Everth Cabrera's bat flip and a Headley question

What a great still. Everth Cabrera comes up with the bases loaded and pounds the first pitch he sees, plating Yasmani Grandal with the winning run last nigh against the Reds.

 I love the confidence from ECab here -- look at that bat flip! He knows something that nobody else does . . .


Look at all those folks still sitting behind the plate. Must be the food coma that comes along with the price of a Sony Home Plate Club ticket.

I just found out the result of this game so I'm kind of excited. Waking up and watching the highlights on MLB is becoming my sad Time Warner Cable induced reality. I am adapting.

Glad to see that Latos pitched well without getting the win. He had a great quote that showed some maturity after the game:

"The rotation, everyone, has been pitching real well. It's baseball," Latos said. "I went out there in Cleveland and gave up seven runs and the team scored seven runs to back me up. Today was a grind offensively and defensively and pitching. Things didn't go our way today."

For a guy who always gets his maturity questioned that's a good quote. It's got your standard cliches but he also notes how his offense picked him up when he shit the bed in Cleveland. Good for him.

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A Headley Question

When people complain about Chase Headley they often cite his the following: he's terrible at turning water into wine, doesn't get clutch hits, he's more a false prophet than Savior, and he Ks too much.

Chase Headley does K a lot. Last night he went 1 for 3 with a walk, though strikeout was the mode by which Mat Latos retired Headley each time last night. Headley has now struck out 81 times in 356 PAs. That's one strikeout for every 4.4 PAs. Those are brutal numbers to look at but we can't dismiss his 50 walks and .374 OBP. Those numbers are good and they matter.

My question: Who does Chase Headley compare to in terms of ability to draw walks with a discerning eye but who also swings and misses with great frequency?

We have to keep in mind that there are plenty of guys who strikeout and walk with great frequency. They are called power hitters. Headley has 8 HRs and will likely finish with a career high this season but the total certainly won't be enough to qualify as power hitter.

Here's who I think of first: switch hitting Red Sox infielder, Mark Bellhorn!

Mark Bellhorn was the most frustrating guy to watch hit. He was brutal as a Padre but I'm thinking more of his time with the Red Sox. That was a guy who could get a walk but boy did he flail at pitches. In 2004 he came to the plate 620 times and K'd a whopping 177 (1K/3.5PA) of them while hitting a respectable17 HRs. But he also walked 88 times which led to a .373 OBP. I find these strikeout and walk totals to be such a strange dichotomy.

Who is Chase Headley? Will it even matter to Padres fans in a month?

Game 6: Padres lose game, series, and......the ability to make contact?

Today's game was a 4-2 defeat to the Rockies. Road misery thus endeth.

What's there to even say about this game?

• It doesn't seem to matter who gets penciled into the 1 and 2 holes of the line-up card. ALL fail miserably and equally. Everth Cabrera had two really nice ABs to start the day but in the end he only had strikeouts to show for the effort. He probably helped to nudge Ubaldo Jimenez out of the game a bit sooner but he didn't set the table for the rest of the team.
• Didn't matter if the table was set because all anyone did today was strikeout. A lot of Ks. All day long. All week long.
• Chase Headley gets the + for the week (see below).
• John Garland is.......well, he's just John Garland. He's in need of the dog food diet. Petco. Is that not funny? Fine......(click below to read more)

So week one ends and the Padres are in last place with a 2-4 record. Before the season began I made predictions and one of those was that the Padres would finish the season with 83 wins. This was a bold statement. The prediction however was made with the following caveats in mind:

1. The Padres would get off to a fast start (uhhh...that didn't happen!)
2. The team would enjoy a healthy season (uhhh...Chris Young is already on the DL!)

I'm not going to abandon all hope for this simple reason: look at who/where they played. The Padres have been absolutely miserable playing in Arizona over the years and many of the pundits picked Colorado as the class of the division. The Padres faced two tough aces in Dan Harren and Ubaldo Jimenez and were dealt the results most would have probably figured.

So what were realistic expectations for week one? I think to have finished at 3-3 would have been solid but instead we were a notch below at 2-4. We were in games but failed to cash in on opportunities...... and there were a lot of strikeouts. The team is young and struggle and pain are to be expected. Want growth? Everyone is striking out except Chase Headley: 2 Ks in 27 plate appearances. The others will begin to get it at some point.

Corey Brock [padres.com]
[Box Score]

Game 2: The last time I saw Chris Young pitch I tried to break Wade Boggs' record for beers consumed on a trip

Hey, the Padres won 6-3, placing them on the statistical fast track to an 81-81 season. That's .500 ball in the vernacular of the National Past Time.

Chris Young looked fantastic, which brings me to........ the last time I saw him play.

My buddy Al and I decided to go up to Anaheim to see the Padres play last summer during the inter-league schedule. Thought it would be good stuff as we'd never been to the Big A before and it would be an opportunity to ride the train, which is never dull. At that time the ol' legend of Wade Boggs' drinking prowess had crept forward from the recesses of my mind......you know the  legend don't you? It's been estimated by teammates of Wade Boggs that he had drank more than 50 cans of Miller Lite on a cross country commute to Seattle. Al and I figured we'd give the Chicken man a run for his money.......didn't work out that well........just had to pee a lot. What does this have to do with game #2 in 2010? Well....



That particular game was the last time that Chris Young had taken the mound before being sidelined for the duration of 2009. Let me tell you, CY was horrific. Just terrible. Had never seen him pitch so poorly and frankly I wanted a refund......from CY!!! I thought he should have paid me for the disgrace and my time and effort. After I found out his shoulder was injured in a bad way, about 64% of me felt like a d*ck.

Anyways.....he looked awesome tonight, and that's what matters. When you can bamboozle batters with an 86 mph fastball, the Gods are on your side. Padres. God. Was there any question? Let us move on.....

I've been jocking Everth Cabrera hard. He's "the straw that stirs the drink" and any other bit of hyperbole I can toss at the kid. But was I right? He goes 3 for 4 with a 2B, 3B, SB and 4 RBI. Hey, Bud Black! ECab should be hitting leadoff not eighth.

Chase Headley is looking good at the plate. He was 2 for 4 when he crushed a looooooong F8 in the 9th. I'm encouraged.

I have also jocked Will Venable in a big way......and he hit his first homerun.

Adrian Gonzalez is on a torrid pace after hitting his second home run in as many games. I suck at math sometimes......what's his current pace?
[Box Score]

Started-me-a-wonderin': The San Diego Padres and Yunel Escobar

After turning on the Padre game in the 8th inning, (EST start threw me) I saw Atlanta shortstop Yunel Escobar make a play and it started-me-a-wonderin'.

The Padres almost dealt Jake Peavy for Escobar and a few others back in November. I wasn't really in favor of the deal at the time for a couple of reasons:

1. I was delusional; not fully grasping the financial plight a divorce could bring on our club.
2. I didn't know too much about the players involved and really didn't want to do the research; laziness and a state of delusion conspiring together.

Today Yunel Escobar is hitting .303/.370/.452

The Wonderin':

1. Would the haul from the Jake to Atlanta trade in November of 2008 have been more beneficial than Jake to the Sox in July of 2009?
2. Would we have taken Everth Cabrera in the December, 2008 Rule V Draft had we traded for Escobar back in November (I think yes because ECab was a 2B)?
3. If we did take ECab would he have seen any playing time---being blocked by Escobar at SS and the Great Eckstein at 2B---may he have been returned to Colorado because he wasn't crackin' the line-up?
4. How would the Padres look with Escobar at SS and Cabrera at 2B?

Some of my wonderment is unknowable (2 & 3) but feel free to speculate and discuss, it may be fun.

The remainder of my reverie won't be revealed for a while (1 & 4) although if someone wants to look up the 2009 stat lines for the players and then draw some comparisons, I'd be stoked if you did.......by the way the Padres won in the 12th; Latos 7 shut out innings.

Tainted Cycles: Thanks Be To Troy Tulowitzki

Last night Troy Tulowitzki came to bat late in the game needing a triple the most difficult of the required four hits for The Cycle.

TT was gifted The Cycle when Alfonso Soriano bobbled the ball and then the relay, which had TT dead to rites, was dropped.

An excerpt from "Troy Tulowitzki's Cycle A Mockery Of Baseball's Hallowed Record", by Johnny Lawrence of the Bleacher Report:

How fair is it that Tulowitzki receives credit for accomplishing something only 246 players have in over one hundred years of baseball, despite the glaring no-calls?

Plati hand-wrapped and delivered Tulowitzki this historically significant feat, and I'm not so sure it should not be taken away from him for the sake of integrity.

The mistake was made in the scorer's box, not on the field, so do not blame Tulowitzki for his top-flight performance.

A far too generous scoring of the play cheapened the magnitude of this historically uncommon event.

There are two significant points here for San Diego Padre fans:

1. The Padres have yet to hit a cycle in their 40 year history. I'd love to see a cycle even if it were tainted by a homer score keeper! Actually I don't care, I'm more interested in the anomaly that our franchise has failed with 40seasons X 162 games....you do the math.
   
2. We should be praising Tulo's excellence, without which, we may not have been able to get Everth Cabrera in last winter's Rule V draft.

Cheers Cycle-laden Colorado!!!! It's their 5th one in a mere 16 seasons.

While a type of false choice, I'll take Everth Cabrera over The Cycle any day of the week.