On paper, the Padres and Mets look to be having a similar season. They're both currently sitting in 4th place in their relative divisions. Their win-loss records differ by just one game. They're both 2-8 in their last ten games. And overall, both teams have just been playing poor baseball. Tonight they'll begin a three-game set at Citi Field.
Andrew Cashner's last start - his first since returning from the disabled list - was a brilliant one, but the Padres offense was once again unable to provide him any run support so he could earn the win. It was his sixth straight outing without a win, despite posting a 2.83 ERA during that stretch, thanks to a run support average of just 1.5. In ten starts this season, his overall run support average is just 2.3, second lowest in the majors among pitchers who have thrown 60+ innings. Tonight he'll be making his first career start against the Mets. In 6 2/3 relief innings against New York, he's posted a 2.70 ERA.
Bartolo Colon will be making his fourth career start against San Diego, going 1-2 with a 1.50 ERA in his first three. He comes into this game with a 3-0 record and 1.51 ERA over his last four starts. Seemingly the Mets don't have much to worry about while Colon is on the mound, but they'll want to keep him on there as long as possible and avoid going to their bullpen too early. Mets relievers have combined for a 5.40 ERA over their last nine games, two of which resulted in blown saves; the team is 1-8 during that span. To make matters worse, they're coming off a 13-inning 5-1 loss, during which relievers pitched 5 1-3 innings. Their closer Jenrry Mejia pitched 2/3 of an inning but exited with back stiffness, so it's unsure whether he'll even be available tonight.
Tine in at 4:10 to see if the Padres can win the battle and start the series on a high note.
The losses pile up as the pattern of offensive stalemates continue.
Much like the rain that seems to follow the Padres around the past few games, losses are plaguing the ballclub in raincloud fashion. A thin San Diego lineup was handled by the 41 year-old Bartolo Colon. An early lead was torn down like cheap wallpaper and plastered over with imposing pictures of Mr. Met.
The Friars mustered up 2 runs in 5 hits to New York's 6 and 11, respectively. We struck out twice as much (SD 14 NYM 7) mostly due to Colon's seven strikeout outing. "Ace" Andrew Cashner survived six innings giving up 4 earned runs, which is seemingly a death sentence for this current Padres bats. Kevin Quackenbush put the nail in the coffin giving up two more before the night was over. It was a pummeling.
We're at a point where tensions are ramping up very high. Management is vocalizing disappointment, fans are fighting a war of fandom attrition, and nothing seems to be getting better right now. A Rene Rivera homerun in the second inning isn't going to heal the wounds of a five-game losing streak.
With arguably the most exciting Padre lumped in with a loss today, we'll have to shift excitement towards the new blood of Jesse Hahn in his second representation for the Padres tomorrow against Zack Wheeler.
Cross your Friar Fingers we stay away from any more usages of the words "losing" and "streak".
This is the eleventh post in a series of 30 in which I bust out the ol' Baseball-Reference multi-franchise tool, peruse the list of guys who played for both the Padres and whatever team they're playing, and create a 25-man roster. Since the Padres are currently in Flushing -- insert joke about the whole season going down the toilet here -- here's the San York Metdres.
Unlike the Padres of recent vintage, this lineup would have no problem scoring runs. As much as I wanted to put Garry Templeton at short, Fernandez's numbers wouldn't allow it. Mitchell played more games in the outfield than at third base but surprisingly, he was far less of a defensive liability at third, bare-handed catches of fly balls notwithstanding.
If I ever knew Chan Ho Park pitched for the Mets, I must have forgot. I'll cut myself a break for that though, since it was only one game. He started against the Marlins on April 30, 2007, and picked up the scarlet L by allowing seven earned runs in just four innings; that was his only game that season.
Bullpen:
Heath Bell Jon Adkins Randy Myers Jesse Orosco Bob Miller Danny Frisella Mike Maddux
Like Park, Adkins only pitched one game for the Mets. Also like Park, it happened in 2007. On July 27, Adkins pitched a perfect frame against the Nationals, retiring Felipe Lopez, Ronnie Belliard, and Ryan Zimmerman. He was good with the Padres in '06 but makes my team due to the fact that he's a West Virginia guy. Each of the other guys had a few great peak seasons, and Orosco was outstanding for just shy of a quarter of a century.
Jesse Hahn gets another chance to impress as he takes the mound for his second major league appearance this afternoon. His ML debut didn't go too smoothly (3 2/3 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 5 K), but he will get the opportunity today to rebound and try to help snap the Padres' five-game skid. Hahn grew up just a couple hours away from Citi Field, so he'll have family and friends in attendance, which hopefully will prove comforting for the young right-hander. Add to that the fact that he'll be facing one of the league's worst offensive teams, who have lost eight of their last ten games.
This season Hahn has gone 2-1 with a 2.11 ERA in 11 games (eight starts) for the Missions. In his most recent outing, on Monday, he pitched a season-high 5 2/3 innings while allowing only one run. It was as good of a performance as you could ask for from him going into his second try in the majors.
Unortunately for Hahn, as bad as the Mets offense has been performing this season, our Padres have been even worse. Last in the league in most (if not all) offensive categories, San Diego might need a miracle to pull off a win even against a team like the Mets. Their .215 collective batting average this season is awful enough, but they've been producing even less during their five-game losing streak, hitting just .179 with seven runs total in that span. Furthermore, they've dropped six of their last seven contests at Citi Field.
One thing the Padres may have going for them, however, is the fact that their opposing pitcher hasn't won a game at home since last August. Zack Wheeler is 0-4 in seven starts at Citi Field over the last ten months. He's also coming off a game against the Giants that saw him surrender four runs on six hits, two walks, and a hit batsman while lasting only 3 2/3 innings. But Wheeler was fantastic in his only career start against the Friars. He kept them to just one run in six frames while striking out a career-high 12 batters last August at Petco Park.
Game 2 kicks off at 1:10 this afternoon. See if our Padres can pull off a miracle.
Jesse Hahn made his second major league appearance this afternoon. And it was about as brilliant as you could ask for from the young righty out of Double-A San Antonio. A season-high (minors included) six innings, no runs, a hit and three walks, seven strikeouts (five of which came consecutively).
But one of Hahn's best moments of the game came at the plate rather than on the mound. In front of many of his family and friends, who had traveled the two hours from Hahn's hometown in Connecticut, the rookie got his first major league hit and RBI, singling on a deceptive fly ball to right field to score Cameron Maybin from second base. You can watch the hit here.
Mud and Dick started talking about how that ball would make a great souvenir for Hahn and then the camera panned to the dugout, where Cashner was being Cashner. He had an arm around around Tommy Medica while slamming a baseball on the ground and staring down Hahn on the basepaths. It wasn't actually the ball Hahn had just hit, but Cash was doing a pretty good job making it seem like it was and like he was abusing it, knowing he was right in Hahn's line of sight.
If you ask some people, our Padres are in no position to be having fun like this. Sure they're up 4-0, but the season has seemingly gone to hell and players shouldn't be smiling or goofing around when the team is playing so poorly overall.
I love it though. Stuff like this makes the team still worth watching despite everything else. Never change, Cashy.
The Mets offense was blanked and Zack Wheeler struggled on a particularly forgettable day.
Today was a day filled with ire for Mets fans. This morning, at a Q&A session with season ticket holders, Sandy Alderson said that he thought the Mets were close to being contenders (which was met with groans). The Mets couldn't have looked further from contenders today, as their hopeful ace-of-the-future got whacked around and the Mets offense continued to perfect its Harry Houdini act.
This was never much of a game for the Mets, as after a Seth Smith single and a Chase Headley walk, the Padres looked primed to go in the first inning. Yonder Alonso clubbed a double to bring a run in, and Wheeler followed it up with a wild pitch to score Chase Headley. The Mets would threaten in the bottom of the inning, after Ruben Tejada singled for one of the Mets two hits, David Wright walked, and Bobby Abreu moved Tejada to third base, but nothing came of it.
The Padres would tack on a third run in the third inning when Everth Cabrera scored on a Chase Headley single. They would tack on another run in the fourth, when Cameron Maybin scored on a single by pitcher Jesse Hahn, and put the icing on the cake in the eighth when Chase Headley smacked a home run to further the Padres lead to 5-0.
Zack Wheeler, who had been terrific in his last five starts, didn't much impress as he labored through 5 innings and 100 pitches. Wheeler was consistenly falling behind in counts, and walked 3 batters while striking out 4. This is not the kind of performance that Wheeler - who was looking to turn the corner - had hoped for against a team who entered the day with a league-worst .215 batting average.
If the Mets' offensive woes weren't a concern before, it's hard not to see how fans won't be reactionary after this loss. Chris Young continues to look incredibly lost at the plate, David Wright still is mired in a slump, and Matt den Dekker still shows little offensively. On top of that, to get a single hit off of a rookie pitcher making his second career start against the worst offensive team in the league is about as infuriating as it gets.
This loss pushes the Mets to 30-38 and brings them back to the basement of the East, at 6.0 games behind the Braves. They'll try to right the ship tomorrow with a 1:10pm ET Father's Day matinee against the Padres. Ian Kennedy will take on Daisuke Matsuzaka.
Big winners: David Wright +9.3%, Ruben Tejada +1.2% Big losers: Zack Wheeler -24.7%, Chris Young -10.1% Teh aw3s0mest play: Bobby Abreu walk in the fourth inning +6.0% Teh sux0rest play: Yonder Alonso double in the first inning -12.7% Total pitcher WPA: -24.1% Total batter WPA: -25.9% GWRBI!: Yonder Alonso RBI double in the first inning
Not even the Mets can stop the Padres from surprising their fans with a win.
We did it, folks. We won. See you in the playoffs! Everything's fixed. Almost everybody hit today, we capitalized on RISP, young pitching blood dominated an elite lineup. The stars are aligned and we're out of the cellar!
Well, maybe not all that. But fans did get to see a San Diego team playing like we know they can. Nine hits, five runs, zero runs allowed. It was a solid day of baseball for the Friar faithful.
It all started in the top of the first with a Seth Smith single and a Chase Headley walk. Yonder Alonso followed up beautifully with an RBI-double, and then a succeeding wild pitch would plate our second run. Now if you've been keeping up with our games lately, you would be tuning out immediately after that second run crossed the plate. Scoring early has been a death wish for us the past 5 games. But not today.
A cute Yonder dubble puts the Padres on the board.
In comes Jesse Hahn. The Connecticut-born righty who previously threw for barely 3 innings against Pittsburgh, getting lit up for 4 earned runs, gave up a big fat goose egg today. Hahn was hitting every single spot he wanted to, and his curve was completely on point. Couple that with his first ever major league hit and you've got a perfect day of baseball for the 24 year-old.
Hahn bloops one for a bloopy RBI. Such disrespect.
Chase Headley made sure of that, too. Tacking on three more runs including a solo HR in the eighth, our Padres really let loose and saved a lot of fans from causing serious property damage after a five straight games of dumpster fires.
Chase bounces one off the billboard in right-center for a sure-fire HR.
Andrew Cashner, despite being wrapped up in yesterday's shutout, had some fun with Hahn's first hit.
A good, good day. But have attitudes towards the team changed? Does seeing a productive shutout against a known "weak" team help erase the terrible memories of this entire past week? Let me know. It helped me a lot. And tomorrow we'll get to see Ian Kennedy try to send a won series home for the boys.
The Mariners fall back to .500 and are on the cusp of getting swept for the second series in a row.
A couple of weeks ago we were all sitting right here on this very website, looking at the 2014 Seattle Mariners team and shaking our heads in surprised wonder.
How was Lloyd winning baseball games against good teams with Stefen Romero at DH? How were Cole Gillespie and Endy Chavez and John Buck stringing together back-to-back hits to put the M's in front of teams who still had the taste of the playoffs in their mouths? How was this team multiple games above .500 with only two, maybe three starting pitchers written on the season roster in ink rather than with pencil?
Some of the more reasonable heads all shook in unison around this time, stating things about luck, regression, something called a "mean" which is what I thought people were when they said the Mariners are bad, not some mathematical term that could explain what was going to happen after a series of unpredictable Mariner wins all throughout May. Well, you know, I'm still not willing to give in to outright doubt and despair or anything, but hi, regression. Hello. And also hello to the mean, which is appearing to take shape right in front of our eyes.
And the best part is that today's game was kind of a perfect microcosm of this whole thing taking shape right in front of our eyes. A starting pitcher we all doubted completely with a track record doused in gasoline near an open flame going five innings with only three hits. A stagnant offense coming back from a deficit to tie the ballgame with unlikely contributions from names not on All-Star ballots. That same starting pitcher getting pulled after five because he had 89 pitches and had walked four, coming within a strike of danger multiple times in the game. That same stagnant offense going stagnant for the rest of the game, and then falling short when something could actually happen against a pitcher capable of literally walking the ball to home plate, placing it on a tee, and then folding his arms in quiet expectation. You know, the 2014 Seattle Mariners. The more weird, the better.
Erasmo ran into trouble early and quick before actually settling into a nice groove. After walking two in the first, and getting a timely second replay out on a stolen base that Lloyd challenged in the opening minutes of the game, the Mariners continued right where they left off last night with two no-hit innings against a mediocre pitcher in Joe Saunders, but you know, Safeco Joe and all. Erasmo gave up a double in the second to Robinson Chirinos, but had a clean third and relatively harmless fourth. Well, it would have been harmless for another pitcher, but with Erasmo Ramirez on the mound with two on and two out, you never know what to expect. This time, it was a third out.
The Mariners actually struck first after John Buck whipped a single into centerfield after appearing to be totally baffled by two Joe Saunders 90mph heaters. He got to third after Kyle Seager singled a minute later, and the Stefen Romero walloped a fly ball to score Buck for the first out of the inning. The Mariners would only get the one run, but Lloyd knew that he had some decisions to make at that instant, and was probably grateful just for the one run. Erasmo's pitch count was climbing, and they repeatedly stated that they wanted him to go out on a 'good note,' presumably for his mental state going forward. Enter Danny Farquhar.
We all know what this usually looks like, and I wouldn't have necessarily blamed anyone for leaving right then and there, except you probably paid for those tickets, and they are expensive! What are you doing? There's another inning of beer service, and you haven't even seen the hydro race yet and oh no, Lincoln's Safeco justification from last offseason really works. It really does work.
Still, the Mariners managed to put a little thing together in the sixth to tie the game after Robinson Cano and Jesus Montero singles (Yes...I needed to take a breather after typing that sentence, too). Ackley replaced Montero on the bases (because well...), Morrison struck out, and then John Buck whipped a single into cineter to score Cano. The Rangers challenged the play, but it was upheld: 3-2 Rangers. Then in the seventh, a similar story following WFB and James Jones singles, a force attempt off Cole Gillespie's bat and the bases loaded and a Robinson Cano..............
.....
.....
....wait for it
...
....
...single.
Alright, that's a little unfair. The power jokes are getting old. Actually, the Mariners should really be grateful for anything here, as Rios dove to make the catch, and it looked like a routine out, but he somehow missed the catch. I'm still not sure what happened, but look at all slowed down right here:
I suppose it bounced before hitting his glove, and if so, then send that umpire a gift basket filled with whatever nice things people give as presents from Seattle these days. Still, the game was tied. Well, it was tied for a minute anyway. Rodney came in in the ninth and after getting two outs and a single, gave up the winning run on a Leonys Martin single that skipped past Kyle Seager's glove by, oh, a third of an inch. 4-3 Rangers.
In the bottom of the ninth, Willie struck out to send up James Jones to the plate. Whatever that same magic that knocked Martin's ball away from Seager's glove is showed its face at just that moment, as Jones whapped a rocket of a comebacker that would have possibly been extra bases, except it went straight into the glove of Joakim Soria on the mound, and the Mariners were one Endy Chavez pinch hit popout away from their fifth straight loss. And yeah, that happened.
Look, I don't know anything about math. Really, I don't. I took the GRE a few months ago because I'm going to grad school next fall, and I somehow got in despite scoring in the 20th percentile for arithmetic. Part of me wants to use that as an excuse for still believing that the Mariners have something special in store for the second half of the season, but there is a little part of me that absolutely recognizes that this five game losing streak is just the other half of whatever the hell happened in May to make this team look like a fringe contender. You know what, though? Nobody can take those games away from us. And if they somehow end up mattering in September--somehow--the Mariners still won them fair and square.
Tomorrow Iwakuma takes the mound, and then it's the dreaded Padres. I would say these are important games, but the fact of the matter is that they all are.
A great outing from rookie Jesse Hahn yesterday evened up the series at Citi Field. This morning Ian Kennedy will try to follow up with a great outing of his own to help the Padres to a series win. His last start resulted in his first loss in four tries as he allowed five runs through seven innings of work against the Phillies. He also gave up five runs in his most recent appearance against the New York, but lasted only 4 2/3 innings that time. Prior to that, he had gone 4-0 with a 3.45 ERA in five career starts against the Mets.
Daisuke Matsuzaka will get the ball for the Mets and make his third start of the season. He's given up five runs in 10 1/3 innings through his first two starts, walking eight and striking out seven. Prior to that he posted a 2.45 ERA through 29 1/3 innings.
See how the series plays out at 10:05 PDT this morning.
Well, for a while, it wasn't looking great. The Mariners went four innings without scoring, stringing together a sequence of base-hit-to-advanced-runner-to-strikeout-to-something-else-out for every inning of the game. Meanwhile, Hisashi Iwakuma was efficiently dealing through the Rangers' lineup, only giving up a solo home run to Brad Snyder in the second. Still, they were giving him nothing to work with. A starting pitcher, staring at blanks from both the team he pitches for and the team he was pitching against. Stop me if you've heard this one before.
For a while, it felt like someone would get on second base and get stranded. It happened just about every inning too, until the Mariners finally put something together in the fifth. Endy Chavez, who also doubled in the first Mariners' at-bat of the game, whipped a single into right field before watching James Jones pop up in the next at-bat.
Cano stared at a couple of pitches from Rangers' starter Nick Martinez (who before today had walked more batters than he had struck out, SSS and blah blah blah) and there were runners on first and second with one out. Logan Morrison popped out, and it was up to Kyle Seager to save the day, who promptly doubled in both Endy Chavez and Robinson Cano in a 1-1 count. I think, perhaps, that the Mariners should just play the Rangers everyday and before you know it, Kyle Seager would be worth more WAR than Mike Trout.
After giving up a leadoff single to Elvis Andrus in the sixth, Iwakuma settled right back in, getting three quick outs from Shin-Soo Choo, Adrian Beltre, and catching Andrus stealing on the basepaths. Meanwhile, John Buck had been subbed in at first for Logan Morrison, who had apparently cut his head doing something. It was Buck's first career appearance at first base, and in the process, Jesus Montero sat in the dugout, spitting and chewing sunflower seeds.
After a walk to Jones in the seventh, the Mariners came back in the eighth and decided to lay the damage on. John Buck hit the first pitch he saw into right-center, and was promptly replaced by Cole Gillespie on the basepaths. Ranger Killer Seager came back up, and hit his second double of the game to score Gillespie from first. Seager was 4-4 on the day, and holy crap, Kyle Seager. He was then sent right to third on a Mike Zunino single, and promptly scored on a Dustin Ackley single right afterward. Ron Washington decided it was enough, and replaced Rangers reliever Robbie Ross Jr. with Ben Rowen, who was making his MLB debut for the Rangers.
Rowen, a submariner, didn't exactly run into trouble or anything, but it was as if the Mariners had suddenly remembered that you were supposed to do things with bats in their hands. Willie dropped down a sac bunt and for once, it actually fell just perfect enough to get away from any defender. Willie was just barely out at first despite a replay challenge, but the runners advanced, scoring again on a sac fly from Brad Miller. It was shallow, too, and Choo probably could have either thrown out Ackley at the plate or at least made him stop on the paths. But he double-clutched on the grab, and Ackley was safe. Not that it would have mattered, because it was 5-1 and the Mariners were on their way to a win for the first time in six days.
You have to feel good about the Mariners narrowly escaping their second consecutive series sweep and sixth loss in a row. They have a lot of work ahead of them, and you know that they are all sitting in the dugout during each game with stern expressions, mechanically and violently analyzing every play like it was their last. Playoffs in reach, outs away from another winning streak. The intensity of a professional athlete knows no bounds as
The Mariners take on the Padres tomorrow, and that's it for me today. Apologies on the briefness of this recap. Go find a dad and tell them they are great. We can get back to yelling at these bozos tomorrow night.
A 1-3 morning loss halts the Padres from starting that winning streak that was supposed to happen.
Well, it was fun while it lasted.
Unlike the lovely shutout yesterday thanks to Jesse Hahn and Co.; the Friars fall short of anything resembling the level of production they showed less than 24 hours ago. Everth Cabrera kicked off the first inning bunting into a double play due to some poor baserunning from Will Venable; and opposing pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka was taken out of the game the following inning due to an upset tummy.
I'm guaranteeing to you that it was because he was in such close proximity to such a disgusting offensive play.
A home run and an RBI-double from New York in the first was all the Mets needed for today; and sacrifice fly in the second would make sure that Rene Rivera's RBI-single that same inning wouldn't mean anything for the remainder of the game. Ian Kennedy wasn't as dominate as one could hope, giving up 3 earned runs but striking out 7 in only 5 innings pitched. But to expect pitching at this point to have to completely shutout the opposition in order to win continues to be an unrealistic goal.
Rivera knocking in our only run of the day with a tough smack up the middle. Pop Quiz: How many runs would the Padres score if you let this gif loop for 1 minute?
The Pads pooled together a total of four hits today. We went 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position. Although drawing a total of 5 walks between, the top of our lineup went hit-less.
Most of us slept through today's game; setting our alarms for the Game of Thrones season finale. TheThinGwynn and Darklighter showed up though, tying for 2 recs. I'm going to give this one to Darklighter though.
One of the greatest hitters of his generation has passed away, far too young.
It's sad when any well-known professional athlete dies, much less a Hall of Fame talent like Tony Gwynn. It's scary for me, because Gwynn was just 54 years old, younger than I am. Here is a statement from the Commissioner's office:
"Major League Baseball today mourns the tragic loss of Tony Gwynn, the greatest Padre ever and one of the most accomplished hitters that our game has ever known, whose all-around excellence on the field was surpassed by his exuberant personality and genial disposition in life. Tony was synonymous with San Diego Padres baseball, and with his .338 career batting average and eight batting titles, he led his beloved ballclub to its greatest heights, including two National League pennants.
"Tony loved our game, the city of San Diego and his alma mater where he starred and coached, San Diego State University, and he was a part of a wonderful baseball family. His commitment to the children of San Diego made him a deserving recipient of our game’s highest off-field honor, the Roberto Clemente Award, in 1999.
"For more than 30 years, Tony Gwynn was a source of universal goodwill in the National Pastime, and he will be deeply missed by the many people he touched. On behalf of all of our Clubs, I extend my deepest condolences to Tony’s wife Alicia, their son Tony Jr. of the Phillies, their daughter Anisha, the Padres franchise, his fans in San Diego and his many admirers throughout Baseball."
And this didn't have to happen. Gwynn was a heavy user of smokeless tobacco, and according to this ESPN.com article, attributed the cancer that eventually took his life to longterm use of that product, despite, as you can read at that link, his wife's pleadings for him to quit.
Maybe this isn't the right time to say what I'm about to say, or maybe it is. From Deadspin:
You can reel off the accolades. Twenty seasons, all with the Padres. Fifteen-time all-star. Eight-time batting champ. Seven Silver Sluggers, to go with five Gold Gloves. A hitting machine with speed. An ideal teammate. His number 19 was retired by San Diego in 2004. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2007. That smile, and that swing.
Smokeless tobacco has since been banned in the NCAA and in the minor leagues. If nothing else, let Tony Gwynn's legacy be a cautionary tale, and let the untimely death of one of baseball's most beloved players save lives.
That last paragraph is exactly right, in my view. Though players can't use smokeless tobacco until they get to the big leagues, many major leaguers still do use it, and with Gwynn's death, far too young, I hope they will see they need to quit. Doing that clearly isn't easy, but they should at least try, and personally -- and I know this will cause outrage among some of you -- I think Major League Baseball ought to ban the stuff.
There's no reason to use it, it doesn't enhance anyone's ability to play baseball, and it can kill you. Tony Gwynn was one of the good guys, and if baseball had the foresight to ban smokeless tobacco decades ago (and this 1998 New York Times article about the death of Bill Tuttle, a 1960s era player who had warned against the dangers of smokeless tobacco surely indicates that they could have), maybe Tony Gwynn would still be alive today.
Rest in peace, Tony. Sincere condolences to his family and many friends. And let this lead to the end of the use of a product that can kill.
San Diego Padres great and Hall of Fame outfielder Tony Gwynn passed away this morning. Let's honor him by taking a look at what he was like as a prospect and how his career developed.
Tony Gwynn was drafted by the San Diego Padres in the third round of the 1981 draft, out of San Diego State University. He was an effective hitter in college, hitting .416/.484/.675 with 11 homers, 18 steals, 26 walks, and only nine strikeouts in 197 at-bats. Coming out of college, he was a respected line drive hitter with good speed and plate discipline, but scouts weren't certain how much pop he would show without the metal bat, and back then little attention was paid to his exceptional BB/K/PA ratio.
Assigned to Walla Walla in the Northwest League, he hit .331/.415/.612 with 12 homers and 17 steals in 42 games, showing excellent plate discipline and maintaining his power. Promoted to Double-A Amarillo in August, he hit .462 with a .725 SLG in 23 games. His pro debut was much stronger than even his backers anticipated. I think you'd have to rate a similar prospect today as a Grade B+ prospect considering his early performance.
Gwynn moved up to Triple-A to begin 1982, hitting .328/.365/.443 in 93 games with 14 steals for Hawaii in the PCL. He was obviously too good for the minors and earned a promotion to the big league team in the second half, where he hit .288/.337/.389 with eight steals in 54 games for the Padres.
At this point, you oldsters may recall that Gwynn was seen as a leadoff guy due to his speed and contact hitting ability, but there were still doubts about his power. It was also unclear if he'd be a .280 hitter and a solid player, or if he would develop into a consistent .300+ hitter and an All-Star type.
He hit .309 in 89 games for the Padres in '83, then broke out with his first batting title in 1984, hitting .351. Seven additional batting titles and five Gold Gloves followed. 3,141 hits later, he's in the Hall of Fame. He led the National League in base hits seven times, finished with a career line of .338/.388/.459, and made 15 All-Star teams.
His Top 10 Sim Score comps are Zack Wheat, Rod Carew, Paul Waner, Wade Boggs, Sam Rice, Roberto Clemente, Heinie Manush, George Sisler, Al Oliver, and Sam Crawford. Nine of those guys are in the Hall. He racked up 65.0 career fWAR, which ranks him 34th all-time among outfielders. That puts him in the neighborhood of Robin Yount (66.5), Tim Raines (66.3), Dwight Evans (65.1), Goose Goslin (64.1), Duke Snider (63.5), and Wheat (63.1).
Could Gwynn's Hall of Fame record been foreseen in his college and minor league profile? It was clear from an early point that he was a very skilled line drive hitter, and his early pro performance was outstanding. But did anyone actually project that Gwynn was a Hall of Fame talent while he was in college (obviously not, he was a third round pick) or when he was in the Pacific Coast League in 1982?
Gwynn took his skill set and became one of the great pure hitters of his generation.
It would have been easy to be intimidated by the '98 Yankees, but "Mr. Padre" was definitely not affected.
Few players in major league history have ever been so pure a hitter as San Diego Padres great Tony Gwynn. He suited up 2,440 games over 20 years exclusively with the Padres, notched 3,141 hits, won eight National League batting titles, and he ended his playing career with the highest career batting average seen since Ted Williams. He was an outstanding hitter who basically never struck out, and a ton of factoids are hovering around the Twitterverse right now about how difficult it was to handle him. (This might be my favorite.) Had it not been for the Players' Strike in 1994, the .394-hitting Gwynn might have hit .400; only 19 players in major history ever had a higher career batting average than Gwynn's .338.
This morning, Major League Baseball was justcrushed by the awful news of Gwynn's tragic passing at age 54:
Jim Salisbury at CSN Philadelphia had just written a touching Father's Day article about Gwynn and his son Tony Gwynn, Jr., a reserve outfielder on the Phillies. Salisbury talked of the elder Gwynn's battle with cancer of the salivary gland and how the family hoped for his recovery despite his failing health in recent months. Gwynn had been baseball coach at his alma mater, San Diego State, since 2003, where he coached future big-league aces Stephen Strasburg and Justin Masterson.
Sadly, Gwynn's recovery was not meant to be; he's gone off to the great ballpark in the sky to join, among others, the longtime voice of the Padres and former Yankee Jerry Coleman, who also passed away this year. (Reminder: Cancer is the friggin' worst and for the love of all that is sacred, quit it with the chewing tobacco before it kills you.)
Since Gwynn spent his entire career in the National League, the Yankees did not have too many interactions with him beyond All-Star Games, but they did meet up with Gwynn's Padres in the 1998 World Series. The Yankees of course had a dominant team that year, one of (if not the) best in the history of baseball, winning 114 games and losing only two games in the playoffs to finish at a remarkable 125-50.
However, Gwynn's Padres were no pushovers. They won a franchise record 98 games in '98 to clinch just their third NL West title in their then-29-year history. Behind the masterful and intense Kevin Brown, a steady rotation that featured former Yankee Sterling Hitchcock, and Cy Young runner-up closer Trevor Hoffman, their pitching staff ranked third among all NL teams in ERA with a 3.63. In addition to Gwynn, who missed his fifth straight batting title but still notched a .321/.364/.501 triple slash at age 38 with a 133 OPS+, the Padres boasted underrated 50-homer slugger Greg Vaughn and hard-hitting third baseman Ken Caminiti, the '96 NL MVP who reached a 132 OPS+ in '98 and also sadly fell to an early demise at age 41 in 2004 due to heavy drug use.
What was the Padres' reward for such a great season? They were granted to opportunity to play against the winningest teams in Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves history. Undaunted, Brown struck out a Division Series record 16 Astros in the playoff opener, former Yankee playoff hero Jim Leyritz crushed a late solo homer to win Game 3, and Hitchcock outpitched Randy Johnson to eliminate the Astros in just four games. Then, the Padres baffled the baseball world by jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the NLCS over the 106-win Braves thanks to a 10th inning homer from Caminiti in Game 1, a three-hit shutout by Brown in Game 2, and Hitchcock again outpitching an ace, Hall of Famer Greg Maddux, in Game 3. The Padres dropped the next two games to became the first team in history to allow a Game 6 after leading 3-0 in a series, but eventual NLCS MVP Hitchcock stopped worries of a collapse by going into Turner Field and tossing five scoreless innings against Hall of Famer Tom Glavine. The Padres put up a five-spot against Glavine in the sixth and they won their second NL pennant.
Again, they were forced to play against a team that had accumulated more wins than any other team in franchise history. It was Gwynn's second career trip to the series after the Padres fell in five games to the Tigers in '84, a 14-year gap between Fall Classics. He was excited to be back to compete for a championship again and was enthralled by the prospect of playing in Yankee Stadium. Gwynn made a trip to Monument Park prior to the World Series opener just to take in the aura of the hallowed grounds and left a wonderful impact on Yankees fans. It wasn't just a matter of respecting him from afar anymore--the man lived and breathed baseball, and his extremely friendly disposition just made him even more likeable.
Unfortunately for the Yankees' vaunted pitching staff, while Gwynn was impressed by Yankee Stadium, he was not intimidated at all. San Diego jumped out to a 5-2 lead thanks to two homers from Vaughn and a three-hit game from Gwynn. Although he wasn't much of a slugger with 135 career homers, he even took David Wells to the left field upper deck with a solo homer in the fifth inning:
Sadly for Gwynn, Brown was removed from the game win the tying run coming to the plate and two outs in the seventh, and San Diego's shoddy middle relief blew the game. The next day wasn't much better as Andy Ashby was pummeled and though Gwynn had another hit, the Padres lost 9-3.
Game 3 was the first World Series game at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium in quite some time and the raucous crowd was ready to see Gwynn and the Padres finally win one. For the fourth time in the playoffs, Hitchock faced a formidable former Cy Young-winning foe in David Cone, and he kept the Padres in the game with six scoreless innings. Gwynn gave him a lead with a two-run single to bring him home after a leadoff hit in the bottom of the sixth, and Gwynn himself came around to score on a sacrifice fly to make it 3-0, Padres. By the time Gwynn would bat again though, the Yankees had rallied off Hitchcock and Hoffman on the strength of two Scott Brosius homers to take a 5-3 lead, deflating the San Diego fans. However, Gwynn refused to let the Padres fall out of it in the half-inning that immediately followed the decisive Brosius homer. Batting against incomparable Yankees closer Mariano Rivera with a runner on second and one out, Gwynn singled again, and Vaughn brought the runner home with a sacrifice fly to make it one-run game. With the tying run on the bases and the go-ahead run at the plate in the dangerous Caminiti, Rivera fanned him to escape the jam and threw a scoreless ninth to clinch the third game.
Facing a sweep, Gwynn was one of only four Padres to get a hit in Game 4. The Yankees scored three runs off Brown, who was pitching on three days' rest, and the Padres could do nothing against Andy Pettitte. Gwynn's sixth inning single was erased on a double play. Trailing by three with one out and a runner on in the eighth, Gwynn knocked Pettitte out of the game by smashing another single up the middle to bring the tying run to the plate with Vaughn, Caminiti, and Leyritz due up, who could all go deep. It was all for naught, as Jeff Nelson and Rivera completed the inning without any runs crossing the plate, and Gwynn never got another chance to bat. Rivera threw a perfect ninth, and the Yankees swept the Padres.
No one could pin any blame on Gwynn, though. He had posted one of the finest World Series batting lines of all time by batting .500/.529/.688 with just one strikeout in the four games. The 15-time All-Star had fully demonstrated his abilities to the Yankees, and all were fully amazed by what the Padres' all-time great had done. That is the memory that countless Yankees fans are left with today now that Gwynn has left us. He was an unbelievable competitor, an all-around wonderful man to be around, and a Hall of Fame player who the baseball community will dearly miss.
Rest in peace, Tony Gwynn. Fans of the Yankees and all other teams around the game doff their caps to you and have your family and the Padres organization in their minds.
Maddux was convinced no hitter could tell the speed of a pitch with any meaningful accuracy. To demonstrate, he pointed at a road a quarter-mile away and said it was impossible to tell if a car was going 55, 65 or 75 mph unless there was another car nearby to offer a point of reference.
"You just can’t do it," he said. Sometimes hitters can pick up differences in spin. They can identify pitches if there are different releases points or if a curveball starts with an upward hump as it leaves the pitcher’s hand. But if a pitcher can change speeds, every hitter is helpless, limited by human vision.
"Except," Maddux said, "for that [expletive] Tony Gwynn."
Greg Maddux, who struck out 3,371 batters, 10th most in history, faced Tony Gwynn 107 times in their careers. He never struck him out. Ever.
Let's watch Tony Gwynn hit baseballs and give speeches.
Tony Gwynn meant a lot to me growing up, as he likely did to just about anyone who got the chance to appreciate his greatness. With his passing, we'll get the chance to reflect on both the man and the player -- you cannot say enough about either, as they were both tremendous.
I don't know how you grieve, and I'm not about to tell you how to, but I'm going to spend at least some of my mourning watching old Gwynn highlights where I can find them. MLB's YouTube page thankfully has some Gwynn, despite most of his career coming in a pre-YouTube era. Come appreciate Tony Gwynn with me by watching what made him so enjoyable during his career.
Gwynn records career hit 1,000, 1988
When you collect over 3,100 hits in your career, you're going to see a few bloops. They all counts the same in the record books, though.
Gwynn records career hit 2,000, 1993
This understandably received more fanfare than the previous milestone, with the Padres setting off roughly one firework for each hit Gwynn had managed in his 11-year career.
Gwynn's first playoff homer, 1998
Tony Gwynn appeared in two World Series, in 1984 and 1998. His Padres did not win either, falling to the powerhouse Tigers and then arguably the single greatest team ever, the '98 Yankees. He did manage to bash his first and only postseason homer against David Wells in Game 1 of that second World Series, though, which would also end up being his final postseason series.
The Padres didn't lose because of Gwynn, that much is for sure. He batted .500/.529/.688 in that four-game set against the Bronx Bombers, and did so after batting .321/.364/.501 as a 38-year-old in his 17th big-league season.
Gwynn records career hit 3,000, 1999
It just seemed like he always knew where the hole was going to be, didn't it?
Gwynn's final All-Star appearance, 2001
If you have 2.5 hours to burn today, you can watch the entire 2001 All-Star Game at Safeco Field. It's the final All-Star appearance for Cal Ripken, and Commissioner Bud Selig awarded both Ripken and Tony Gwynn, who was also retiring at season's end, with the Commissioners' Historic Achievement Award.
Gwynn didn't make the squad even though he made an appearance in Seattle, as he only played in 107 games over his final two seasons. He still had it at the plate, though, as he batted .323/.373/.450 over that time period, at ages 40 and 41. He did make 15 All-Star teams in his total career as well, earning his way to the squad each summer from 1984 through 1999. He didn't get to play in his final official All-Star Game, though, which means the above video somehow has more Gwynn in it.
Gwynn's Hall of Fame acceptance speech, 2007
"An artisan with the bat" certainly belongs on Gwynn's Cooperstown plaque. His acceptance speech is worth your time, especially if you want to learn about what Tony believes made Tony great.
Tony Gwynn passed away Monday at 54. There was only one of him.
I don't remember Tony Gwynn ever striking out, because it almost never happened. For comparison's sake, let's consider that Adam Dunn, the great strikeout artist of our time, once struck out 588 times over a three-year stretch. Gwynn played 20 seasons and struck out only 434 times. These days, hitters strike out about 18 percent of the time. Gwynn, over the course of his entire career: four percent.
The only memory I have of him failing is from This Week In Baseball or a show a lot like it. Gwynn was playing a baseball video game with his kid. The game's developers, without telling him, completely rigged it against him. Every other pitch he threw, he was lit up for a home run. At the plate, every ball he put into play was a dribbler to the mound. He just sort of chuckled, because he's Tony Gwynn. True scientists don't get upset when their laws go belly-up.
I doubt anyone had a closer relationship with, and understanding of, our three dimensions and the things that happen within them. Those jokers at Electronic Arts beat Tony Gwynn the only way anyone could: by taking his laws away.
Gwynn, whose nickname was Captain Video, was baseball's jolliest supervillain dork: famously friendly, with multiple lairs. His first lair was his house, replete with his own personal 1980s YouTube. He had every single one of his plate appearances on videotape, and days' worth of tape documenting the delivery of every pitcher he might ever face. These weren't VHS tapes. They were smaller, about the size of audiocassettes, and could be paused and deconstructed on a frame-by-frame basis with more reliability.
He measured time in frames. Maybe he looked at his swing in frame five and was satisfied. If his shoulder was too low in frame seven, he would frown and go about the business of solving himself.
That was where he learned how to defeat baseball, and his second lair was where he made sure his body understood. After years of asking, the Padres built him a room deep in the underbelly of Jack Murphy Stadium. From George Will's profile of Gwynn in Men at Work:
It is a long, narrow batting room, big enough for a pitcher's mound at regulation distance from a plate, and an "Iron Mike" pitching machine with a capacity for about 250 baseballs. The room is lit at 300 candle feet, exactly as the Jack Murphy field is lit.
I know that this room was originally lit to, say, 285 candle feet, and Tony Gwynn said it wasn't quite right, and they fixed it because it is impossible to say no to a smiling Tony Gwynn.
During the first days of the 1989 season, Gwynn spent so much time using the new batting room that a teammate said, "He wants the hits to land and spin a certain way."
Pitchers spent their entire lives in pursuit of leveraging a baseball's only geometric imperfection -- its stitches -- into breaking balls. They are, at least, allowed to use their hand. Gwynn wanted to do the same with a god-dang piece of wood. He wanted to hit a breaking ball. By this, I don't mean he wanted to hit a baseball that was thrown as a breaking ball by a pitcher, which is impossible enough. He wanted to hit a breaking ball, just as a pitcher would throw one.
Nearly every athlete in sports' upper echelons works very, very hard, but Gwynn shared his level of obsession with nobody. The grade of mastery he was after, given the crudeness of his tools, was like trying to build a ship in a bottle with a pair of hammers.
Tony Gwynn is a hero for matter-of-factly, and affably, dedicating himself to that quest, and he is a legend for getting halfway there. He is a role model for anyone who ever wants to defeat the universe.
Initially not considered in the same class as Williams, Boggs, and Mattingly, he proved himself a unique player with a personality to match.
Hall of Fame outfielder Tony Gwynn died on Monday. There is justice in the fact that his passing will be mourned with a greater intensity than he was sometimes celebrated during his career. In early 1986, Peter Gammons, then of Sports Illustrated, convened Wade Boggs, Don Mattingly, and Ted Williams for a roundtable on hitting. Williams, of course, was the self-proclaimed greatest hitter who had ever lived and had the .406 batting average to prove it as well as a plaque on the wall at Cooperstown. Boggs, 28 that season, had to that point won two of an eventual five batting titles. Mattingly, 25, had already won his sole batting title in 1985, though he'd come close on a couple of other occasions.
Tony Gwynn, then going on 26 and the owner of the .351 batting title that had helped drive the 1984 San Diego Padres to a surprise World Series appearance was, insofar as we know, not invited. Seven more batting titles, a total of 3,141 hits, and a career .338 average lay in his future, all achieved in 20 glorious seasons with the Pads. After hitting .289 in his 54-game 1982 debut, he never hit less than .309 in any year and peaked during the strike-shortened 1994 season with a .394 batting average. As with Boggs, he would join Williams in having his likeness placed in the Hall of Fame shrine.
Later, he would become friends with Williams, and, as so many younger players did, relish talking hitting with him. But that recognition from the San Diego native hadn't yet come. SI let that roundtable breathe, allowing Williams, Boggs, and Mattingly roll on for page after page. At one point, Gammons asks Williams to name some favorite active major-league hitters. Teddy Ballgame's answer:
I love Dale Murphy. He's really got style. I like Mike Marshall's style. I like Bobby Horner, but Horner hits the pitcher's pitch too much. I like Keith Moreland's style. Greg Brock's got style, and he's got great mechanics; I don't understand why he doesn't do better. Darryl Strawberry's big, strong and really quick. He could eventually get a little more opened up and hit 45 home runs. I love to watch him. When you see him on the ball field, you just can't keep your eyes off him. Guys like that don't come along often.
Yes, Greg Brock, a career .248/.338/.399-hitting first baseman came to the great man's mind more easily than did Gwynn. Perhaps that was because Brock was built in the basic left-handed power-hitters mold, whereas Gwynn wasn't like anybody else. There's no model of player that's similar. He was a high-contact hitter, 10 times the hardest man in the National League to strike out. After he gained weight later in his career, the 5'11" outfielder might have reminded you a bit of another batting-title winner, Kirby Puckett, 5'8", the Minnesota Twins outfielder who was about seven weeks older than Gwynn and also died sadly young -- both finished up their careers looking a bit like human bowling pins.
But remembering Gwynn that way does him a disservice. When he first game up he was thin and speedy, stealing up to 56 bases in a season and was a deserving five-time Gold-Glove winner in right field. Oddly, as Gwynn's conditioning slipped and he was more frequently injured, his batting averages continued to rise. He hit .332 in his 20s, .344 in his 30s, and slipped all the way to .323 in two attenuated seasons in his 40s. Foot and knee problems robbed him of speed and range -- he remained good at picking his spots -- from 1993 to 2001 he stole 70 bases against only 19 times caught -- he maintained the ability to put the bat on the ball. He faced Greg Maddux 107 times, hit .415, and never struck out. He hit .303 against fellow lefty Tom Glavine and struck out twice in 105 times at the plate. Split-finger master Mike Scott got him all of three times in 95 PAs. He hit .321 against Orel Hershiser, .444 against John Smoltz.
Tony Gwynn, 1990 (Getty Images)
The sometime-closer Jeff Brantley struck him out once in 33 plate appearances. The rest of the time, Gwynn merely went 16-for-28 against him for a .571 average. The pitcher who got him to swing and miss the most? Nolan Ryan, with nine Ks. Gwynn hit .302 against him. Second-most? Ron Darling with six. Gwynn hit .441. Three other pitchers got him six times each -- the tough lefty John Tudor, against him Gwynn hit .348, and two disparate hurlers who actually did give him problems -- the righty Dwight Gooden and the lefty John Smiley, who somehow held him to .205 in 41 PAs. He couldn't do much with another southpaw, Denny Neagle, either. For the most part, though, familiarity bred contempt: Gwynn faced 97 pitchers 30 or more times in his career. He hit over .300 against roughly three-quarters of them.
"Contempt" is another word that isn't fair to Gwynn; his public persona was very much that of the Ernie Banks of his day, a cheerful, professional man who loved to play baseball, was dedicated to refining his art by any possible means, including the then-innovative study of videotape. The Padres were a mess of clubhouse resentments in the 1980s, driven by radical conservative John Birch Society members, drug abusers, and those who simply resented playing for the moralistic owner of McDonald's Joan Kroc, and her team president Ballard Smith, not coincidentally her son-in-law. Some Padres, such as the pitcher Eric Show (also now deceased), fell into at least two of the three camps. Gwynn seemed to float above it all, just showing up to hit his line drives.
It was no surprise at all that he went into coaching at San Diego State University. Unlike Boggs, Williams, Rogers Hornsby, or Ty Cobb, there didn't seem to be anger driving all those .300 averages, just a respect for excellence. Williams, Cobb, and Hornsby mostly couldn't teach when they tried to coach or manage, were in fact horrifically bad at it; when your driving force is a compulsive rage to excel, it's difficult to relate to others whose motive might be just to have fun playing baseball and do well at it along the way. Whatever animated Gwynn was far more -- and please forgive the use of this term on the day that cancer laid him low -- benign. It is hard to picture Gwynn without a smile on his face.
Gwynn, 1993 (Getty Images)
So, you had consistency, personality, professionalism, and hitting and baserunning results that seemed out of an earlier age. Gwynn was better than those pre-1920 guys, though, with more pop and baserunning ability that was legitimate rather than an imperative forced on every player at a time when extra-base hits were hard to come by. When New York Giants outfielder George Burns stole 40 bases in 1913, he was caught 35 times. When Gwynn stole 40 bases in 1989, he was caught 16 times. That's the difference between a style of play in which the baserunner went because there was no other way off of first and going because you could go, because you had the ability.
Probably the closest thing we have to Gwynn today is Ichiro Suzuki. Gwynn was better than Ichiro as well, though this is unfair to the latter since he spent some prime years playing in Japan. Both players had more than their share of infield hits, but playing mostly in an era which was much less kind to hitters than Ichiro's Seattle 2000s, Gwynn manifested more power. Push Gwynn's career forward about 10 years, put him in the right ballpark, and Williams might have lived to see a new member of the .400 club.
Most likely, though, all comparisons are useless. There hasn't been anyone like him and there may not be again. Throughout his career, Gwynn's amazing eye-hand coordination was frequently remarked upon. Nature manufactures enough ballplayers that each June teams draft about 1200 of them, and that doesn't count the international signings or the domestic guys that get scooped up even though they weren't deemed worthy of a draft pick, but it doesn't give out what Gwynn had very often. Boggs and Mattingly had the same thing to some degree, but they were relatively slow corner infielders. Boggs got the eye to draw 100 walks a season; Mattingly got the power via doing unnatural things to his spine; Gwynn got the preternatural contact ability of both, plus the speed, the arm, and the charm.
It's possible that there's another Gwynn out there somewhere, or will be one day. It's also possible that during the slugging, steroidal years we only just exited, scouts weren't even looking for it. Mark McGwire types were far more in demand than speedy line-drive hitters. We will never know.
This past weekend, Jimmy Rollins was celebrated for becoming the Phillies' all-time leader in hits. Rollins has been a very fine player in his career and could conceivably be a Hall of Famer himself one day. Yet, when one thinks of who the Padres' career leader in hits is, we see how empty such designations can be. Sometimes they indicate longevity and durability more than excellence. In Gwynn's case, though he was not without a few faults related to conditioning as he aged, it was most definitely the latter. Unique is an overused term, but it applies here.
I regret Tony Gwynn's early passing, the loss to his family, friends, teammates, and many fans, but almost as much as that, I regret the passage of time and the extinction of someone who gave and continued to give the game so much. I want it to be 1984 again for a little while, with Gwynn, 24 years old, emerging as a star, slashing doubles and triples from the second spot in the Padres' batting order. In fairer universe, we'd get to see him that way again, even if just for one more time.
Let's have a look back at the baseball life of the Padres star, who died Monday at 54.
By now, you know of the untimely passing of Tony Gwynn, the best hitter of his generation. And I say that for a generation that included Wade Boggs, also a 3,000-hit man.
Gwynn's numbers were impressive. Six 200-hit seasons. Eight batting titles, 14 All-Star selections, and he seemingly personally willed the Padres to two World Series during his career, one of which is to the eternal regret of us as Cubs fans. His .338 lifetime batting average ranks just 18th all-time, but is the best of anyone who debuted after World War II.
Against the Cubs, he actually hit a bit worse than his overall numbers: .333/.387/.439, and .335/.392/.434 at Wrigley Field -- an identical OPS (.826) for each. But the thing Cubs fans might remember most about him is his seventh-inning double that seemed to eat Ryne Sandberg alive, scoring the lead runs in Game 5 of the 1984 NLCS. Of that series, perhaps enough said.
Gwynn's 3,141 hits rank 19th all-time, and among the more impressive things he did was strike out almost not at all. From our modern perspective, where hitters seem to K at will, Gwynn walked more than he struck out every year of his career (except his 54-game rookie season in 1982, where he missed doing that by just a couple of K's). Overall he walked 790 times -- not a lot, because he was busy hitting, hitting, hitting -- and struck out just 434 times. Gwynn, Nellie Fox and Bill Buckner are the only hitters who debuted after World War II to have 10,000 or more plate appearances with fewer than 500 strikeouts.
It was noted earlier that Gwynn hit .415/.476/.521 in 107 plate appearances off Greg Maddux, an amazing performance off the best pitcher of his era, without once striking out. Maddux tweeted condolences:
Tony Gwynn was the best pure hitter I ever faced! Condolences to his family.
Most of all, we'll miss Gwynn's sunny personality; from all the reports I've read today, plus following his career, he never failed to be polite and nice to everyone around him, whether it was family, friends, people in baseball, or just fans. The game will miss him tremendously.
Here's the place where you can share your memories of Tony Gwynn, Hall of Famer, gone too soon at age 54.
An entire fanbase is mourning today, but baseball still goes on. Our Padres begin a two-game set in Seattle tonight and hope to bring the Friar Faithful a win to help ease our pain even a tiny bit.
Over their last 13 games, San Diego is 3-10 while averaging less than two runs per game in that stretch. They're coming off a series loss to the Mets in New York, the finale of which saw them drum up only four hits while collecting their Major-League-worst 21st game with less than two runs scored.
Tyson Ross, however, is coming off one of his best outings of the season. Last Wednesday he pitched seven frames against the Phillies, giving up only four hits and no walks in his effort. Unfortunately, Philadelphia's pitching staff also held the Padres scoreless and Ross ended up with a no-decision thanks to the offensive ineptitude and a walkoff three-run homer for the Phillies. But Ross is still undefeated (2-0) in his last four games on the road, a trend he hopes to continue in tonight's series opener at Safeco Field. He has just one career start against the Mariners under his belt. As an Oakland A's pitcher in 2011, Ross gave up three runs in 4 1/3 innings for a loss. He's split four interleague matchups this season (2-2 record), but has posted a 1.78 ERA in those games.
Opposing Ross will be someone Padres fans should find familiar. Former Friar Chris Young will take the mound for the hated Mariners. Young has spent most of his career in a Padres uniform but tonight he'll be sporting the blue, green, and silver as he faces them for the very first time. But his recent stretch of starts is nothing to dwell on and could be something the Friars can take advantage of. The right-hander comes into tonight's contest having lost four of his last six appearances while posting a 4.79 ERA. He's also failed to make it past five innings in each of his last two. This will be Young's second time in interleague play this season, having struggled in his prior NL matchup this season. He lasted only three innings while giving up four runs against the Marlins back in April.
First pitch in Seattle is scheduled for 7:10 PDT, and the Mariners will hold a moment of silence for our beloved Tony Gwynn 15 minutes prior.
"After Dark" is BFTB's nightly open thread for the community to talk about anything and everything. But tonight it's to talk about the great Tony Gwynn.
What Tony Gwynn Meant to Me - Gaslamp Ball Tony Gwynn was more than "Mr. Padre". He was my "Mr. Baseball". On a day when we will look back at the incredible stats, the incredible man, the incredible ambassador to the San Diego Padres I ...
