Padretalk

This Is Fun - Pads Beat Brew Crew - Win Series

The Padres played the final frame of a three game set with the Brew Crew in an afternoon game, winning 8-5 behind a stellar start from Peavy who threw 7 shutout innings and the continued success of small ball approach from the Padre offense.

Clearly the Padres have shed the slow start of April and, like the hungry caterpillar, have emerged in the month of May into the team they are going to be for the season, a team with good pitching, small-ball offense, great defense, and a team that seems hungry.

Areas of Improvement
Two areas have seen big improvements this year:

1. Defense - We just completed an errorless home stand, and have the best fielding percentage in the majors.

2. Learning to play in Petco - IOWs, small ball, Petco Ball.

Breaking it Down
Padre Mike attempts to do some stats (never again).

NOTE: I'm not good with stats and I'm sure there are a ton of other measures of a team, but this is the best an irrational fan can do. The stats are real but basic.

Here is a quick look at the Padres, Snakes, and the Rocks in the three areas that make you a champion; pitching, defense and hitting, and thier ranking against all teams.

Padres: 5 ERA - 1 FPct - Avg 28
Rocks: 8 ERA - 16 FPct -Avg 8
Snakes: 6 ERA - 5 FPct - Avg 6

Padres are number 1 in defense (FPct), thats great, but at the bottom in hitting, not so great. I think poor team average reflects our bad start and will improve because clearly the Padres offense is playing a lot better.

Its early, so we will have to return to these stats later in the season (maybe not), but its interesting to see the three teams relatively close, especially the Snakes and the Padres.

This info comes from MLB.com:
Pitching
Hitting
Fielding

Early One Today
Its Wrigley Field so that means day-baseball, Ducks IGD, and Gameday for all the corporate keyboarders out there.

Go Padres

Padre Mike

Quips
1. I changed my handle (remember CB radios) at Ducks to Irrational Fan as a way to counter all the stats-dudes over there, a fine bunch really. I'd make a stupid comment, and get five comments back contradicting my point backed with a lot of stats that I never heard of. So I decided that I was just irrational about Padre baseball and that would be my place, thus the name.

2. Sutcliffe apologizes for his drunken booth appearance. I guess you gotta do that when you are at the national level, but here in San Diego, we all thought it was, em, cute.

3. Interesting to see Sunday's Major League games and who hits with a pink bat. The bats are part of a awareness campaign about breast cancer on Mothers Day. The question is, who is too macho (and baseball is a manly sport) to use a pink bat on Sunday for a great cause? Enquiring minds want to know.

posted by Padre Mike @ 8:32 AM