Padres Report - September 21st

Padres Report – September 21, 2006

On Tuesday, after the Padres beat Pittsburgh in game 1 of the now completed series I wrote:

On Monday, July 17th, the Padres beat Philly in Philly
On Monday, July 24th, the Padres beat the Dodgers in LA
On Friday, August 18th, the Padres beat Arizona in Arizona
On Monday, August 21st, the Padres beat the Dodgers in LA
On Monday, September 4th, the Padres beat Colorado in Colorado

And the Padres went out and won game 1 of the series; for the first time at home since the All Star break and 6th time overall since the break.

Then, after Wednesday’s loss, I wrote:

The Padres made the task MORE difficult by not getting a win tonight. Thursday night, the Padres get the joy of facing Brandon Webb.

After losing game 2, I was a bit nervous about facing Brandon Webb with the series on the line. The Padres have still won every series they’ve played since the All Star break in which they won game 1.

Well as you know the Padres won Thursday night (hey, if you’re coming to my site for news, wrong site, I provide insight and analysis) to keep their half-game advantage (the Dodgers won too as you know). And like I told you back on September 14th, at that time, if the Padres won each series they’d win 88 games. Well they didn’t win the LA series, the split it, so if they win each of the remaining series, that’s 87 games. I think 88 games will definitely win the division and 87 will probably win it.

Woody was brilliant. I love how he knows what he wants to throw and when he has the chance to give Piazza the sign, he does. That take-charge attitude combined with his intelligence is fun to watch.

Woody’s line from Thursday:

5.2 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 3 SO, 0 HR, 79 pitches

Typically, Bochy used Meredith in the leverage situation… Typical; Meredith came through. And Linebrink and Hoffy were Linebrink and Hoffy…

***

477. 477! Man! What a career! When Hoffy broke 400 I said that he was NOT a lock for the Hall of Fame (especially not because of his 400 saves). I argued that he was a strong candidate because of his 960 strikeouts compared to only 248 walks in 879.1 innings. He is a strong candidate because of his career 2.71 ERA. He is a strong candidate because of his save-conversation rate. Since the beginning of the 1999 season, Trevor has converted 91.1% of his save opportunities (I wasn’t able to find blown-save data from 1998 or earlier).

So now, that Trevor is on the precipice of tying Lee Smith’s Save record and he still has that sub-3.00 ERA and more strikeouts than innings pitched, and nearly four strikeouts for each walk.

Yeah, he’s a Hall of Famer…

***

Now, let go out and win game 1 against the Pirates!