Slide Puts Giles on DL, Stansberry Called Up

The Padres telecast has just reported that Marcus Giles has been placed on the 15-day DL as a result of injuries related to last night's bush league slide by Carlos Ruiz. Friar announcer Matty V reports that Giles had to obtain help from the Padres medical staff at about 4:30AM as his knee became swollen and made it difficult for him to move around. Diagnosed as a sprained knee, the new injury overshadows the hip pointer that forced Giles out of last night's game. Craig Stansberry was called up to fill Giles' spot on the Big Club and is uniform for tonight's game. Stansberry was recently mentioned by GM Kevin Towers as a likely candidate to join the Padres, partly due to his .820 OPS at AAA Portland this year.

Vasgersian also mentioned a questionable column in the Philly Inquirer today. The author, Phil Sheridan, suggests that Philly starter Jamie Moyer could have plucked Giles in response to his "histrionics". So let me try to understand this - the team that commits the egregious offense should be doing the plucking? He also says that Ruiz's slide wasn't "an outrage against all that is holy in baseball". Really? I don't know if the slide was intentionally dirty or not, but the bottom line is that it was far enough over the line to be called for interference. Oh, and now Giles may be lost for the season. Maybe the Padres are just being theatrical about that too...

UPDATE:
Doug Brocail hit Carlos Ruiz on the thigh in the 6th inning of tonight's game. In case Mr. Sheridan is confused, this is the typical plucking relationship for an event of this nature.

UPDATE II:
Stansberry entered the game as a pinch hitter in the 7th and lined the first pitch he saw into right-center field for a base knock. Running out Brian Giles' fly ball, Stansberry look fairly fleet of foot. A little more speed can't hurt the Padre bench.