No matter how poor the Padres play we can always console ourselves by being the team of Tony Gwynn and Ken Caminiti. Er Tony Gwynn.

Instead I heard Bud Black on the radio this morning talking about Walter Silva and Wade LeBlanc.

Clearly they are waiting on Latos because they want to keep him under control without having to pay him so July is a much more likely call up date but personally if I’m buying a ticket to a Padre game I would much rather see a young guy with good stuff and potential than an old guy with mediocre stuff.

speaking of mediocre stuff… What and awful starting pitching performance in Anaheim this past weekend. I had no idea Young, Gaudin and Geer could be so bad.

Young- 2.1, 5 ER including a point where he walked 4 straight batters with 2 outs!
Geer- 5.2, 7ER, 3 Home runs allowed.
Gaudin- 3, 8ER, He faced 18 batters in 3 innings!

11 innings pitched 20 earned runs. YUCK!

Anyways… Little did we know that would be the start of a career which would put him at the brink of being the Padres all time wins leader (I think he’s just 6 wins away).

The reason I bring that up is because we will probably be seeing the debut of Matt Latos as a full time starter sometime within the next month. (Not his Major League Debut which happened last year but still it will be like his professional debut because he won’t go back to minors after this one).

Latos is tearing up the minors (48 innings, 23 hits, 3ER, 49 K and 11 BB) and I think the Padres were planning on having him take Peavy’s spot once Jake got traded, but since it’s looking less and less likely that Jake will get moved this season we could see Latos taking Geer’s spot in the rotation.

In my earlier prediction I had a mystery starter being acquired for Giles (I also had Baek actually not being injured all season). I guess the mystery starter is going to be Latos and the numbers I was giving to Baek can go to Correia.

So expect by next month the rotation to be Peavy, Young, Correia, Gaudin, Latos.

Also expect to see Giles dumped in some way or another so a lineup that goes…
Thin Gwynn
Eck
A-Gone
Hairston
Kouz
Headley
Hundley/Blanco
Rodriguez/Evereth
Pitcher

Within 30 days. mark it!

Probably not but let me throw out a couple of nifty little nuggets…

Three of the first four players the Padres drafted were highschoolers…

Those three were Aflac All-Americans. Meanings they were three of the best 38 high school player in the country!

1. Donavan Tate is stud outfielder with all 5 tools. The scouts say his biggest weakness is his bat but the kid hit over .500 so I am guessing they are referring to his ability to hit major league breaking pitches (which you probably don’t see in HS very often). Here is some video of the kid hitting home runs off chubby HS pitchers…
http://itmightbedangerous.blogspot.com/2009/06/tate-video.html

The only real question is if he will sign with the Padres or go to UNC and play both football and Baseball. I have a hard time believing he will pass up the money because it’s not like in three years he can go much higher than number 3.

2. Everett Williams is allegedly the second best HS outfielder. The reason he dropped to the Padres is because so many first round selections were pitchers and college guys. Basically the Padres got two of the top 5 position HS players in the country with their top 2 picks. Of course this is all contingent on how much these guys mature, learn, grow and develop (all words that mean the same thing) but by getting two of them you have a pretty good feeling that at least one can be starring in spacious Petco park within 4 years.

4. Keyvius Sampson is my favorite pick. He’s a dominating HS pitcher who has hit 96 on the gun. Baseball America had him ranked 47 on the top 100 amateurs. We got him at 114! Why? Probably because a year and a half ago he got expelled from school for driving around some friends with a loaded gun but seriously what else is there to do in Florida?

I think the Diamond in Lake Elisnore will be rocking when these guys show up with Sampson throwing major heat and Williams and Tate covering a lot of ground.

Ahhhh it’s sweet to dream isn’t it?

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/cardinals/story/85EFBB15E1C55309862575C7000EC1C1?OpenDocument

Evidently getting two nobody pitchers (one who’s elbow blew out in spring training) was a much better deal then being stuck with Greene. He is on the DL with “social anxiety disorder”.

I may appear to be a jerk in this situation but I honestly don’t have sympathy for a professional baseball player with SAD (that’s really what they call it.)

He’s getting paid 6.5 million dollars but can’t handle the pressure that is placed on him to hit the outside slider.

Man this sure seems like another amazing deal by Kevin Towers.

Oh but reportedly the Cardinals are considering filing a greivence against he Padres becasue the Padres knew Greene had issues and didn’t tell the Cardinals when they traded him.

Um? Did the Cardinals ever watch any of Greene’s games or post game interviews?

wow.

You are right about Adrian and the fact that they will pitch less and less to him with him swinging and worse pitches. At the same time however his aggressive approach is getting him to drill a lot of mistakes. For instance either Saturday or Sunday (im not sure) one of his bombs came on an 0-2 count. It was a pitch that was off the plate but it was up. A patient hitter would have let that ball go and try and get a better count. Adrian, being as aggressive as he is, hammered it.

The bigger concern I have is how much of an impact he is making on W’s. Out of his 20 HRs this season 15 have been on the road. Our road record is 8-19. Our home record is 17-6… 15 homers in 8 wins vs 5 homers in 17 wins.

Clearly we need more than Adrian’s bat to win on the road.

But all we need to win at home is Pitching! And Jake Peavy’s ERA at home is a point and a half lower than on the road. Young’s is 4 and half lower!

Gaudin is 1-0 with a 1.50 ERA at Petco. On the road he is 1-3 with a 5.35 ERA!

Why am I saying all this? Because, while I am in no way endorsing this idea, It makes more sense for the Padres to trade Adrian than to trade Jake (NOTE: DO NOT TRADE EITHER!!!)

The Padres can compete at home with almost any old lineup because their pitchers know how to pitch at home. But they need pitchers who can pitch on the road if they want to be consistent. Jake is the only guy on the staff whose numbers don’t show a crazy road/home split.

17 wins at home… Adrian has 12 RBI
19 losses on the road… Adrian has 28 RBI.

I guess we would probably have zero road wins if not for Adrian but still. You’d like to see his power helping the team win more.

OK so May wraps up… I had predicted 23-28. They ended 25-25. Pretty good!

I have the Padres going 16-10 in June. The way they are playing at home currently that seems like a really high chance (15 games at home 11 on the road this month). If the Padres are at 41-35 at the end of June are they all of a sudden buyers instead of sellers?