Baseball schmaseball
Posted In Sports
Nobody could ever accuse me of being a bandwagon fan of the San Diego Padres. The Padres lost the 2009 season opener last night 4-1 before a record 45,496 fans at Petco Park. I’m still holding out hope to come out of the NL West basement where they ended the 2008 season but it’s the same old offense-challenged Padres.
Ace Jake Peavy gave up two singles in his first five pitches, both runners later brought in by a James Loney single. He earned his first loss in four Opening Day starts and first loss against the Dodgers in his last 12 decisions, a loss that occurred way back on September 13, 2003 during Peavy’s first full MLB season. Dodgers pitcher Hiroki Kuroda gave up just one run in the first inning, then basically shut the Pads down over the next four, allowing just one baserunner. David Eckstein and Brian Giles got a pair of singles in the sixth and Adrian Gonzalez walked to load the bases with two outs. In typical Padres fashion (failure to take advantage of an offensive situation), Cory Wade relieved Kuroda and Kevin Kouzmanoff grounded out, dribbling the ball about 15 feet from the batters box. The Padres only run started as a Jody Gerut leadoff double, advancing to third on Eckstein’s sacrifice, and then crossing the plate after a Giles’ hit clearing Kuroda’s head. The greatest San Diego “play” actually came before the game as former Padres stars Tony Gwynn, Randy Jones, Dave Winfield, and Ollie Brown simultaneously threw out ceremonial first pitches to celebrate the Padres’ 40th anniversary. San Diego will play L.A. again tonight. I’ll cross my fingers and my toes and rub a Troll doll, anything it takes for a Padres win!