Tagged: domination
We Survived!
Hooray! Interleague is over!! Low and behold, the San Diego Padres made it through without killing their season. They faltered a little, but I’d say that they more than survived: they thrived against their American League counterparts. They did something that a Padres team had not done in a very long time. They held their own and stood up to the mighty American League.
I know this doesn’t seem like a very big thing to some of you, but for us Padres fans, we know how meaningful this really is. The Padres went 9-6 in Interleague, which is a very good record. That was the best in our division. For example, the Dodgers went 3-9, which is where the Padres probably would have been if this was the team of years past. But obviously, something is different this year. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s there.
This final series against the Tampa Bay Rays of the American League East division, a very good team right now. They’re in series contention for their division. They’re right up there with the Yankees and the Red Sox. You know what my Padres did? They came in and took the first two games of the series, though they dropped the last game. But please. Two out of three against the Rays? I’ll take that any day.
A huge part of the Padres success this year has been their pitching. No doubt about it, we’ve got one of the best staffs around. On Tuesday, (future Jake Peavy) Mat Latos started the game and threw a gem. He went seven innings, allowing three hits, no runs, only walking one, but striking out eight. This guy is soooo amazing!!!
I am just so thrilled at how professional and solid these young pitchers are. Our minor league system really must been doing something right. These guys are professional major league pitchers. I know the last few years have been tough for us Padres fans, but don’t you think that time of waiting was worth getting to see this kind of pitching every day now? I mean, two years ago, all we had to look forward to was Jake Peavy pitching every fifth day. But now, we know that we have a chance to win every single day. Amazing.
Anyways, in that game, Chase Headley singled in our first run and Will Venable got hit by pitch to drive in our second one. Mike Adams had a pretty rough outing, giving up one run, but Heath Bell got a four-out save to win the game.
In the second game, Kevin Correia started and didn’t have that great of a game. He went 5.1 innings, allowing two runs on three hits with five walks. Not the best, but it’s a good thing that the offense made up for it.
Will Venable hit a two-run homer in the fifth. Adrian hit a solo homer in the sixth. In the top of the seventh, Jerry Hairston hit a bro-bi to break the 3-3 tie. Then, in the top of the ninth, Chase Headley hit a solo homer to make the game 5-3. Heath Bell allowed one run while he was trying to get the save, but thankfully he was able to close it out for the series win.
There were two outstanding defensive plays by Adrian Gonzalez and Aaron Cunningham which definitely helped us win the game. I love our defense!
The third game was kind of belch because we lost. Wade LeBlanc didn’t have a good outing. Oscar Salazar hit a two-run homer, but our pitchers gave up three homers. Adrian broke his 11-game hitting streak.
But the good news is that we did extremely well in interleague. We dominated. We are a much better team than years past. I don’t know about you, but I believe that this is a special team. Something great is going on here. I just love the fact that we are in first place and that we’ve been holding it for a very long time. I am so happy that we seem to be heading for a possible championship…but I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, we have to focus on dominating all teams that dare to confront us. We’ve got to keep this winning thing up, and I have complete confidence in my boys that they’ll be able to do that.
Do you guys think we need another bat? I’ve been thinking about this question. On one hand, the guys we have right now have been winning consistently for a long period of time. They’ve been getting by, and at some times, dominating. I love the chemistry and balance of this team right now, and I’m worried that any major change would severely disrupt that. (For example, trading away Adrian Gonzalez.) I feel like we’re doing fine right now in terms of bats, but would we be even better by adding a bat? I’m just not sure. I guess I’m so happy with this team and the way they’re playing right now that I don’t want anything to happen that would change it for the worse.
I guess I shouldn’t be worried. Things will work out. And hey, we’ve got some celebrating to do now. WE SURVIVED INTERLEAGUE!!!!
GO FIRST-PLACE PADRES!!!
Domination!!
We won an absolutely great game last night! I was very relieved that we didn’t continue that atrocious thing they were doing over the weekend (*cough losing cough*). Not only did we win the game, but we got a little more breathing room in our NL West lead!
Clayton Richard threw seven solid innings: three hits, one run, three walks, five strikeouts. Great, great outing.
Adrian Gonzalez hit his eighth homer of the season. Chase Headley singled in a run. And guess what Kyle Blanks did for us? He got hit-by-pitch with the bases loaded. Beautiful, Blanksie. Hey, if he can’t do anything with the bat, might as well do whatever he can.
Chase and David Eckstein had two hits each on the night. Mike Adams and Heath Bell had good outings, but they both had to work themselves out of some jams that they got themselves into in the first place.
There were a lot of big things about this game, but another one of them was that we have now won seven games against the Giants this season…out of seven games. YES! That’s what I call complete domination!! Let’s make it eight tonight.
Speaking of tonight, Mat Latos is pitching. AHHHHH!! This guy is seriously becoming one of my favorites. He’s young, he’s cute, not to mention that he’s an AMAZING pitcher! Last week’s outing was sooo cool, I can’t wait to see what’s he’s going to do for an encore. It’s going to be goood.
The Latest Leaders list for the month of April just came out, and this blog is #11!! I want to thank all of you guys sooo much for reading consistently. I absolutely love doing this, and it’s so cool to know that other people enjoy reading. THANK YOU!!
GO FIRST-PLACE PADRES!!!
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Back To The Giants
I am sooo bummed about this weekend. Not even funny. It’s pretty sad that we lost three games in a row, but against the Dodgers too? Argh.
It was a horrible series!!! The only positive I think of is like, Wade LeBlanc yesterday. He only allowed one run in seven innings. It was a great outing. But we lost the game 1-0. The night before we lost the game 4-1. The day before that was 4-3. It was an awful awful awful series.
I wouldn’t say that it was all the pitching’s fault. Maybe on Friday it was. But Kevin Correia was amazing on Saturday. Sure, he allowed four runs, but his offense wasn’t there for him. That game was unbelievable. As I sat there and watched Gameday, there was a feeling just totally overwhelming me that there was no possible way that we could come close to winning that game. It was the worst feeling ever. I tried keeping the faith, but the offense was giving me nothing. It was unbelievable.
After that amazing sweep of the Giants and that amazing outing by Mat Latos on Wednesday, I think we expected a lot more from this team. I have no idea what could have possibly happened in a matter of hours, but the team that came out there on Friday night was not the same team we saw a few days before. It was crazy.
Did you know that we had never lost three games in a row all season before yesterday? We’ve been amazing. The Dodgers have been not so amazing. Why were our roles reversed this weekend? It just doesn’t make any sense.
We are still hanging on by a thread to our first place lead, half a game. If we hadn’t swept the Giants earlier in the week, we would have lost that lead. I’m thankful that we still have it, but we’re walking on very precarious ground. We’ve got to get right back on our horse now. And guess what, we’ve got perfect timing here: we’re playing the Giants for two games here at Petco.
We were able to beat them at ATT&T, so we’ll be able to beat them at home…right? Right?
Gameplan: forget about the Dodgers series like, right now. Erase it from the memory. Focus on beating the Giants. Be thankful that we’re not facing Timmy, but hope that the Giants are scared that they have to face Mat Latos again. Let’s get this.
Come on, boys. I know you’re better than this.
GO FIRST-PLACE PADRES!!!
Unbelievable!
Okay, so I was shocked that we were able to win two in a row. Saturday’s game against the Diamondbacks was amazing! We won 5-0, and it was just a great game. I was thrilled that we finally won our first series of the year. It was about time! I was very happy that we were able to get the series, and I would have been content with that. But my boys weren’t. They wanted to get all three, and guess what? They did!
This is the team who was 3-6 coming into this weekend’s series. They had yet to win a series at all. Things were not clicking for them at all, and then suddenly, they came out and won three games. It’s seriously unbelievable. I’m so amazed at this turnaround!
Sure, it was only one series, but we won all three games in that series. The first game was a huge come-from-behind-walk-off win. The second one was a dominating shutout. And the third…my goodness, that was a game to remember.
Wade LeBlanc was called up on Saturday night to take Chris Young’s start. Speaking of Chris Young, things are not looking good. Sigh.
Wade had an amazing spring and was really impressive. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough room for him on the major league team, but he was sent down to Triple-A with the promise that he would be back up in the majors in no time. We hate to see a guy like CY go down so quickly, and Wade was definitely up here faster than he thought he would be. Still, it’s a good thing that we do have guys like Wade who are great pitchers and can come up anytime we need them.
Wade threw five innings, allowing seven hits, one run, two walks, and struck out seven. Talk about an incredible outing, that’s what Wade gave us yesterday. Man, he was sooo good! I think that was the best outing by any starting pitcher so far this season. He’s got a beautiful ERA of 1.80.
The Diamondbacks got a run in the top of the first and another one in the top of the sixth off of Edward Mujica. But in the bottom of the seventh, my boys found their bats.
Scotty Hairston hit a solo homer to start the inning. BANG! We’ve got our first run on the board.
Two outs later, Everth Cabrera singled and stole second. Jerry Hairston Jr. doubled, sending Everth home to tie the game. Adrian was intentionally walked, which brought up Chase Headley.
Chase hit the ball way out into left-center field. Jerry and Adrian scored, and the throw from the outfield was caught by nobody. Chase kept chugging around the bases, and with nobody covering home and the baseball somewhere around the mound, he scored the fifth run of the inning. I’d call in an inside-the-park home run, since it’s been a super long time since we had one of those, but it was ruled a double and an error. Oh well. Still, it was an amazing hit and play.
In the ninth, Heath Bell came in to try to get his third save of the year. Of course, he had to make things interesting by allowing a run, but he was able to close the 5-3 win and the series sweep.
Complete domination. I love that we were able to be at home and sweep the team that took two out of three in our opening series. We seriously dominated, and it was soo much fun to see!
I’d like to talk a little bit about how the NL West is shaping up so far. It’s actually been very interesting to watch all the teams in it, ’cause it’s been very different than the past few years have been.
The Giants have been on top since the season started. They’re 8-4 right now. In the middle, we have the Rockies, Dodgers, and the Padres all at 6-6. Arizona’s at the bottom with a record of 5-7. What has been really interesting to me is that the Dodgers have been matching the Padres almost exactly.
I don’t know how the NL West is going to play out, but as always, it will be interesting to see how things pan out over the season.
I’m so proud of my boys. It was amazing what they were able to do this weekend, and I really really hope that they keep it going!
We’ll be playing the Giants for three games here at home. This could be a crucial series between the two teams. I’m really excited about my boys, and I hope that they are able to keep dominating.
GO PADRES!!
Unfinished Business 