Well, we’re back! The All-Star Game is over. Heath Bell went a little nuts, and Adrian hit a home run. Of course.

But now we’re back to reality, and that is the reality of your last-place San Diego Padres. No doubt about it, we deserve to be in last place, and our first game back from the All-Star Game was proof enough of that.

Here’s how the miserable thing went: Aaron Harang had a stellar outing of seven innings, five hit ball. We had a one-nothing lead until the top of the ninth, where Heath Bell blew the save and gave up a home run to Aubrey Huff. Aubrew Huff creeps me out, because I remember seeing his baseball card when I was like seven or eight. This guy has been around for a looong time.

So that home run stunk. Then of course we went into extra innings. And it all miserably ended when the Giants got five runs in the top of the 12th to win the game.

FACEPALM.

I don’t know what we’re going to do with ourselves. Especially now that it looks like the days are numbered for Heath and whoever else can get us a minor leage prospect. Who’s going to be our closer if we trade Heath? Luke Gregerson? He was the one who ruined the game for us in the 12th last night, thank you very much. Or maybe the front office thinks that we won’t need a closer anymore because we’ll never get to the point where it will actually matter to win a game in the ninth.

Oy. At least we have Trevor’s retirement ceremony to look forward to. I’m going to that, by the way. SOOOOOOOOOOOO excited!!!! I seriously think I’m going to completely break down and cry. Man, it’s going to be an amazing day 😀

GO PADRES!!!!!

I hate it when the Padres get the bases loaded. You know why? Because there’s an 100% chance that they aren’t going to get a run in, especially if it’s bases loaded with no outs.

It’s just pathetic!!! This game was sooo heartbreaking. First of all, it was against the Dodgers. We can’t lose to the Dodgers because one, they’re our rivals, and two, they’re in last place instead of us and we do not want to go back there. Second of all, both pitchers threw incredible games. Mat Latos went 7.1 innings, allowing five hits and one run with six strikeouts. Chad Billingsley, who won the game, threw eights innings, only allowing four hits and five walks. He really shut us down, but Latos was on his game as well, which was really good to see.

The Dodgers scored their run in the bottom of the ninth off Mat Latos. Josh Spence came in to get the last two outs, and I think he’s been doing an amazing job. Spotless ERA so far and really got us out of that inning.

But then came the ninth. It looked so promising, but I should have known, I should have known that there was no possible way that my Padres could score one stinking run.

Cameron Maybin, lead-off double. Anthony Rizzo and Rob Johnson, both hit by the first pitches thrown to them. Bases loaded. No outs. Two consecutive strikeouts and a flyout leaves us right back where we started: in the land of patheticness.

I don’t know what to say to that. It gives me a headache just thinking about it, it’s so awful.

We left 11 runners on base. How did the team do with runners in scoring position? Oh, just 0-for-11. That’s all.

This is not our season, man. Here we are on the brink of the All-Star game, and 40-50, 10.5 games behind first place. I’d like to think that we’ll be seeing the team who won the past 10 out of 16 games, but I doubt it. I’d like to think that we’ll be seeing the team that beat Tim Lincecum and the Giants last Monday, but I doubt we will. I’m sure we’ll have beautiful spurts of winning like we just did, but it’s not going to get us anywhere.

But let’s beat the Dodgers anyway. Might as well.

GO PADRES!!!

Today was a great day for Padres baseball.

Entirely because we got the sweet victory of defeating Tim Lincecum and the Giants.

It all started in the top of the first where the Padres got three singles and a sacrifice fly to score two runs.

Clayton Richard started the game for the Padres and went just long enough to get the win, five innings with no runs allowed. Ernesto Frieri unfortunately allowed two runs in the bottom of the sixth to bring the Giants from 3-0 to 3-2. Josh Spence, Chad Qualls, Mike Adams, and Heath Bell also pitched, with no damage done until Heath made things very interesting in the bottom of the ninth. Overall, a very solid day on the pitching side.

Our offense wasn’t too shabby either. We had 11 hits in this game. Every player in the starting lineup had a hit, and Will Venable and Jason Barlett had two. Will hit a big insurance-run homer in the top of the ninth.  

So we won, 5-3! It was so sweet. So so so sweet. Especially handing Lincecum the loss, that was probably the best part. I mean, these guys have always kind of been our rivals since they’re in our division, but they instantly became hated in the eyes of Padres fans because of what happened last season. That was our division. We had the NL West all season, and the stupid Giants swooped in and stole in right out of our hands and went on the win the World Series. I hate the Giants.

This four-game series is pretty important. I’d say that we need to win it to have any hope for our season, from a game perspective and from a front office perspective.

Let’s do this.

I hope you all have a wonderful Fourth of July!!

GO PADRES!!

Tonight’s game was almost exactly what happened to the Padres last night, but with one tiny difference: we scored a run.

The starting pitcher for the Mariners, Doug Fister, threw nine innings, just like Jason Vargas did the night before. He allowed six hits, one run, and one walk with seven strikeouts. But it was that one walk that was the key to this game.

Cameron Maybin received that walk in the top of the fifth inning with one out. Apparently there were only three balls in that walk though, so the Padres really caught a break. But anyways, soon after, Alberto Gonzalez singled him in for our first and only run.

On the other side of the mound, Cory Luebke was outstanding for the Padres. He threw six innings, only allowing two hits with seven strikeouts. And those two hits were the only ones that the Mariners got in the entire game. It was fantastic!

Chad Qualls, Mike Adams, and Heath Bell threw the last few innings after Cory and held the Mariners to absolutely nothing. Really solid game.

I’m so glad that the boys got the win tonight. Now hopefully we’ll be able to get the series win tomorrow!

GO PADRES!!!

AHHHH!! Last night’s game was amazing!!

We totally exploded and scored a ton of runs – at Petco Park! I guess the confidence booster from the Red Sox series was pretty legitimate.

In the bottom of the seventh inning, the score was 5-2 Padres. The Braves had just scored those two runs in the top of the inning on a two-run homer by Freddie Freeman.

Then suddenly, we got on a roll. With one out, Orlando Hudson singled, setting up a Ryan Ludwick double to score the first run of the inning. Then Anthony Rizzo was intentionally walked (mistake), giving Cameron Maybin the opportunity to triple in two runs. An out later, Alberto Gonzalez got on base with an error, which also allowed Maybin to score. Jesus Guzman then hit his first major league home run to give us our 11th run of the game.

It was so great. I was pretty much staring at my computer going, another hit? Another run? Wow!

Such a good game. Tim Stauffer had a great start, and Pat Neshek did well. And then Josh Spence made his major league debut by going 1-2-3 in the top of the ninth. Congrats, Josh, and welcome to the majors.

I’m really happy that Anthony had a good game. I was starting to get a little worried about him, but he finally had a big game last night. Two hits, including a double, three runs scored, and one walk.

It was just an amazing game. It felt so good to win by such a large margin, and to have so many fabulous contributions from so many different guys.

On a side note, Kevin Kouzmanoff hit a grand slam for the Sacramento River Cats last night! Yay!!!!

Dustin Moseley is going tonight. Hopefully the momentum will carry once again.

GO PADRES!!!