100 Game Padres Report

Well, my Padres treaded water for another 10 game stretch - winning 5 and losing 5.

They have been streaky - since the All-Star break - lost 3, won 2, lost 4, won 3. If they were obeying Randy's Law of Winning Baseball (which is Don't Lose Two in a Row), then they would be way out front. Alas, it is hard to not lose two in a row.

So after 100 games, the Friars are 53 wins, 47 losses overall, 25-28 at home, 28-19 on the road (only Detroit is better). Their last 10 games stretches have been 6-4, 6-4, 5-5 and 5-5, or 22-18 over the last 40, compared to 31-29 over the first 60 games. Pretty consistent, rarely far from first place, and generally mediocre.

They are hitting 0.265 overall (middle of the league), with 100 home runs (middle of the league) and an ERA of 4.21 (up from 4.02 10 games ago).

Scores for this 10 game stretch:

5-10 Atlanta Peavy started, lost. Atlanta busted us badly.
8-6 Philly Williams started, Trevor saved
10-6 Philly Hensley started, won
4-5 Philly Thompson started, Trevor lost it
3-9 at SF Park started, lost, wasn't even close
2-8 at SF Peavy started, lost, wasn't close again
3-4 at SF Williams started, lost
6-5 (12) at SF Hensley started, Trevor saved
7-6 (11) at LA Young started, Trevor saved
7-3 at LA Park started, won.

In this 10 game stretch, the Pads scored 56 runs, but gave up 62. The starting and relief pitching faltered until the last game, but the hitting and power picked up.

On the roster front, the Padres dumped Vinny Castilla, then immediately missed his 3rd base defense in SF. Bellhorn and blum are sharing 3B, but not hitting much. The Pads released reliever Brian Sikorski and sent Scott Cassidy and Brian Sweeney down to AAA, but added Doug Brocial from the DL and traded two scrubs to the Cubs for Scott Williamson. Termel sledge came up from Portland to spell Giles a bit, and won a game with a homer, but made a bad error in LA. Will the Pads trade for a 3B man? The rumor is we want Andy Marte of Cleveland, but they might want too much. The other rumor is the injured Morgan Ensberg from Houston, but they want reliever Linebrink.

Fortunately, while the Pads treaded water, the Dodgers lost 12 of 13, Arizona and SF went on streaks to challenge for first, and Colorado treaded water too. I think that this division can be won with 87 wins, which means the Pads need to have a few more winning streaks than losing streaks.