THURSDAY, JULY 8, 2010
KLMNO BASEBALL
S
D5 Overlooked Padres are overlooking rest of the division
Led by its pitching, San Diego is outplaying preseason projections
by Dave Sheinin A walk-on in college, an un-
drafted free agent as a pro, a sev- en-year minor leaguer, a throw-in to a 2006 trade, Heath Bell, the San Diego Padres’ ursine closer, is the perfect symbol of the 2010 Pa- dres — a criminally overlooked team with a minuscule payroll that has defied the experts all sea- son, entering Wednesday with the best record in the National League and the lowest earned run average in the majors. And as the symbol of the Pa- dres, Bell is the perfect person to describe the devastation felt in their clubhouse on Sunday when the all-star selections were an- nounced, with not a single Padres pitcher chosen to represent the NL.
“I walked in the clubhouse, gained some weight,” dead- panned the 250-pound Bell. “I had a doughnut—with sprinkles. Shouldn’t have had it. But I was depressed.” Then, turning seri- ous, he said, “Initially, it’s like, dude, how could the best pitching staff in baseball not have an all- star? And then I was just ticked off.” Much as the baseball world was slow to recognize the staying power of the Padres — 49-34 and leading the NL West by three games entering Wednesday night’s game at Nationals Park — the great minds who constructed
NATIONALS 7, PADRES 6 San Diego
the NL team, to add Bell to the squad — satisfying, at least for now, a Padres team that has grown accustomed to such slights over the past three months.
Defying the experts
Most preseason prognostica- tions had the Padres finishing last in their division, and it was widely assumed Bell and first baseman Adrian Gonzalez would be dealt by the July 31 trade dead- line. When they went 15-8 in April, it was widely viewed as a fluke.
But two-months-and-change
later, the Padres are still out- playing their projections and out- pitching the world — their ERA of 3.11, if it were to hold up, would be the lowest of any major league team in 19 years. In recent weeks, they had begun to sense the greater baseball world was com- ing around to their side. And then the all-star snub hap-
pened. “We’re still just an after- thought,” Bell said. “But that’s okay, because at the end of the season we won’t be.” Though Gonzalez, their superb
LENNY IGNELZI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“We just basically told each other, ‘The only way to stop the trade talk was to go out there and be in first place in July,’ ” said Heath Bell.
the NL all-star team needed until Wednesday afternoon to see fit to send a Padres pitcher to Ana- heim, Calif., next week.
An injury to Milwaukee’s Yova- ni Gallardo paved the way for Philadelphia Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel, who will skipper
slugger, made the NL team as a reserve, not a single Padres pitch- er did. Not Bell, with his 23 saves and an ERA that now sits at 1.72. Not setup man Luke Gregerson, with his outrageous 51-to-6 ratio of strikeouts to walks. And not 22-year-old right-hander Mat La- tos, who is 9-4 with a 2.62 ERA in his first full season in the ma- jors). “Were we disappointed? Yes,”
Manager Bud Black said. “There’s this perception out there that
we’re not the team we appear to be. [But] there’s sort of a compli- ment to our team in there as well. We only have one guy on the all- star team. It shows this truly is a team that gets contributions from a lot of different guys.” Added Gonzalez: “It definitely made some guys angry. But I don’t see it as being a team snub, as much as a person-by-person snub. We have four or five guys in here who deserved to make it, based on their numbers.”
Bouncing back
The Padres haven’t been a fac- tor in the playoff race this late in the season since 2007, when they lost an epic, one-game playoff to the Colorado Rockies. What fol- lowed was the slow disintegra- tion of a franchise: The Padres’ owner, John Moores, went through a messy di- vorce from wife Becky, and sub- sequently sold his controlling in- terest in the team. Trevor Hoffman, their legend- ary closer, was let go following the 2008 season, and ace Jake Peavy was traded last July, both moves stemming largely from fi- nancial reasons. And last October, the team fired longtime general manager Kevin Towers, replacing him with 36-year-old Jed Hoyer, a former protege of Theo Epstein in Bos- ton. The current roster, while partly bearing Hoyer’s imprint, is still largely Towers’s construc- tion. Meanwhile, the Padres were a combined 48 games below .500 in 2008-09, getting outscored by more than 125 runs in both sea- sons, as attendance at Petco Park
fell from 2.9 million in 2007 to 2.4 million in 2008 and just 1.9 mil- lion in 2009. However, what was widely overlooked last year was the fact the Padres went 37-25 over the season’s final nine weeks, posting the NL’s second-best record dur- ing that span. “That’s when I knew we had
something [for 2010]. We were beating teams that were in con- tention,” Gonzalez said. “We went into this year knowing we could beat anybody.” Instead of resigning them- selves to their presumed fates — trade bait at this year’s July 31 deadline — Gonzalez and Bell vowed to make it impossible for the Padres’ new ownership to trade them. “We just basically told each
other, ‘The only way to stop the trade talk was to go out there and be in first place in July,’ ” Bell said. “And I’d say it’s stopped.” If anything, the Padres may be looking to add a piece or two at the trade deadline. They have an obvious need for a power bat, as Gonzalez’s 16 home runs through Tuesday were twice as many as anyone else on the team. However, Hoyer has vowed not to compromise the team’s pitching depth by trading an arm for a bat. For that matter, they also can’t add much salary to their $37.8 million payroll.
Besides, making a big trade to add a big bat might make the rest of baseball sit up and take notice. And for now, the Padres them- selves are doing just fine with no one paying them any attention.
sheinind@washpost.com
AB R H BI BB SO AVG
Gwynn cf 4000 0 1 .219 Thatcher p 0000 0 0 --- R.Webb p Stairs ph
Hairston Jr. 2b-ss 5010 0 0 .245 Ad.Gonzalez 1b 5242 0 0 .302 Hairston lf Headley 3b Hundley c
5000 0 1 .226 5120 0 0 .272 4021 0 1 .259
Cunningham rf 4011 0 0 .310 E.Cabrera ss
Salazar ph-2b 1000 0 0 .231 Garland p
Denorfia ph-cf 2111 0 0 .268 Totals
Washington Morgan cf
Bernadina rf
AB R H BI BB SO AVG 4110 0 1 .253 3100 1 1 .281
Zimmerman 3b 4121 0 0 .296 A.Dunn 1b
4335 0 0 .280
Alb.Gonzalez 2b 0000 0 0 .288 Willingham lf 3010 1 1 .279 I.Rodriguez c 4000 0 0 .299 A.Kennedy 2b-1b 4010 0 1 .240 Desmond ss J.Martin p
2111 1 0 .261 2000 0 0 .200
Jo.Peralta p 1000 0 1 .000 S.Burnett p 0000 0 0 --- Storen p 0000 0 0 1.00 Capps p Totals
San Diego Washington
101 000 121 — 6 13 0 401 001 01x — 7 9 0
LOB: San Diego 8, Washington 3. 2B: Ad.Gon- zalez (20), Hundley (9), Cunningham (4), Wil- lingham (13). HR: Ad.Gonzalez (17), off J.Mar- tin; Denorfia (1), off Jo.Peralta; Stairs (2), off Capps; A.Dunn 2 (19), off Garland 2; Des- mond (6), off Garland; A.Dunn (20), off Thatcher. RBI: Stairs (8), Ad.Gonzalez 2 (54), Hundley (26), Cunningham (8), Denorfia (12), Zimmerman (47), A.Dunn 5 (54), Des- mond (36). S: Garland.
San Diego IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA Garland (L, 8-6)
Thatcher R.Webb
Jo.Peralta S.Burnett Storen
Washington IP H R ER BB SO NP ERA J.Martin (W, 1-4)
6 8 6 6 2 4 83 3.56 1 1 1 1 0 1 17 2.08
1 0 0 0 1 0 15 1.65 5C 6 2 2 1 4 96 3.35 C 1 1 1 0 1 7 1.23
C 0 0 0 0 0 9 2.79 1 3 2 2 0 0 23 2.28
Capps (S, 23) 1 3 1 1 0 0 22 3.26
Thatcher pitched to 1 batter in the 8th. Inherited runners-scored: Jo.Peralta 2-0. IBB: off Garland (Desmond). WP: Garland. T: 2:53. A: 13,762 (41,546).
HOW THEY SCORED
Padres first: Gwynn grounded out. Hairston Jr. grounded out. Ad.Gon- zalez homered. Hairston fouled out. Padres, 1-0.
Nationals first: Morgan singled. On Garland’s wild pitch, Morgan to second. Bernadina walked. Zimmer- man singled, Morgan scored, Berna- dina to second. Dunn homered, Ber- nadina scored, Zimmerman scored. Willingham doubled. I.Rodriguez grounded out, Willingham to third. A.Kennedy struck out. Desmond was intentionally walked. J.Martin popped out. Nationals, 4-1. Padres third: Garland singled.
Gwynn struck out. Hairston Jr. grounded out,, Garland to second. Ad.Gonzalez doubled, Garland scored. Hairston struck out. Nation- als, 4-2.
Nationals third: Dunn homered.
Willingham struck out. I.Rodriguez lined out. A.Kennedy singled. Des- mond flied out. Nationals, 5-2. Nationals sixth:
I.Rodriguez
grounded out. A.Kennedy flied out. Desmond homered. Jo.Peralta struck out. Nationals, 6-2. Padres seventh: E.Cabrera struck
out. Denorfia homered. Gwynn grounded out. Hairston Jr. grounded out. Nationals, 6-3. Padres eighth: Ad.Gonzalez sin- gled. Hairston grounded out, Ad.Gonzalez to second. Headley sin- gled, Ad.Gonzalez to third. Hundley doubled, Ad.Gonzalez scored, Hea- dley to third. Cunningham grounded out, Headley scored. Salazar lined out. Nationals, 6-5.
Nationals eighth: Dunn homered.
Willingham walked. I.Rodriguez lined into a double play, Willingham out. A.Kennedy grounded out. Na- tionals, 7-5. Padres ninth: Denorfia grounded
out. Stairs homered. Hairston Jr. sin- gled. Ad.Gonzalez singled, Hairston Jr. to second. Hairston grounded into fielder’s choice, Hairston Jr. to third, Ad.Gonzalez out. Headley grounded out. Nationals, 7-6.
Nats Leaders Stats entering Wednesday’s games
Pitchers W-L ERA GSV IP BB SO Peralta 0-0 0.00 5 0 6.2 1 5 Storen 2-1 1.59 21 0 22.2 10 19 Strasburg 2-2 2.45
6 0 36.2 10 53
Clippard 8-5 2.63 43 1 51.1 22 57 Burnett 0-4 2.86 38 0 28.1 10 26
0000 0 0 .000 31 7 9 7 3 5 —
2000 1 2 .200 1110 0 0 .172 39 6 13 6 1 5 —
0000 0 0 --- 1111 0 0 .200
JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST Washington’s Adam Dunn, unloading a three-run shot in the first inning off Jon Garland, hit three homers in a game for the first time and is the first to do so at Nationals Park. Dunn hits three homers to power Nats past Padres, 7-6 nationals from D1
six years. He’s a very, very impor- tant player to this team in what we do offensively, not only in the field but in the clubhouse, as far as helping out the young guys. “We understand people have to do their job. Personally, I think if we get rid of a couple of those guys, we’re going to maybe take a step backward instead of for- ward. I don’t think we’re that far away. It’s really, really hard to find a 3-4-5. Look at what we’ve done for the past two years. We enjoy playing together, and we kind of push each other. It’s a good group we have. It would be bad if we broke it up, I think. “I think they already know
what I think,” Zimmerman said. Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo and President Stan Kasten “are very smart guys. They’ve done a great job so far.”
On Wednesday, the Nationals needed each of Dunn’s three home runs — a three-shot blast to the Red Porch seats in the first that put the Nationals up 4-1 be- fore making their first out, a solo homer to roughly the same spot to lead off the third, and a moon shot into the first rows over the left-field scoreboard in the eighth — to hold off the Padres, who scored four runs in the final three innings. They pushed the tying run to third base in the ninth be- fore Matt Capps extricated him- self by inducing a groundball to first by Chase Headley.
Dunn had not hit a home run in his last 46 at-bats, a typical drought for most players, an un- common dry spell for him. In the first, Dunn walked to the plate with two men on. Jon Garland, whom the Nationals pursued this winter in free agency, tossed a 1-0 change-up, and Dunn belted it to
center field and the ball landed in the Red Porch seats, putting the Nationals up 4-0.
Garland yielded a double to
Josh Willingham before record- ing the first out, but the Nationals did not score again until Dunn led off the third inning. This time he swung at the first pitch Gar- land threw, a 92-mph sinker, and crunched it to roughly the same spot as his first homer. Dunn has hit more home runs on the first pitch of an at-bat than any other count in his career, and this year three of his 19 homers have come on the first pitch. In the eighth, after Drew Sto- ren allowed multiple runs in an appearance for the first time in his career, Dunn struck again and provided a necessary slice of in- surance. Left-hander Joe Thatch- er pitched around Dunn with slow curves and change-ups until he spun a 77-mph curve on 2-2.
Nationals Journal
6voices.washingtonpost.com/nationalsjournal/ Strasburg’s 1st start
of 2nd half debated The Washington Nationals are still deliberating when Stephen Strasburg will make his first start of the second half of the season — in Florida against the Marlins in the first series after the all-star break, or in Cincinnati in the following series. In determining the rest of his schedule, the Nationals will need to keep Strasburg under his prescribed 160-inning limit. So
⁄3
at the start of last week and has not pitched since June 19 because of soreness in his right shoulder, will pitch in a rehab assignment before making his return after the all-star break.
far, between the minors and majors, Strasburg has pitched 92 innings and, in the majors, has averaged just more than six innings per start. If Strasburg averages 61
innings per start
from here on out, he’ll make 10 more starts, nine coming in the season’s second half. “No matter how you mix it up, the innings will probably be eaten by sometime in early September,” Riggleman said. . . . Reliever Tyler Walker, who went on the 15-day disabled list
Eckstein family affair
David and Rick Eckstein shared the field at Nationals Park on Wednesday night, David as the San Diego Padres’ second baseman and Rick as the Nationals’ hitting coach. Both of them have reached their position because of one encounter a decade ago, when Rick flew to meet David, his younger brother, in Pawtucket, R.I. Said David: “It’s why I’m in the major leagues right now.” Said Rick: “That day, it
Dunn lofted the ball high into the hazy sky and watched the ball for a moment before he started jog- ging. It landed in the first rows beyond the scoreboard. “It’s pretty cool to hit three ho-
mers,” Dunn said. “I don’t feel any different than I have in the past. I just got a pitch to hit, and I didn’t miss it.” Dunn’s home runs had sealed
the Nationals’ victory, even on a shaky night for the Nationals. They had won their fourth game this homestand. Manager Jim Riggleman has spoken to his team about the need to convince the front office not to break up their team with their play. On Wednesday, Dunn provided the strongest argument yet. “Who doesn’t need a 40-home run guy, a 100-RBI guy?” Willing- ham said. “He’s pretty invaluable to the team. “I don’t know what’s going
motivates me on a daily basis with my hitters.” In 2000, while playing for the
Class AAA Pawtucket Red Sox, David fell into the roughest slump of his career to that point. Shortly after Rick’s visit, the Red Sox designated David for assignment and the Angels picked him up. In the final 15 games of the 2000 season playing for Class AAA Edmonton, David hit .346. In 2001, he made the Angels out of spring training. In 2002, he played shortstop for the World Series champions. When Rick flew out to help
David, he was coaching at Florida, his alma mater. David’s success helped spread word about Rick’s ability as a coach and a teacher and paved the way
NATIONALS ON DECK
VS. PADRES Thursday, 7:05 (MASN)
VS. GIANTS Friday, 7:05 (MASN) Saturday, 7:05 (MASN) Sunday, 1:35 (WDCW-50, MASN)
@ MARLINS
July 16, 7:10 (MASN2) July 17, 7:10 (MASN2) July 18, 1:10 (MASN2)
RADIO: WFED (820 AM, 1500 AM)
through the front office’s minds. That’s not really my concern. But I would like for us to continue to play well and that way we don’t have to worry about it.”
kilgorea@washpost.com
for him to become a coach in the major leagues.
Rick still works with David in
the offseason in Florida. Several Nationals, including Ryan Zimmerman, Ian Desmond and Roger Bernadina, join them and have gotten to know David well. During this series and their meeting earlier in San Diego, the brothers and friends had to compete against one another. Said David: “It’s a club that you root for. I check their box scores every day. If they’re on TV, I’m watching them. It’s a little bit different. It’s definitely not a sibling rivalry where there’s bragging rights at the end. We both want to see each other do well.
— Adam Kilgore
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