First off I want to say I'm extremely proud of our pads tonight and the past two series. I think we have really been battling out there and playing good ball. Hitting IS contagious and thats what happened tonight. Its great to see headley, ludwick (yes i changed his name back from Ludwig because of his recent good deeds), and hawpe finally starting to tear the cover off the ball. I think the hitter I am most stoked about though is Maybin. The guy is a 5 tool player and could be developing into a future star. I mean how sick would it be to have our very own ken griffey jr., well minus some homers and add in some steals but its a kinda cool comparison right? I have always liked Maybin and am really glad he is starting to come alive as a padres. I think out of all our players he has the biggest upside. I like venable also and think he has all the tools to be a great player but sometimes it takes just being a baseball guy and venable has not played baseball for that long (he was a basketball player).
Secondly I would like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed Matty's article today. Cantu's stache is VERY steezy pleazy! I like it that hawpe has copied him (maybe its coicidence that hes doing better? eh eh?) lol. Ive always liked Cantu and hawpe so i hope they keep it up. But ya I must say I wish I had Mathews very creative language and speech. I too have believed that the padres overall lineup is better than last years and have been patiently waiting for my dreams to appear. It looks like the countless hairs I lost to my carpet might not have been in vain after all. So kudos to MattyIce.
Though I am starting to change my opinion that the JV may finally be getting promoted to Varsity, I am still a little skeptical. I came along a great blog article by Brian Koke from the Friarhood on facebook that was a very interesting read. I thought I would share as it points out some of my own views and reasons for still being scared for our offense: http://www.friarhood.com/voice-of-the-fan/koke-korner/961-this-is-a-symbol-of-what-it-takes.html
Going back and looking over all of our wins and losses the past few games I found that our current winning ways could be just a mirage of whats really happening. In May we have a 3-3 record at home while we continue to mash on the road with a 5-3 record. Though are offense has been tearing it up lately on the road, we still continue to get stuck in the Petco park heavy marine layer at home. You would be hard pressed to find anyone on our team actually tearing it up IN petco. You may look at Maybin's states and say hey he has been on FIRE. On the road he has been sporting a very nice .333 with 4 homers and bunch of rbis. At petco........ a measly .213. And its the same with a lot of other guys. Lets take headley for instance since hes played at petco more than most current padres. He still has terrible numbers at home but better numbers away.
What scares me the most is, though I do think our hitting is coming around and we do have a better lineup built for petco this year, we still have to get it DONE in petco to be successful. Even though last year Adrian did not hit extremely well at Petco he still hit in the .270's with 10 homers. Do we have anyone on our roster that can do that at Petco THIS year? We will see. We also had very very good defense last year along with exceptional pitching. Our bullpen is still lights out like last year but our starting pitching and defense has not been as superb as last year. Defense has been a little shaky as of late. Of course like last year Latos had a slow start only to tear off like what 18 great games in a row?
So after reading the article by Brian koke, what do you guys think? Move the fences at petco in a lil to give hitters more of a chance? I personally think yes but not a lot. Just to give some more cofidence to padres hitters. Think about what just a little bit more offense could do if our pitching stays solid??? We continue to have a great road record so we just gotta wins some games at home and we can be at the top of the pack. I do love pitchers duels and even though we didn't hit much last year, we hit enough and it was very exciting. I always value the W above all else but maybe a lil more hitting advantage is all we need.
Either way like I said before hitting is contaigious and it was we needed to get back to our winning ways. I'm liking the way May is shaping up and think that warm weather will bring some good baseball to san diego. Keep that bats going and bring it to SD baby!!! Thats all you need in petco is some confidence and you dudes will smash some balls into the western metal supply! Im pourin a 40 oz. of premium mickeys malt liquor out right now to the pads whooping ass on the Brewders, Seamen, and Birds at petco next week (ok so im not really pouring a 40 oz. out right now lol it is only tuesday, but its the thought that counts!). Until next time lucky shalaleys and yoda back pack luck to the padres! This is your friar faitherful PattyIce over and out!
Am I wrong in saying that the FIRST thing that John Moors did before the '95 season was making that famous palm-tree fence at The Murph? Like instantly he did that, Nate Colbert coulda used that move first off, but that extra 10+ feet park wide didn't affect the Padres in winning the division the next year or doing something in 1998, I forget what though.
ReplyDelete