Padres Banks In

The San Diego Padres quietly picked up pitcher Josh Banks off waivers from the Toronto Blue Jays earlier in the season, and that wire transaction is now paying off. Banks made his first start for the Friars Saturday in San Francisco and was extremely impressive tossing a complete game 6 hitter in the Friars 5-1 victory. FF would like to point out that Banks did not walk a batter, which kept his pitch count to just 101 for the game. Banks made a strong bid at a shut out as the Giants managed to plate a run with 2 outs in the 9th. Bud Black could not have asked for a better time for this complete game as his bullpen is taxed from last Sunday's (May 25th) 18 inning affair and the 13 frames played Friday night.

Friar Footnotes

Left handed Shawn Estes joined fellow starters Jake Peavy and Chris Young on the DL Saturday after fracturing the tip of his left thumb in a freak accident. Estes fell down the stairs leading to the Padres dugout during Friday night's game.

#21

The Pads will replace the injured Estes with Carlos Guevara, a Rule 5 draftee from the Reds organization, who will need to remain with the Padres through the remainder of the season or be offered back to the Reds for $25,000. When the right hander makes his first appearance, he will be the 21st pitcher the Friars have used in the young season.

New Wave Of Padres

Kevin Towers and the Padres promote 4 minor leaguers on Thursday as three pitchers and AA catcher Colt Morton join the big league club. The three AAA hurlers include Mike Adams, who was 3-1 with a 5.52 ERA, Jared Wells, 5.85 ERA with 9 saves, and Josh Banks who is 1-1 with a 6.66 ERA in 8 games at Portland. To make room for the newest players the Friars sent both Josh Bard and Chris Young to the 15 day DL after they were each injured in the 3rd inning of Wednesday's game. San Diego also sent Joe Thatcher back to Portland and released Justin Germano.

Towers said he was going to make wholesale changes, which he has started to do. The only question FF has is where is Chase Headley?

Adding Injury To Insult

The Padres lost more than a ball game (11-3 Cards victory) and a series Wednesday night as in the span of 360 feet the Friars lost their battery of Young and Bard. In the top half of the 3rd inning a line drive off the bat of Albert Pujols hit CY square in the face and after a few minutes on the ground and a bloodied jersey later Young left the game to a standing ovation and a 2-0 lead. A few batters later a base knock to right field cost San Diego the lead and their starting catcher, Josh Bard, as Pujols slid into the backstop's ankle scoring the go ahead run and knocking Bard out of the game with an ankle injury.

This is a blow across the bow of a struggling Padres team, who will lose Josh Bard for at least 15 days just as Michael Barrett is getting close to returning. Chris Young and his broken nose may land on the DL, but FF expects to see Young back on the bump 5 games from now. FF would like to be clear; in no way was the Albert Pujols slide at the plate dirty and after the his ball knocked Young out of the game the former MVP was seen praying with Adrian Gonzalez. Pujols was obviously shaken by the affect of his base hit.

Fathers Win On Mothers Day; Take Series

The Friars not only won a game Sunday, but they won a series for the first time in 9 tries! The Pads have played baseball with a certain crispness that has been lacking this season. San Diego got a strong outing by Chris Young and some power off the bats of Scott Hairston and Khalil Greene leading the Friars to a 6-1 victory. The majority of the players in both dugouts used the pink colored bats as part of MLB's Mothers Day/Breast Cancer awareness.

Friar Facts:


Tadahito Iguchi is starting to turn it up a notch as the Friars 2nd baseman continues to play stellar D, and added 3 knocks and his second stolen base in as many games.

Luke Carlin made his second consecutive start and he responded by smoking a double down the right field line for his first Major League hit. Carlin also gunned down a runner attempting to steal second.

Jody Gerut picked up his first hit since returning from Portland. Although it was his only hit of the series, Gerut made solid contact consistently and hit into some loud outs.

The newest Padre (and that's saying something lately), Bryan Corey, tossed a scoreless 9th inning. San Diego announcer Mark Grant noticed that the reliever pitches with his right (push off) foot directly on the rubber. It appears that Corey only uses the balls of his feet and toes to push off.

Kevin Kouzmanoff garnered FF praise on the first play of the game when he charged, fielded and threw out Rockies speedy leadoff man, Willie Tavares, on a bunt attempt.

Rotation Roundup 5 & 6: Starts 21-30

The rotation has consistently improved over the last two turns - even Justin Germano (relatively speaking). The root problem remains that this season isn't about the starting rotation's performance at the moment, but rather pinned to the performance of the offense. As we've previously discussed, one should expect to win a little more than 2/3 of quality starts (QS). Over these passes through the rotation, the starters posted 6 QS, but managed just 2 wins, half of what one might expect. In fact, Jake Peavy, Greg Maddux, and Chris Young have all been stung with a loss while posting a QS.

There is much talk of Germano losing his spot in the rotation, possibly to Shaun Estes or Wil Ledezma. His continued poor outings, coupled with the razor thin margin the team has required to posts wins, supports this decision in the very short run.

UPDATE:
Padres.com reports Bud Black saying that if Germano is replaced, it will likely be with someone already on the big club. Reading between the lines, this almost certainly points to Wil Ledezma, who has been pitching fantastically thus far in the 2008 campaign.

Starts 21-25

Starts 26-30

Key Indicators per Rotation Pass

Rotation Roundup 4: Starts 16-20

The fourth pass through the rotation wasn't pretty. A pair of quality starts (QS) in games 16 and 18 were squandered by the offense and turned into losses. In fact, game 16 went 22 innings, forcing Greg Maddux to save the bullpen despite being tagged for 9 runs early in the game 17. While this certainly increased the level of admiration the team and fans have for Maddux, it isn't exactly a situation anyone wants to see repeated. This 113 pitch outing marked the first time Maddux had eclipsed the 100 pitch barrier since July 19, 2006, with 102 tosses that day. To find and outing with a greater than or equal number of pitches for Maddux, one has to reach back into August of the 2005 season. Randy Wolf turned in a respectable outing for the only win in the rotation of the bullpen during this five game strech. The real story here is the Padres ability to capitalize only once in three very winnable performances turned out by their starters. We also have to show real concern for the position that Maddux was put into - hopefully he will rebound without additional wear and tear on his arm based on the extraordinary performance in game 17.

Key Indicators per Rotation Pass

Young Strong, Hitters Not

Chris Young bounced back from recent outings with a very strong 7 inning, 121 pitch performance at Petco Park Thursday night. He fanned 10 while allowing a pair of hits, including a home run, the only blotch on his excellent line. Unfortunately, that single run represented more than the popless Friars could muster, tagging Young with a 1-0 loss. This despite the Padres finishing with 5 hits and 6 walks versus the Giants 3 and 3, respectively. Paul McAnulty once again started for Scott Hairston in the second spot in the batting order. Stalwart Adrian Gonzalez had a rough night in taking a trio or strikeouts, a microcosm of the over Friar offensive attack.

Rotation Roundup 3: Starts 11-15

The third pass through the rotation finally saw Padre starters come down to earth a bit. Start 12 marked the first non-quality start of the season for the quintet (Chris Young) and game 15 saw the first quality start where the starter was tagged with the loss (Justin Germano). In all, the rotation was pedestrian with a 3.86 ERA and 1.41 WHIP, though these numbers a largely skewed by Chris Young's disastrous outing. Randy Wolf tossed a 1 hitter through 7 innings in his turn and Greg Maddux turned in 5 fantastic innings in 95 degree heat. In summary, the starters still provided the Padres 4 quality opportunities to win, of which 3 were converted. This group continues to the be lone bright spot in the '08 campaign. While round 3 might not have been hyper productive, FF and any other club in baseball would certainly take it as their average pass through the starting 5. Kudos to PYMW&G once again.

Key Indicators per Rotation Pass

Debacle Againt Diamondbacks

The Padres struggles continued Saturday night at Chase Field, as they parlayed a 3-1 lead and quality start by Chris Young into a stinging 3-10 defeat. The bullpen once again faltered, partially on the back of an uncharacteristic error by Khalil Greene, who had just entered the game as part of a double switch before watching one pass through the wickets. Kevin Cameron would eventually allow 5 unearned runs on the error, as well as 3 hits and 3 walks to pair with one run of the earned variety. Prior to the game spiraling completely out of control - a common occurrence for the Friars lately - Joe Thatcher allowed the DBacks to take a 3-4 lead in the 7th with the help of defensive miscues by Callix Crabbe and Paul McAnulty. Thatcher would eventually be tagged for the loss.

The offense made a decent run of it (relatively speaking). On the plus side, 60% of their knocks were extra base hits and 40% were round-trippers (a 2B and HR by McAnanulty and a HR by Brian Giles). On the flip side, they only had 5 total hits to have their team batting average settle at .238, trending towards the Mendoza line. Just one week ago they were leading the National League in batting average. They are still struggling with extra base hits and have maintained their dismal rate of 1.8 extra base knocks per game over that time period. These are tough times for the Friar Fans - try to keep the faith.

Young Quality Start Streak Ends

Yesterday, FF blogged about how the Padres were struggling to hit anything but singles. Facing Padre nemesis Derek Lowe, we didn't have real high expectation that Saturday would be provide the breakthrough the team needed. But Scotty Hairston, batting lead off in place of a resting Brian Giles, started the game on in style with a triple down the right field line at Dodger Stadium. Adrian Gonzalez followed up with a double that he, Vin Scully, Andre Ethier, and FF thought was gone. At the bottom of the first, the Friars looked nstrong and had already accounted from more extra base hits than they had average per game for the season (2 versus 1.8). With Chris Young taking the hill, the euphoria of fast start quickly faded with Young command noticeably off. He was raked for just two runs in the first inning, but the hit hard along the way. From that poit on, Lowe settled into his normal role as Padre punisher and the Dodgers warmed up their bat to force Young out of the game in the top of the 4th with nobody out and 7 runs on his line in the box score (6 earned as Young booted a come backer). The Padre offense would scratch out just two more hits, both singles, on the way to an 11-1 drubbing. Wil Ledezma and Glendon Rusch were tagged with 3 and 1 runs in as many innings, respectively.

PMac in Right Field
After grumblings about his shotty fielding skills in left last spring, Paul McAnulty got the start in right field. Both he and center fielder Jim Edmonds were burned on balls over their heads. Giles will be out of action on Sunday, as he gets extra rest in front of Monday's day off.

Barrett At Least Two Weeks Away
Vin Scully announced that Michael Barrett is at least two weeks away from being back from the DL, giving Colt Morton extra time with the big club. Morton spelled Josh Bard after the game got away from the Friars.

Quality Start Streak Ends
Effectively spanning the first 11 games of the season, the Friars' quality start steak ended with the loss against the Dodgers. It was also marked the first time this season that a starter was hung with a loss.

Friar Rotation Round Up 2: Starts 6-10

The starting rotation continued their torrid pace during the second pass though the quintet, posting an astonishing 1.50 ERA, 0.75 WHIP and 5 quality starts. Tough to complain about that kind of production from the pitchers that shoulder the load for the entire staff. That said, while the winning percentage in quality starts from 1984 to 1991 was .674, the Friars posted a .400 over their last five games and just .500 for the 10 quality starts in 2008 (effectively). A starter has yet to produce a non-quality start, yet the team has just 5 wins to show for it. Nobody should get their underwear in a bunch at this juncture, but it certainly isn't encouraging.

While many expected the team to struggle at bat, not too many could have foreseen the perennially solid bullpen's swoon. Expected to the heart of the relief corps, Trevor Hoffman, Heath Bell, Cla Meredith and Joe Thatcher have taken all 5 team losses to go with a 5.59 ERA. In fact, both Thatcher and Hoffman has allowed more earned runs in 4 and 3 2/3 innings, respectively, than Greg Maddux has in 13. FF expects the pen to right its ship and the rotation to fall a little bit from its near perfect performance. The real question will be if the offense can provide enough run support to make the stellar staff's stuff stick.

Friar Rotation Round Up 1: Starts 1-5

Conventional wisdom for the 2008 season predicts that the Friars will only go as far as their pitching staff takes them. More to the point, the team's strength is supposed to be in its starting pitching staff. As such, we at FF thought it would be interesting to track each pass through the rotation to see how their performance is affecting the bottom line. This will be the first installment of 32.4 passes through the fab five.

It's hard to imagine the starters putting the club in a better position to win than it did during the initial pass through the rotation. Technically, 4 of 5 times the group toed the rubber they posted quality starts (QS). In reality, Chris Young was just one out shy of a QS himself, so FF will go ahead and round that up to a perfect five-for-five. A sub 1.50 ERA to go with an excellent WHIP of 1.08 and nearly two of three pitches finding the strike zone seems to support conventional wisdom. In fact, the Friars only posted three wins in these five games. If this doesn't correspond to FF's projections that the rotation would be compromised by a weak lineup, we aren't sure what does. Still, this pace would put the Friars in for a 97 win season, so we can't complain too much. Nice job fab five - let's hope to see these trends continue. We'd ask for a higher strikeout-to-walk ratio, but with the rotation averaging just short of 6 innings a start, that may be too much.

Hairston Launch Humbles Houston

The Padres have begun the 2008 season with two straight victories over the Houston Astros. The offense wasn't clicking on all cylinders as it was on opening night, but the Friars found Scott Hairston's 2 run blast enough to hold off Houston 2-1. The Padres had 2007 All Star, Chris Young, toeing the rubber on Tuesday and he battled through some control problems (5 walks in 5 2/3) to earn his first victory of the year. Young loaded the bases full of 'Stros after a base hit and 2 walks in the 6th. Skipper Bud Black turned the ball over to Joe Thatcher who got out of the jam after walking in the only Astro run of the game (and season). The lefty Thatcher retired the first batter of the 7th inning before giving way to side-winder Cla Meredith who cruised through the 2 batters he faced. Heath Bell worked a perfect 8th inning to set up baseball's all time saves leader in the top half of the 9th. Trevor Hoffman took his first steps into game action this year to the familiar sound of AC/DC's "Hells Bells". The Padres closer struck out the first and last batter he faced while working around a two out infield single.

Padres Points:

The Padres hand the ball to future Hall Of Fame hurler Greg Maddux on Wednesday night, the crafty right hander will attempt to keep pace with the top 2 pitchers in the Friar rotation.

Khalil Greene and Josh Bard each had multiple hit games with the Friar shortstop collecting 3, while the Padre backstop had 2. Brian Giles remains the only Padres regular without a hit through 2 games.

The Padres team ERA jumped all the way to 0.50 to kickoff the new year, Tuesday's 2-1 victory will be one of many close, low scoring affairs in 2008.

The Padres had a chance to extend their lead in the bottom half of the 8th (against former Friar Doug Brocail) after a 2 out Bard single sent Scott Hairston to second, an infield single by Paul McAnulty would have loaded the bases for a pinch hitter (presumably Tony Clark). Unfortunately, Scott Hairston got caught venturing too far off third after appearing to assume that P Mac would be called out at 1st.

Padres figure to start newly acquired Justin Huber in left tomorrow as the Astros will start a southpaw on the hill. Pads fans also figure to get their first view of the year of catcher Michael Barrett.

All time saves leader Trevor Hoffman is fashioning a longer hair style than in years past, reports out of spring training were that Mrs. Hoffman likes the longer locks.

Predicted Padres Pitching Prowess

The Friars are keeping the faith that their vaunted pitching staff can carry the team. That said, we thought it would be interesting to check out how the Bill James Handbook 2008 projects the staff to perform. For the club's presumed optimal starting rotation, the Handbook breaks it down as follows (Pitcher - W/L/ERA/IP/WHIP/K):

• Jake Peavy - 15 8 3.23 212 1.17 217


• Chris Young - 13 8 3.34 186 1.18 166


• Greg Maddux - 13 9 3.60 200 1.20 121


• Randy Wolf - 5 6 4.32 100 1.37 81


• Mark Prior - 5 4 3.60 75 1.23 85

Immediately striking is the similarity that the projections have in rotation spots one through three. Nobody appreciates Maddux's low walk rate more than FF, and we don't want to take anything away from him, but he hasn't posted a sub-4.00 ERA since the 2003 season. Peavy's numbers seem overly skewed by his injury-marred 2006 campaign while the projection ignores Chris Young's iterative, season-by-season improvement trend (see graph below). Friar fans will have to hope for better returns than those suggested by the Handbook if they are to remain competitive in the NL West.

Graph from FanGraphs.com

A big part of the team's success will likely depend on the performance of the bullpen. Nobody puts together a better 'pen than Kevin Towers (if only he could do the same for right-handed power hitters, but I digress). Once again the projections seem a little high, this time looking at player - ERA/S/IP/WHIP/K per 9:

• Trevor Hoffman - 2.80 39 61 1.07 8.26


• Heath Bell - 3.10 1 83 1.16 9.70


• Cla Meredith - 3.51 0 82 1.22 6.91


• Kevin Cameron - 3.90 0 60 1.47 7.65


• Joe Thatcher - No Handbook project listed

Dynamic Duos

The Padres have what FF considers to be the premier 1-2 punch in all of baseball with NL Cy Young winner Jake Peavy, and All Star Chris Young. The San Diego organization has placed a premium on pitching and it has payed off recently with 2 division titles and a trip to a wild card play in game in the last 3 seasons. There will be a number of teams who will compete with the 2 aces of the Padres this year, here's a look at the pitching pairs who will be scary for offenses to face in '08. The following list shows team, duo and combined Record, IP, and ERA, respectively:

• Padres, Jake Peavy*, Chris Young#, 28-14 396 1/3 2.79


• Diamondbacks, Brandon Webb, Dan Haren^, 33-19 459 3.04


• Indians, C.C. Sabathia*, Fausto Carmona, 38-15 456 3.14


• Mariners, Erik Bedard^, Felix Hernandez, 27-12 372 1/3 3.55


• Mets, Johan Santana^, Pedro Martinez#, 18-14 247 3.24
  

* Won Cy Young award in 2007
# Lost significant time due to injury
^ Traded in offseason

Prior A Friar

Mark Prior has officially joined the San Diego Padres Baseball Club. It is a bit unclear when he will be healthy enough to join the rotation, but the Padres could have a lights-out staff of starters once he does. The current rotation figures to be:

1. Jake Peavy
2. Chris Young
3. Greg Maddux
4. Randy Wolf
5. Mark Prior/??? (until Prior is ready to pitch)

While the offensive side of the offseason has been a drag, Kevin Towers has done an excellent job of targeting rebounding pitchers with Petco Park's pitching allure. The exact terms of Priors deal are not yet know, but are likely to include a heavy dose of incentives.

UPDATE:
The AP is reporting that Prior signed a 1 year deal for $1M, with another $4.5M that could be tacked on based on performance milestones.