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Diamondbacks Line-up
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Gerardo Parra, CF
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Martin Prado, 2B
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Paul Goldschmidt, 1B
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Jason Kubel, LF
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Cody Ross, RF
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Miguel Montero, C
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Eric Chavez, 3B
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Cliff Pennington, SS
- Wade Miley, P
We arrived in San Diego, where the Padres, after a wretched start which saw them win just five of their first twenty games, have bounced back to take six of the last eight, including a sweep of the same Giants who just swept us. It wouldn't do to take them lightly - though the sweep was by a combined margin of four runs, and like the D-backs, a lot of their intra-division contests have been quite close. I'm still hoping for a blowout victory tonight, simply because I feel we deserve one. The Padres already had their good fortune for the week: four games against the Cubs.
As usual for the opening game in the series, ZM has written about the opposition much better than I could, though I will say I don't think we ever hated Carlos Quentin. He was basically the 2008 version of Justin Upton, who had trolls breathlessly rushing in to enlighten us, whenever Carlos did anything good. Of course, in the four-plus seasons since then, he has put up a grand total of 3.9 bWAR, a win less than another former D-backs outfielder from that era, Scott Hairston, over the same time. There's probably a moral here, though I'm not quite sure what it is. And it probably only works if you ignore the #22 jersey, lying crumpled up at the back of the wardrobe.
It's kinda ironic Quentin is back under Padres GM Josh Byrnes, he being the same man who traded Quentin away from Arizona, for Chris Carter, in December 2007. One thing which hasn't changed, is Quentin's ability to get hit by pitches. Since the start of the 2011 season, Quentin has been hit 43 times; that's eight more than the second-placed Kevin Youkilis, who has over 200 more trips to the plate. Among batters with less than 900 PAs during that time, like Carlos, the next most is Sean Rodriguez, all the way down on 23 HBPs. So you'd think Quentin would be used to it by now. Not according to Zack Greinke, anyway.
Might be myself, might be soco, on the recap tonight. It kinda depends how things unfold. 'charmer is on baby watch. I don't think she's the one actually having the baby, but let's be honest, I pretty much glaze over and tune out when the B-word crops up, much as Mrs. SnakePit does with words like "BABIP". There will be a recap, though it may not come from someone who actually watched the game.