Tagged: unfinished business
Losing Control
(Photo courtesy/lobshots.com)
In the first few games of this season, pitcher Andrew Cashner has been getting notice because of his pitching speed. Though hitting 100+ is impressive, it’s not when you don’t have any control. Like walking three straight batters in a tie-game situation.The Padres lost 9-8 to the Dodgers tonight in a very bizarre game where the Padres were able to come back from a deficit only to hand the win back.
For the first three innings, the Padres went 1-2-3 except for the first inning, when Cameron Maybin led off the game with a single. Other than that, Aaron Harang put down nine in a row. Just lovely.
Finally, Will Venable broke that with a leadoff home run in the top of the fourth. The Dodgers had a 4-0 lead at the point, so that was huge. We ended up getting three runs in that inning, closing the Dodgers’ lead to one run.
But then the Dodgers got four more runs in the bottom of the fourth. We didn’t score until the top of the seventh, where we got three MORE runs. So run production was not really our problem in this game. We had nine hits, while the Dodgers only had six.
What was the problem was the ninth inning. Going into the inning, we were losing 8-6. Chris Denorfia walked to start the inning, and then there were two swinging strikeouts. Got that, two outs. The Padres do not do well with two outs ever.
Except for today.
Chase Headley hit a two-run game-tying home run WITH TWO OUTS in the top of the ninth inning. Bam. 8-8 all.
So we’re feeling good, right?
Cashner comes in to pitch the bottom of the ninth. We get two quick outs. And then the trouble starts. Andrew walks three batters in a row to load the bases. Joe Thatcher replaces Andrew and throws four straight balls to walk in the winning run. What. On. Earth.
Absolutely pathetic. The bullpen LET US DOWN. That should not have happened. I mean, Joe could have had the decency to at least throw a strike, right? PATHETIC.
Not much is giving me hope for these Padres right now. Sure, it’s insanely early in the season and I’m not giving up on them yet. But this is not fun.
Thankfully, we have the Major League Debut of Joe Wieland to look forward to tomorrow. No pressure, dude. The team is just 2-6 and in desperate need of a win, no biggie.
GO PADRES!
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Hoping for a breakthrough…
Field view from Opening Day.
What are we going to do with this team??
Tonight we lost our third game in a row. Meaning that we’ve opened the season with three losses. This is miserable. We absolutely can’t hit, and our pitching is not strong enough to keep us in the game long enough to score some runs. We’ve only scored eight runs in the whole season, and five of them were tonight.
Oh, that’s good, you might be thinking. Five runs in a game is not bad. BUT what you do not realize is that we only had four hits and three of the runs came in by walk. Nothing to say for our hitting prowess, just the weakness of the opposing pitcher.
Don’t get me wrong, the comeback we had was huge. We were down 5-0 going into the bottom of the fifth, and we were able to get five runs to tie the game in that inning. Chase Headley, Jesus Guzman, and Nick Hundley got the walk-in RBIs. So that was a crazy inning.
The game stayed tied all the way until the 11th inning, when that kid Dee Gordan hit an RBI double to break the tie and put the Dodgers up 6-5. Then the bottom of the 11th was really frustrating. We got the lead runner on by walk, sacrificed him over, and then got two quick outs. Naturally, we’re able to get the potential tying run on base and then decide not to do anything about it.
On the bright side, we had no errors.
The starting pitching so far has not been very good at all. Dustin Moseley went five innings today, allowing five hits and five runs. Then a bazillion guys came in from the bullpen and did very well until the 11th.
So we’re 0-3. Against the Dodgers. In Opening Week. This is not fun.
Hopefully we will be able to at least pull of the win tomorrow. PLEASE.
GO PADRES!
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Top 100 MLBlogs of 2011: #6
Unfinished Business is the sixth most popular MLB.com fan blog for the year of 2011.
Last year I was #8, so I guess I’ve made progress this year despite being insanely busy. Actually, this was probably the lowest year yet in terms of content, and I still gained two spots.
I was busy this year, mostly with finishing high school, working on The Telescope and spending a ton of time with friends. And of course, being a fan of the Padres. We had a terrible year. It was sad. But 2012 is a new year, and maybe all these trades will actually help us out. Who knows.
I just want to say thank you to every single one of my readers, whether you read every post or one every once in a while. Padres fans really are the best fans because we have the deal with one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball. But we love them despite it all. So thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts and my rants and my love for Padres baseball.
I’ve been doing this for over three years (WOW!) and I don’t plan on stopping soon. My sixth season of Padres fandom is coming up as well. Crazy stuff.
Thank you again. You guys are amazing.
GO PADRES!
Countdown to Trevor’s Ceremony: Enjoyable Reading
I’ve written a ton of blog posts about Trevor Hoffman. A TON. (I’m even wearing a Trevor Hoffman shirt in my main blog picture <- cool, huh?) Especially after he became a free agent. I’m linking them all here, but if you don’t feel like reading all of them, there are two-must read ones, posts that I consider to be some of the best things I’ve ever written.
MUST READS:
- Always Belong To Us – No matter where Trevor went (or was forced to go, ahem), he will always be a Padre. He will always be our All-Time Saves leader.
- Why Trevor? – I could not believe what the front office was telling us. I was upset, confused, and thinking, how can you let someone like Trevor Hoffman go?
The rest:
- Is Trevor’s Time Over? – When we first started hearing the rumors.
- 7 Reasons for Trevor to Stay in San Diego – As if there needed to be a reason for Trevor to stay.
- Game 163: A Fan’s Perspective – This one is a low point in Trevor’s career. Maybe one of the worst games of his whole life. It was devastating, but the way he handled it was an incredible example.
- Trevor Update – Trevor was a free agent at this point. Notice how I say that he’ll get to 600 saves in two years, and what do you know, he did.
- Trevor Time is Really Over… – Trevor signs with the Brewers. Sad day.
- A Tribute to Trevor – The first of many.
- A Tribute to Trevor – In Pictures – Yep, another tribute.
- MLBlogs’ first ever support group gathering – I was so upset about the whole situation that my friends in the blogosphere decided to get together and help me out. It really, really touched me, and man, it’s funny too.
- Good-bye, Trevor!! – This post is awesome because it has a Lord of the Rings analogy. A pretty good one, too, if I do say so myself.
- A Tribute to Trevor…Yes, ANOTHER One – This was a few months after the trade, when baseball was starting back up again and it was really hitting me that he wasn’t going to be here anymore.
- Waiving Trevor– Trevor was put on waivers after his first season with the Brewers, and I thought for a second that there might be hope of him coming back to the Padres.
- Forever a Padre – Save 600 with the Brewers.
- Trevor’s Time To Retire – Finally coming back to the Padres!
I hope you were able to find one or two that interested you and helped you get ready for the weekend. For me, looking back at all these makes me so thankful that we had one of the classiest guys in the game here, in San Diego, for so many years. I’m so glad that we’re going to have him for many years to come.
One day and 13 hours!!!
GO PADRES!!!
Yay for WordPress!
Check out the new digs!! I’m so excited and so far, really pleased with MLBlogs.com’s new setup. WordPress is definitely a 1000 times better than Movable Type, so I can’t wait to make my blog a lot better with all WordPress has to offer.
This is going to be great. Welcome back to Unfinished Business, and as always, GO PADRES!!!!!
Top Five :D
You guys are awesome.
Just sayin’.
In January’s Latest Leader’s list, Unfinished Business is #5. I am consistently amazed and humbled by the way you guys read my blog. All I can say is THANK YOU. Thank you for wanting to hear the rants about the Padres from one girl. Thank you for your support of me and this blog. I never imagined where this would go when I made it 2 1/2 years ago. I hope that I will be able to continue to write about my boys for you guys for a long time.
And of course, I must dedicate this ranking to my boy 🙂
Be still my heart. Oh wow.
Seriously. That guy is way too cute.
ANYWAYS, we are ridiculously close to pitchers and catchers reporting. I’m soooo excited!! I was just thinking the other day how much I miss baseball. I’m usually so busy during the offseason that I barely notice that baseball is gone, which is a good thing, but I’m SOO excited that it’s coming back. It’s been waaaaay too long.
But before everyone heads out to Spring Training, we’ve got Fan Fest in a week. I’m really hoping that I’ll be able to make it. There’s some technical details that need to be worked out, but if all goes well, I will be out there at my second home, Petco Park, in a week. By the way, I’m planning to wear my Adrian jersey, but I will definitely have Kouz on my sleeve. Maybe I’ll use the picture above. It’s just waaaaay too cute. Whew.
Well, thank you guys again so much!!!!
GO PADRES!!
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2011 Baby!!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I am soooo excited for 2011. It’s kind of creepy how fast it’s here already, but I’m excited nonetheless.
2010 was a great year, no doubt about it. Especially for Padres baseball. Our season was amazing!! We had a season that far exceeded all the expectations of just about everybody. But even as the season went on, and we won much more than seemed possible, not many people believed in us. Of course, the faithful did. The die-hards did. We believed in them all the way up to the last game of the season, when our only hope was to win against the soon-to-be World Champions. We weren’t able to come through in that game, but it was still a season worth celebrating.
There were some sad moments this year, most memorably, at the very beginning of the year, in January, when Kevin Kouzmanoff was traded. That hurt me very, very deeply. It was really hard to see him leaving my team, and my fanhood did suffer because of it. But he’s still my baby, no matter where he’s playing. He’s in Oakland now, but I’m still cheering for him and hoping that maybe someday he’ll get to come back to the Padres. The “Kouz Krush” lives on! (Thanks to unclejackie for that wonderful phrase!)
We also lost Adrian Gonzalez, which was quite the blow, but I guess it was easier to handle. We all knew that it was coming and it was handled so smoothly that it’s easy to deal with. Also, he’s going to the Red Sox, my second favorite team. At least he didn’t go to the Yankees. I would have been sooo upset if he had gone to the Yankees.
This was also a big year for my blog. I celebrated my second blog birthday, which was very fun. I also found myself in the Top 10 Latest Leaders for the first time ever, and have stayed in there consistently over the next few months.
Thank you all so much. This year was a blast, and I’m looking forward to more blogging and more Padres baseball in the year ahead. I’m also really looking forward to the FanFest, in which I will be meeting a lot of you through the Twitter meetup and just walking around Petco Park. I can’t wait to start a new season with a new team and hopefully get to watch some great Padres baseball.
Have a great New Year, everyone.
GO PADRES!!!!
The End for Adrian?
So, the Red Sox and the Padres are talking about an Adrian Gonzalez deal right now, and it looks pretty serious. I am not okay with letting Adrian go.
I know that this was inevitable, Adrian leaving, but I still don’t want it to happen. Even if you don’t know anything about Padres baseball, you’ll know that Adrian Gonzalez plays for us because he’s the face of the team. He’s the only one left. First we got rid of Jake Peavy, than Trevor, and now it looks like Adrian’s out the door. Of course, we still have Heath Bell, but you can’t base an organization’s face around the closer. I don’t think it really works.
I’m just going to say that if Adrian gets traded, the Padres as a business are going to suffer. Unless we get someone the caliber of Josh Beckett or David Ortiz in return, I believe that the fanbase will shrink considerably. I know that even aquiring Aaron Harang has turned my sister off completely to the Padres, but trading Adrian Gonzalez…for the average fan, who on earth do you go to a Padres game to watch?
I do have to admit that I would love to get Jacoby Ellsbury here. I love that guy. And going to the Red Sox isn’t the worst thing for a player like Adrian to do. At least it’s not the Yankees. But losing a guy like Adrian…man. Hometown boy, long-time player, face of the franchise…I don’t really see how trading him is going to benefit you.
Okay, I know that if we do trade him, we’re going to get a lot in return. A lot. But I think the Padres are still going to take a huge blow.
I hate losing players. I hate losing guys who have helped us so much and in so many ways. Adrian’s just been incredible for us, and I really don’t want to lose him.
Adrian Gonzalez is my 8-year-old brother’s favorite player. He loves playing baseball. He loves pretending to be Adrian Gonzalez. I don’t have the heart to tell him that his favorite player is about to be traded. And I know that my little brother isn’t the only kid in this city who loves Adrian. Kids look up to this guy. It’s going to be pretty tough for a lot of them.
Well, it’s a good thing that the Red Sox are my second favorite team.
I love you, Adrian. Thank you for everything.
GO PADRES!!!
Winning the World Series: Unfinished Business
The Latest Leaders list for October came out last night, and I’m #7!!!! I’m so excited 🙂 Just wanted to thank you all so much for your faithful support and for coming back to read what I have to say. It means so much to me!
I thought I’d talk a little today about my blog’s title, which, as you should all know, is “Unfinished Business.”
I got the name from a then-GM Kevin Towers quote after the 2007 season. During the 2007 season, all you Padres fans know, was the Worst Game Ever. After a remarkable season, we found ourselves tied with the Colorado Rockies for the Wild Card. So, we went to Colorado for a one-game playoff. It was October 1, 2007. A Monday night.
It was literally the worst game ever. Our ace, Jake Peavy, was horrible. Adrian hit a grand slam. The game went back and forth the whole time. Finally we got to the 13th inning and Scott Hairston hit a two-run homer to take the lead. It was sooo incredibly exciting!
The all-time saves leader, Trevor Hoffman, came in to save the game and get us our playoff spot. Except…things did not go as planned. Bam bam bam bam, single, single, triple, run-scoring flyout, and we were done. The Rockies went on to the World Series, but lost to the Red Sox (TAKE THAT!!).
So ANYWAYS, Kevin Towers said during the offseason that we had some unfinished business with the Rockies. I completely agreed with that, and that was what I titled my blog when I started it in the 2008 season.
But after 2008, the title was not really relevant anymore, because we couldn’t just stay mad at the Rockies for the rest of our lives. Well, the fans can (and I am), but the team itself was completely different than those guys who were in Game 163.
I debated changing the name after that season, but decided that it was still very relevant, because the Padres have the “unfinished business” of never winning a World Series. In our 41 year existence, we have reached two total World Series, and won zero. Our first time was 1964, and our second was 1998. We have had no success at all. Pretty sad.
Our unfinished business is to win a World Series. I know that someday, someday, we will. We’ll get it eventually.
Just wanted to let you all know that we still have that Unfinished Business. I honestly thought that we had a chance this season. But hey, that’s the duty of a die-hard fan, right? We believe in the impossible. Even there in that stupid last game of the season, I clung to a hope that we would force the playoff. I HATE THE GIANTS!!!
I absolutely hate that the Giants won the World Series. I don’t care about Bochy or Flan or whatever. The Giants freaking kicked the Padres out of the playoffs. That is unforgivable.
Blech. We’d better dominate the Giants’ butts next season.
Well, the Adrian drama goes on. He had shoulder surgery not to long ago, and now it looks like he’s not going to be ready in time for the start of Spring Training. Smooth, Adrian. Real smooth.
Also, FAN FEST IS SET FOR SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2011. BE THERE.
Hey, that’s actually not that far away…only three months!! Sweet!!! I’m soooooo excited 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
I hope you guys all have a great weekend. I’m super busy writing it up for NaNoWriMo…
GO PADRES!!!!
#5 ♥
Well, it’s been four days since the season ended. It’s been rough, that’s for sure. Especially since everyone who thought that the Padres were not going anywhere this season are back in full force saying, I told you so! It’s extremely frustrating, but what can you do. The only consolement I’m getting is that I believed all season and I didn’t give up. I was right there with my boys the whole time, and man they had an incredible season.
As the offseason goes on, I’ll be writing some season-rememberance stuff, but right now I kind of want to review my personal season of blogging.
Let me tell you, this year has been absolutely amazing. I didn’t blog as consistently as I have in years past, but this blog has really had a great year. In 2009, I was around the 20s in the Latest Leader list. This season I jumped up to number 10 and number 11. That’s where I was for most of the year until I jumped up to #6 in August and now, I was #5 in the top fan blogs list. I’m soooo excited!!!
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that my all-time favorite baseball player is Kevin Kouzmanoff, whose number is 5. I’ve always wanted to be #5 on the list so that I could do a dedication to him and I’m soo excited that it’s finally happened!!
Since there’s a lot of recaps going around, I’m going to review Kouz’s season. I didn’t really talk about him much this season because I was so focused on the Padres’ first-place dominance, but I think it’ll be cool to see how he did after he was so sadly shipped away from the Padres.
Kouz was traded to the Oakland A’s on January 16th, 2010, in exchange for Scott Hairston and Aaron Cunningham.
He hit .247 with 16 homers and 71 RBIs. He played in 143 games, and of course, his back acted up near the end of the season and he was out for a few weeks.
His fielding stats, though, are no where near as impressive as last year. Remember that when he had three errors all season and a .990 fielding percentage and he didn’t get a Gold Glove? That was so sad. Man. But anyways, he had 12 errors this year, and a .968 fielding percentage. So, not too bad, but not as great as last year.
On another matter, he’s still as adorable as ever 😉
I missed you a lot this season, Kouz. Definitely not the same without you, and your trade even effected my fanhood just a little. I’m glad you had a great season with the A’s, and I hope that someday you’ll be able to play in San Diego again. Love you!!!!!
Thank you guys sooo much for your great support. Thank you for getting me to #5. This blog would be meaningless if no one read it, so thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy putting it together. You guys are amazing!!!!
GO PADRES!!! GO KEVIN KOUZMANOFF!!! GO #5!!!!
Unfinished Business 