Skip to main content

Thoughts: Padres vs. Blue Jays, 7/27/16



The Padres are off today, so I'll give you my thoughts on their game yesterday.

- Wow, Luis Perdomo ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE A BONA FIDE MAJOR LEAGUE PITCHER. Don't let his near sub -2.0 bWAR and plus 6.00 ERA fool you, his splits since the All Star break have been pretty good for a pitcher who had never pitched above Class A ball before the season started. I was listening to Andy Green on the 1090 postgame show, and he described Perdomo as "a potential number two starter" down the line. He could end up being one of the best Rule Five findings in a long time if everything pans out. Does he figure into the rotation next year? My guess would be no- he would probably be better served spending year in the minors to refine his stuff. However, if he keeps pitching like this and avoids the big inning, Andy Green might not have a choice.

- How about the power from these Padres bats! They're approaching the MLB record of 27 straight games with a home run, which is currently held by the Texas Rangers. As a cynical San Diego sports fan, something deep in my gut tells me they'll come up just short. But what do I know?!?! And who would I be to tell Alex Dickerson to stop hitting the baseball like he is right now. This kid can mash- he's homered in four straight games. Since the All Star break, his wOBA and wRC+ have been at a very strong (no pun intended) .384 and 146, respectively. Considering he was generally considered a AAAA prospect at the start of the season, skeptics will say he'll regress to the mean eventually- but it's been so darn fun watching the local boy launch baseball after baseball into the seats this week. With Melvin being dealt away, he'll likely get playing time in left field, and something tells me that even if he doesn't turn out to be a starting-caliber outfielder, he'll certainly be a valuable bench bat for years to come, à la Matt Stairs.

- Can you believe this is the first time the Padres have been to Toronto? Really? The Padres have been around for nearly fifty years, while the Blue Jays have been around since 1977. According to Baseball Reference, these teams have only met eight prior times. Before then, the Padres had only done battle less with the White Sox, who the Padres have only met in competition nine times. Admittedly, because I'm a millennial, inter-league play isn't a novel or strange concept to me, so perhaps older fans aren't as surprised. However, considering how long both of these franchises have been around, it's absurd that my Padres never once got to admire the Views From the Six until Summer Sixteen. (See what I did there? I'll be here all week. *audience applause*)

- How weird was that 9:47 AM start time? 9:47? It's as if the Blue Jays front office had Drake pick a random minute out of a hat before the season started for a fan promo.

- Finally, how about Christian Bethancourt's Little League home run? That was a sight to behold. And we would have never gotten to see it if the Padres hadn't traded Adrian Gonzalez to the Red Sox for Casey Kelly in 2011, who we flipped for Bethancourt this offseason. Thanks, Jed Hoyer!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Padres Sign Eric Hosmer

After enduring the most boring baseball offseason in recent memory , the Padres took a metaphorical sledgehammer to the frozen free agent market and signed first baseman Eric Hosmer to an 8 year, 144 million dollar contract- by far the largest and most lucrative in team history . Obviously, the prospect of signing Hosmer has been an extremely polarizing subject amongst Padre fans, but he does indeed have a nice resume; he had an All-Star season last year (25 home runs and 4.1 Fangraphs Wins Above Replacement), won two Gold Gloves, will be a clubhouse leader ( essentially a worthless construct, but whatever lol ), and was a key contributor to the Royals' 2015 World Series-winning team. The Padres even got him for less than we were expecting- the first five years of the contract are front-loaded and will pay him 20 million dollars annually, in addition to a 5 million dollar signing bonus . After the fifth year, Hosmer can opt out of his deal. Should he decide to sta...
Post a Comment
Read more

Padres Trade Brad Hand

Well guys- the day has finally come. After months (years?) of speculation, Padres All-Star closer Brad Hand and submarine-throwing relief pitcher Adam Cimber were traded to the Cleveland Indians for top prospect Francisco Mejia.  How'd the deal turn out for the Friars? I'd say Padres GM AJ Preller deserves quite a Hand  for making this trade possible ( I swear that's the last time there will ever be a Brad Hand-pun on this blog, btw- the Editor ).  Hand was great for the Padres- the team picked him up off the scrap heap and turned him into a dominant reliever with one of the best sliders in the game. It didn't hurt that they also signed him to a great, team-friendly contract to boot. Cimber, a career minor-leaguer prior to making the team out of spring training this year, also put up solid numbers his rookie season. They'll both be valuable contributors to the Indians' beleaguered bullpen, which has been one of the worst in the league without Andrew...
Post a Comment
Read more

On Kobe

There’s no easy way to start a post like this- but Kobe Bryant died on Sunday.  How does one even begin to acknowledge the profundity of such a loss? You know how people talk about those “remember-where-you-were” when it happened moments? This wasn’t just one of those moments- it was more than that; when that initial TMZ story broke, the whole world came to a jarring stop.  Case-in-point: I had been practicing guitar chords while sitting on my living room couch at the time I found out, when several of my friends had all, in unison, stopped whatever they were doing in their lives at that moment to send me the TMZ link.  I didn’t want to believe it. To degree, I still don’t, even as I write this. But before long, it became clear that it was real.  Like my friends who had first reached out to me and broke the news, my life too had come to a screeching, dissonant standstill. Like my friends who first reached out to me and broke the news, ...
Post a Comment
Read more