two run shot to deep left field. It was the Cubs 7th straight loss.

Kevin Kouzmanoff drove in 4 runs with a double in the 6th and a 3 run shot to left field in the 7th that put the final nail in the Cubs coffin.

With this win the Padres have fought and clawed their way back to .500 on the season.

The 2nd place Padres are now just 7.5 games back of the NL West leading Los Angeles Dodgers and just 4 games back in the wild card race.

So folks, its time to take a sip of the kool aid and start to believe.

4 Straight Wins for the Padres

Tuesday May 19, 2009

The Padres winning streak is at 4 games.

Look what happens. I go away from posting on this blog and other sites for a couple of days and suddenly the Padres are on their longest winning streak of the season. The San Diego Padres have now won four straight games after sweeping the Cincinnati Reds and winning one tonight 2-1 over Barry Zito and the San Francisco Giants.

I must admit that I only got to see 7 innings of Jake Peavy's complete game win against the Reds on Sunday. I was running a fever in the morning and I was not quite sure my wife was going to let me out of the house, but once again treachery and old age won out over sweetness and common sense. For those other 21,000 that were there that day and that are now feeling a cold coming on, my wife assures me it is entirely my fault.

Peavy must have felt like Picasso, because he painted a masterpiece. 9 innings, 4 hits, ZERO walk and just 1 earned run on what may have been his only bad pitch of the game. How good was he? Of the 121 pitches he threw, 92 were strikes. Only 1 player had an extra base hit. Only 1 player got to 2nd base. In fact through 7 innings, only one Reds player was on base at all.

You have got to feel privileged any time you get to see a pitching performance like that.

Tonight we got to see another pitchers duel in which both Chris Young and Barry Zito pitched a great game. Unfortunately for Zito, who pitched 8 full innings and gave up just 5 hits, the 2 home runs he gave up to Scott Hairston in the 1st and Hundley in the 2nd were enough to hang him with the loss. It was Hairston's 5th home run of the season and Hundley's 2nd home run in as many at bats after his walk off blast against the Reds in the 16th inning on Saturday.

Despite a 3.62 era, Zito is just 1-4 for the punchless Giants.

CY went 6 strong only giving up only 5 hits while striking out 6. Young gave up only a single run in the 6th when Kouzmanoff and Eckstein were unable to turn a double play on a ground out by Emmanuel Burris with men on 1st and third.

A trio from the Padres bullpen shut the Giants down for 3 innings and Heath Bell stayed perfect on the season while picking up his 10th save.

Adrian Gonzalez continued his struggles on this home stand (and at Petco overall) by going 0-4 tonight. For the home stand he is just 2 for 18 with just 1 run batted in. A .111 batting average.

Just a few moments ago I saw one of the most promising statistic of the year come across the TV Screen during the replay. What was it?

It was a graphic showing the NL teams with the lowest number of extra base hits this season and the Giants headed the list with just 94 extra base hits and it rose to 108 extra base hits for the 5th worst team, the Reds.

Why was that promising? The Padres were not on the list for the first time since 2007. The Padres are tied with the Cubs at 112 extra base hits going into tonight's game.

A side note - Bruce Bochy, former Padres manager, got his 1176th loss tonight tying him with Frank Robinson for 28th all time. While Bochy has no shot at passing Connie Mack and his 3948 losses over 53 seasons, at his current pace Bochy has a good shot at passing Bucky Harris for the 2nd most losses in just 11 more seasons. Go for it Bochy!

(A trivia question for you all. What manager has the best win-loss percentage since Jackie Robinson became the 1st African American player in modern baseball in 1947?)


Now back to the Padres -

Is it time to bring out the kool aid again?

Far from it, but it is so nice to see four wins in a row after 11 losses in a row on the road.

So, for now it is nice to report that the Padres winning streak is at 4 games.

Eckstein Delivers Walk Off Single in Extra innings.

Thursday May 9, 2009

David Eckstein delivered a walk off single in a 4-3 San Diego Padre win that may have sealed the fate of Arizona Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin.

After Kevin Kouzmanoff stroked his 2nd double and 3rd hit of the game, both Nick Hundley and Chris Burke drew a walk setting the stage for Eckstein.

Eckstein came through with s sharply hit single down the line to RF driving in Kouzmanoff.

This was the 2nd straight win which has been decided in extra innings and the 8th come from behind win for the Padres this season.

Chris young looked sharp for 6 innings allowing just 3 runs and 5 hits, striking out 6 on 98 pitches.

Kevin Kouzmanoff has what Padres fans can hope is a breakout game going 3 for 5 and scoring two of the Padres 4 runs.

After the game the Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin was fired and will reportedly be replaced as field general by VP of Player Development AJ Finch. The Diamondbacks had stumbled out to a 12-17 start this season after stumbling badly last season after a 20-8 start.

The Padres now head out on the road for a 6 game, 7 day trip that begins tomorrow night in Houston against a struggling Astros team.

Padres Swept by the Giants

Wednesday April 22, 2009

One day after Jake Peavy turned in his worst pitching performance in 7 seasons as a Padre in a 8-3 loss, Chris Young and the Padres bullpen turned in a gem of a pitching performance in a 1-0 loss.

Both games were marked by an anemic offense that time after time failed to produce timely hits with men on base.

In both games the Padres out hit the Giants but failed to drive runners in when given the opportunities, leaving 9 men on base Tuesday and 10 today.

In today's game the lack of defensive prowess in LF proved to be the final blow as Chase Headley was unable to track down a fly ball to the gap that clearly was his ball to go and get. I dislike the what ifs, but in this case a faster outfielder with greater range like Scott Hairston would have gotten to that ball, preventing the run from scoring and ending the inning.

Let's hope this is not a sign of things to come.

A Look Back and a Look Forward – The Padres Starting Pitchers

December 24, 2008

A Position by Position Look at the 2008 Padres and My Thoughts about 2009.

This is the second part of a three part post.

Part Two – The Starting Pitchers

The Starting Rotation is a mess.

More than half of the players on the roster to start last year are gone.

A large portion of the players on the roster to END the season are gone.

The Starting Rotation as of today looks like:
Peavy - 2.85/1.18/.229 with 166 SO in 173.2 innings
– Had an off year in 2008 on the road and the trade rumors this off season had to have been draining, but Peavy is a true ACE and should bounce back with another sub 3 era, double digit win season in 2009

CY - 3.96/1.29/.221 with 93 SO in 102.1 innings
– Hit in face by batted ball and missed 17+ starts. Dropped his era from 4.91 to 3.96 in last 4 starts of season when he was awesome. Health is all he needs to have another double digit win season.

Baek - 4.62/1.33/.273 in 20 starts
– In his first year as a regular starter, Baek was an enigma. One game he would be brilliant, going 7 and giving up only 3 or 4 hits. The next he would give up 7 runs in 3 innings. You never seemed to know what you were going to get. If he is going to be holding down the #3-#4 slot in the rotation in 2009, let’s hope that we see more of the dominating pitcher he was in about half his 21 starts in 2008.

Reineke – 5.00/1.44/.219 in 3 appearances and 2 starts
- Reineke was on the DL with a stress fracture of his scapula to end the 2008 season and I have not heard yet if he will be available for the 2009 season. Let’s hope Reineke does not end up being a part of the rotation to start the 2009 season. To paraphrase an old saying, he is a jack of many pitches, master of none.

Geer - 2.67/1.41/.269 /LeBlanc - 8.02/2.06/.330/Inman
– Geer looked good in his 5 starts, LeBlanc looked bad 3 of his 4 starts, and Inman has never pitched above AA. At this point I would have to give the nod to Geer until his results say he not the one.

I can only hope someone is brought in as a middle of the rotation inning eater.

Would have loved to see the Padres sign Daniel Cabrera, but he signed a one year deal with the Nationals so he could stay in the DC/Maryland area.

Maybe Brad Penny can be convinced to take a one year deal with lots of incentives like the one Wolf signed last year, just to get a chance to kick the Dodgers behind a few times in 2009?

KT, if you read this:
1) Trade Kouzmanoff and a prospect for starting pitching. Someone who can fill that #3 slot behind CY and throw 200 innings. The Padres need an inning eater. The Twins seem to have the young starting pitchers the Padres need and they need a 3rd baseman.
2) Sign Kevin Corriea, Shawn Estes and Mark Prior to minor league deals just in case. The rotation needs the depth.