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I'd like to take a moment to thank the Padres for sweeping the Cubs over the weekend - I got almost as much enjoyment out of that, as I did from Arizona completing a 6-3 road-trip. However, San Diego should now feel free to stop, and return to the sucky team we all expected them to be in 2009, in particular for the next three days. Although, as already documented this morning, as soon as the team leaves Petco, they appear to require little or no incentive or request on that front.
Doug Davis tries to bounce back from what can only have been a terribly difficult start last time: "Oh, did you hear? A team-mate's wife just dropped dead. Now, here's the game-ball. Go get 'em, Double-D." [Ok, I've little doubt that wasn't what happened, but I doubt there exists any way to lessen the impact]. I mentioned the Padres' home/road splits, so we should also note that, so far, Doug Davis has been rather better in Chase than away from it - probably not what you'd expect from our hitter-friendly park. However, opposing batters are hitting 51 points lower in Phoenix, which has helped lead to a significant ERA split: 3.38 vs. 4.76.
Looking forward to this, and debating whether to take the laptop into the living-room, so I can multi-task. We watched both the original and the remake of Halloween last night, so I think I want to do a comparative review of them - if I have the laptop with me, while it's still just as easy to get distracted, at least I won't have to do all that 'running back-and-forth through to the living-room' thing, which certainly doesn't improve the coherence of my writing...
Lineup
- Parra LF
- Ojeda 2B
- Upton RF
- Drew SS
- Reynolds 3B
- Tracy 1B
- Young CF
- Snyder C
- Davis P
Interesting move to put Parra atop the order. Partly a reaction to the ongoing absence of Lopez - said Hinch, "It's not something that we're initially overly concerned about. We'll be cautious enough, but he's been around a long time and knows his body. It's more to make a definitive plan and stick with it." However, Parra has also shown a great deal of patience in his at-bats so far: he has only five K's in 47 PAs to date, though his pitches/PA still are below league-average. Be interesting to see how he copes with the responsibility. Elsewhere, much as usual, though they are clearly trying to get Young to play through his struggles.