The Padres have had a dark streak the past week; but the collective effort of Kennedy and the bullpen allowed the spicy bats of Grandal, Smith, and Venable to avoid the sweep.
It has been a rough week for Padres fans. Having to adjust and readjust to a bipolar offense and pitching giving up uncharacteristically high numbers (by our standards) are but a few of the many struggles we face on a day-to-day for our fandom. But for today, all of that was pushed aside and we got to enjoy some good baseball.
Last night, despite a start that relieved many and probably worried a few, Andrew Cashner went five innings only giving up 2 runs, 2 walks, and striking out a Dback. Despite the Padres making back those two runs later in the game, the snakes took advantage of the bullpen late in the 8th inning and the Friars couldn't reciprocate.
For today's action the script was different. San Diego was looking to avoid an ugly sweep, and Chase Anderson was the perfect victim for a lacking offense to take advantage of. Starting early with a pair of singles, Seth Smith snuck in Yangervis Solarte with a little groundout, and Yasmani Grandal sacrificed himself to get Rymer Liriano across the plate, giving the Pads an early 2-0 lead.
In 37 at-bats for the Padres, Rymer is now hitting at a Padres average of .216 with a .672 OPS. He has as many runs (8) as he does hits, and has drawn 6 walks in all of that.
Things went to the 5th where Diamondbacks would plate two of their own, but not before Yasmani Grandal hit his 11th HR of the season, a three-run jack that got Ian Kennedy and Seth Smith across, who both drew walks along with Yangervis Solarte before Liriano grounded into a double play. Things were looking good for the Padres at 5-2.
This HR from Yaz actually left Chase Field. For reference: the roof was closed.
That's where the game would be decided. Arizona would go on to sludge 2 more runs on the board, and Will Venable left them completely redundant with his pinch-hit 2-run HR at the tail end of the 8th inning. The final score cemented at 7-4, finally in the Padres' favor.
When Will hits it hard; he hustles. Not because of his fundamentals, but so he can get back to the dugout to talk trash on Twitter.
The harsh 10-game road trip is at an end. The Pads went 3-7 on that stint, and things started to look dark again. With Cashner back in the mix, we'll see more of the same: elite pitching that banks entirely on our Padres scoring exactly more than 3 runs.
For once our early lead pushed us heavily into a high win expectancy. Thanks to the fantastic pitching from Ian Kennedy who went hard against his former team with a good 5.2 innings giving up only 3 earned runs and striking out 6 rattlers, it was a solid improvement over his performance last week against the Doyers.
Source: FanGraphs
This also marks our very own Bud Black's 600th win with the Friars since his official hiring back in November of 2006. Buddy has had a .474 win-to-loss percentage. He has lost 65 more games than he has won as manager in his 8 official years with the Padres. The team at their best with Bud was second place, and on average with Buddy the Padres tend to finish in 3rd, seeing no playoff appearances.
In comparison Bruce Bochy left the Padres with a .494 winning percentage in his twelve years with us. Black still has 351 wins to go to touch the Boch in the Padres record book.
A lazy Sunday for GLB, a handful of ya showed up to work some juju in opposite of the sweep.
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| Total comments | 41 |
| Total commenters | 8 |
| Commenter list | B Cres, C Callahan, Darklighter, Friar Fever, abara, hashtagtroll, jodes0405, podpeople |
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abara and Friar Fever carried the thread, but gathered no recs. In fact, nobody did. Try harder next time.