2010 Baseball Thread No. 2 (which was my Little League number!)

I'm a native San Diegan and a lifelong Padre fan, and I'm trying to keep from drinking the early season Kool-Aid ... the lack of offense this weekend against the Dodgers makes that real easy.

Pitching staff combines on a two-hitter ... and you lose 1-0. Unacceptable.

Nobody's hitting, but the kid Kyle Blanks especially is stinking it up. He has to go down to Portland and find his swing. Batting .162 after today's action. He needs a hot streak to even REACH the freaking Mendoza line.

 

Look at their road-only record, and try not to gag.

 

Worst road record in baseball and now back where I expected them to be, despite the mirage that was 10 wins in 11 games a few weeks ago ... last place

 

I think people assumed way too much for Blanks this year, myself included. Headley is slowing down after a strong start, though I think he will still be useful. They just don't have the talent offensively.

I am curious about LeBlanc. He certainly benefitted from facing the Dodgers without Ethier and Ramirez, but he has been very good since being inserted into the rotation despite having a high batting average on balls in play (BABIP) coming into this one.

 

I don't want to break my arm patting myself on the back here, but I had seen Jeff Francoeur play enough to know (and said many times on here) that his struggles in Atlanta were nobody's fault but his own. The Braves knew what they were doing when they dumped him for virtually nothing (Ryan Church, a guy who is now fourth outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates).

From David O'Brien's blog on AJC.com (He was writing about Francoeur because the Braves face the Mets for two games starting tonight):

http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-braves-blog/2010/05/16/chipper-at-leadoff-spot-says-hed-understand/?cxntfid=blogs_atlanta_braves_blog

Yikes indeed.

 

I'd just like to say I really enjoyed watching the White Sox let a lazy pop fly drop directly between their three swifest fielders yesterday. Besides it not happening to a nicer team, it's fun to watch the Royals capitalize on someone else's epic fuck-ups for once, instead of the other way round.

And while it's a small sample size, rookie Blake Wood is someone not named Soria in the bullpen who has actually recorded outs.

 

BW looks awful promising, but it's that small sample size that's keeping me from getting too exciting. Still - it's crushing to think what this season might look like right now if they had even a single guy out of the pen beyond Soria who could get outs on a consistent basis.

 

So, with a 1/2-game lead over the Cardinals, the first-place Reds are the only first-place team with a negative run differential, at -1. All the other division leaders have an average run differential of +46. Heck, only one second-place team (the sub-.500 A's) have a negative run differential.

The NL East and West each have four teams with run differentials above 0. Washington and Arizona are the only two in the red.

Does any of this tell us anything we didn't already know (like that the Reds probably aren't long for first place)? Probably not. But I thought it was interesting, and since the person I'd usually talk about this stuff with isn't online, I figured I'd post it here.

 

Surgery for Nick Johnson. What a surprise. Out 4 to 6 more weeks.

 

This is why playing games with Damon was a dumb idea. Not that the Yankees don't have enough hitting to overcome it, but they decided to get cute and now it's going to cost them. Maybe it will be in the form of a diminished offense. Or, more likely, they will go out and trade for/buy somebody else during the season.

 

I don't think they miss Damon too much. He couldn't field or throw and had lost a lot of speed.

I certainly wouldn't have given him more than one year.

And if Gardner continues to play like he has, he's an upgrade.