Good Start for Henn

I recently came accross a nice article about how terrible the Milwaukee Brewers' organization has been with examples by year. Well, in 2003:

Glendon Rusch starts 19 games. He wins once. Once. Let us repeat that: One win in 19 starts. One.

So I have decided this is actually a positive for the Padres. Sure, they gave Rusch another shot in the bullpen, but at least they didn't give him 19 starts. He was a bum, we all new it, so we went out and got Sean Henn to take his place. Henn got the call last night in a game already out of site for this offense (7-1) and proceeded to walk 3 give up 3 hits and 5 earned runs. Not ideal, but we won't judge on first apearances.

On a bright note, Gerut hit is first home run of the year (and as a Padre), in a 2 for 3 showing with 2 walks as well.

I am a little worried about Wolf after his 4th poor outing in his last 5 starts. The Pads actually led this one for a few minutes at 2-1 in the middle of the 5th, before things fell apart for Wolf and the cubs scored 6 in the bottom of the inning.

I enjoyed the two game winning streak, though, and it is still early May, so lets not mail it in yet. It would be nice if the Pads cared more about winning then having to pay Headley, but what can you do?

I will leave you with another quote from the Woe is the Brewers article:

1990: The Brewers do stick to their guns. Brock is still playing first base even though he hits just .248 with seven home runs in 367 at-bats. Sheffield moves to third base and later accuses the organization of racism by choosing to play Bill Spiers at shortstop over him. He would later say, "The Brewers brought out the hate in me. I was a crazy man. … I hated everything about the place. If the official scorer gave me an error, I didn't think was an error, I'd say, 'OK, here's a real error,' and I'd throw the next ball into the stands on purpose."

Is This The End of The Line for Jim Edmonds?

After what Jim Edmonds called the "worst April" of his career, we may be seeing the last of him in a Padres uniform...or any for that matter. He worked hard in the offseason to come back healthy and energized for another run, but couldn't even make it through Spring Training. That setback could end up costing him the season.

No one can say what would have happened had he been healthy all Spring Training, but you have to think he would have a higher average then .153 at this point and more than 3 extra base hits and 6 RBI.

On the Scott and BR show this morning, Kevin Towers told us that the Padres are going to be making some "moves" within the next few days, but that they would probably wait until after the Atlanta trip. He said that this is something they would rather do in person because this is a difficult situation and "could involve veteran
players." Sounds a lot like Jimmy.

He also said in reference to Edmonds that he has clearly "lost a step in the outfield," and I think we can assume that his hitting isn't pulling the wait.
KT was asked about Headley and he said he wasn't sure when he would come up, but when he did he would be playing every day. It sounds like things have been going well in the outfield even if his bat started out a little slow, but he said that "we know he will hit the ball, he is down there to play every day in the outfield."

Should we expect to see more of this
and less of the top photo?

I would say this move won't come yet, but probably won't be too far away.

Then we switched to Jody Gerut who Towers called "the hottest hitter we have right now," which seems like the obvious replacement for Edmonds, who I am sure would rather be cut then go to AAA. 14 year veterans don't get sent down to the minors.

As of yesterday, Gerut was hitting .326 with 8 doubles, 2 triples, 5 home runs, 21 runs, 16 RBI and 3 stolen bases. Sound like something we could use?

Towers also mentioned that Estes threw 7 solid innings and his fastball is up to speed. So we should expect to have him in the rotation within the next few weeks. I would guess that Germano will make his way to the bullpen and Ledezma may get a shot if Estes isn't quite ready.

There is still the possibility that Edmonds will stay with the team and Justin Huber or Paul McAnulty will go down, but it seems from KT's point of view like Edmonds is at the end of the line.

Padres Aren't Done Yet

Things look pretty bleak, and I can't say that I have avoided the negativity (see last post), but the season is far from wrapped up. Thought the Pads sit dead last in almost every statistic, they still have one of the best rotations in the league. Jake Peavy is one of the top 5 pitchers in the league and he has Chris Young, Greg Maddux and Randy Wolf all pitching great behind him. Sean Estes looks like he could be coming back healthy and strong and you can't discount the fact that he could be fresh from two years off and ready to go. We aren't asking him to lead the rotation, we are asking him to be a number 5.

The Padres are already 9 games out of first place and 8 games below .500, but with the pitching staff that we have, if the bats get hot for a couple of weeks we could easily run off a huge streak. As cold as the bats were in April, they could get hot for a while and then just do ok for the another month and this team could be right back in the thick of things.

When a team has as good a pitching staff from top to bottom as the Padres do, they will never be out of it...at least not this early. If we turn those 2-1 losses into 4-2 wins (which isn't asking for much from the hitters) things could be sunny once again in San Diego.

"The Harder You Try, The Worse You Get"

Adrian Gonzales pretty much summed up April for the Padres. Bud Black says that a hot team usually has five, six or seven guys swinging the bat well; a normal team has three or four guys swinging well, and the Padres have one or two guys swinging the bat well on any given night. One or two might even be a stretch.

The Padres have scored 3 runs or less in 18 of their 30 games, and 2 or less in 15 of those. 3 times they have been shutout and 9 times they have been held to one run or less. They haven't done this without notice, currently sitting in last place for runs, batting average, on base percentage and slugging percentage. They sit at 8 games under .500 and have the worst record in major league baseball.

They have lost 11 of their last 14 games and even when Jake or CY are pitching they are big under dogs, because they are still losing.

It is very rare when the Padres get coverage on ESPN, so I tend to get excited to see a story on the front page. Well its been a while, but they are back there with this story. I guess it is rock bottom when you are called "the Kansas City Royals of the National League." I guess Jim Edmonds wasn't exactly the big bat we needed in the off-season.

Peavy Drowns His Sorrows with Jager

Jake Peavy got his first loss of the year yesterday after giving up only 2 runs over 7 innings. I don't know what more you can expect from your starter, but the Padres need more. They didn't even manage to get him a win in his 8 innings of shutout ball in the infamous 22 inning game where the Pads managed only 1 run.

Though Jake Peavy is on pace for a second straight CY Young, he may not get there unless he can get some run support. It looks like things may be getting to him as he has started drinking away the losses that keep mounting.

Ok, this isn't really after the game, but if I was him I would be doing this after just about every start. Only two teams in all of baseball have a worse record, and only the Giants in the NL are even close to the Padres in runs scored (both tied at 84).

Coed Magazine found and posted these pictures, so thanks to them...maybe someone out there knows where they are from.

Maybe the rest of the team needs to relax with some Jager and Jake to have his success rub off on them. Not only does Jake lead all Padre starters in ERA, but he is second in batting average (.308) behind fellow starter Justin Germano (.400-Adrian leads the rest of the team at .280) Maybe we should send a few cases of Jager to the clubhouse.

A drunk Jake Peavy is probably better than most guys sober.

Joe Thatcher: Bad Start or Bad Trade?

This was a common image last night
Just about 1/8 of the way through the season and the Padres are sitting in third place, 3 games under .500 and 6.5 games out of first. The slow start isn't helped by the Diamondbacks tear through the first 20 games, picking up 15 wins along the way.

Meanwhile, the Padres bullpen has been failing to live up to expectations. The bullpen ERA for the Pads this year is 5.54, a far cry from previous years. Leading the charge for bad innings is Joe Thatcher. In 9.2 innings he has given up 15 hits, 5 BB, and 11 runs, resulting in a whopping 10.24 ERA.

Following last years trade of the Padres setup man, and the guy everyone expected to follow up as the closer when/if Trevor ever hung up his cleats, most Padre fans couldn't believe that we had gotten so little for a guy that had been a pretty steady pitcher. Joe Thatcher was the closest of the three minor leaguers to making the big show, along with Steve Garrison and Wil Inman.

Then Thatcher came out and threw some great innings at the end of the year and looked like another diamond in the rough that Kevin Towers had dug up. Maybe these other two guys would bolster our lineup some day too. KT has built so many amazing bullpens through no less than amazing scouting.

This one doesn't look to be shaping up too well. My question for you, is this: Was this a bad trade or is Thatcher just having a slow start?

After giving up 5 runs in his first 2 innings of work on the year, he settled down and allowed only 1 run in his next 6. That is what most of us expected from him. After last night, his second bad outing a row, he is starting to look less like a slow starter and more like an inconsistent reliever.

The last two outings, at least, were against very hot teams. The Dbacks and Astros have both been hitting the ball well.

Last year he finished his first stint in the majors with a 1.29 ERA in 22 outings. He inherited 20 runners and allowed a meager 4 to score. He held opponents to a .167 average and allowed only one HR in 21 innings. This means he has a high ceiling and it is far from time to give up on him, but lets hope hitters haven't figured him out and that his best is yet to come.

Longoria Signs with Rays For ever

I feel like I am taking crazy pills or something. Did the not so devil Rays just sign a rookie, three weeks into the season to a 9 year contract? How do you do that? This guy hasn't played a full month in a season and already he has a better contract then half the guys in the league.

Cole Hamels doesn't have a long term deal yet, and the guy who I can't help but to call Eva Longoria already does.

I don't get it. Hopefully the Rays' fans do.

What does everyone else think about this?