Really?
This team is the result of building an organization to take advantage of Petco Park? Could have fooled me.
Pitching and defense. That is what you need to succeed at Petco Park. It is no big secret. Everyone knows it. And the two are inextricably linked. A good defense creates good pitching. Good pitching, and especially consistently paced pitching, helps create good defense.
Last night, there was some fine pitching at Petco. Unfortuately, it came from the wrong dugout. Okay, Micah Owings looked pretty good and Andrew Cashner had the easy, impressive gas he was advertised as having. Neither could match up with Chad Billingsley, who was both impressive and received impressive help from the lackluster results from Padre hitting.
An awful lot of oh-fer-six going on right now. Jesus Guzman and Cameron Maybin are the only Padres I can think of with multiple hits this season...
And the errors? The third inning last night was horrible. The Dodgers were gifted with two runs in an inning where I'm not sure a single fair ball went farther than 150 feet... even counting the roll. Balls thrown up the third base line, a pickoff attempt thrown into center field... wow. Bring the kids from Opening Day wearing the 1969 uniforms back. They could hardly play worse.
One more game before I am back to West Virginia for a couple months. Hopefully it will feature two major league teams instead of one.
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
Opening Day is Still Special
Despite the great distance, I seem to keep showing up at Petco Park on Opening Day. I love that.
I moved to West Virginia in 2008. One of the things I didn't like about that (don't get me wrong here...I have truly come to love my new home state...) was that I would have to leave behind a source of much enjoyment to me... my home team. Yes, they would still be there. Yes, the internet would make this seperation much less drastic than the one I went through from 1989 to 1992 when I was in Iowa.
My first opening day away from San Diego was an averted disappointment, averted by the best Valentines Day gift ever, a plane ticket and seats to keep my consecutive Opening Day attendance streak from ending at unlucky thirteen. (Thank you, Debi. I still love that you so unselfishly went that route. *kiss*)
The next year, I missed Opening Day for the first time in fourteen years. It felt empty.
The last two years, including yesterday, I have been there by lucky coincidence. I travel to San Diego during my kids spring break to both spend time with them and to save money on day care... and the Padres home opener has fallen within that week. Not planned, but certainly welcome.
The Padres lost yesterday to the Dodgers, and though I hate losing to the Dodgers I loved that I was there to witness it... and I loved even more that I shared the afternoon with my kids, my mom and my grandmother. Family and baseball are inextricably linked for me, the way some link their families with backyard barbecues or board games at the kitchen table.
Tonight, we will attend again, attend the game Tony Gwynn used to call the day the real fans show up. I respect him and understand what he meant, that the second game has less people there for the event and more for baseball. But I still love Opening Day. So much so that even when my address is now 2000 miles distant, I have been to seventeen of the twenty since I graduated college.
I moved to West Virginia in 2008. One of the things I didn't like about that (don't get me wrong here...I have truly come to love my new home state...) was that I would have to leave behind a source of much enjoyment to me... my home team. Yes, they would still be there. Yes, the internet would make this seperation much less drastic than the one I went through from 1989 to 1992 when I was in Iowa.
My first opening day away from San Diego was an averted disappointment, averted by the best Valentines Day gift ever, a plane ticket and seats to keep my consecutive Opening Day attendance streak from ending at unlucky thirteen. (Thank you, Debi. I still love that you so unselfishly went that route. *kiss*)
The next year, I missed Opening Day for the first time in fourteen years. It felt empty.
The last two years, including yesterday, I have been there by lucky coincidence. I travel to San Diego during my kids spring break to both spend time with them and to save money on day care... and the Padres home opener has fallen within that week. Not planned, but certainly welcome.
The Padres lost yesterday to the Dodgers, and though I hate losing to the Dodgers I loved that I was there to witness it... and I loved even more that I shared the afternoon with my kids, my mom and my grandmother. Family and baseball are inextricably linked for me, the way some link their families with backyard barbecues or board games at the kitchen table.
Tonight, we will attend again, attend the game Tony Gwynn used to call the day the real fans show up. I respect him and understand what he meant, that the second game has less people there for the event and more for baseball. But I still love Opening Day. So much so that even when my address is now 2000 miles distant, I have been to seventeen of the twenty since I graduated college.
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