MVN - Most Valuable Network

Punchless Padres Drop Series To Giants

As the ball fell beyond Jim Edmonds glove, the Giants and their fans celebrated a 1-0 victory and their first winning streak of the young season. Padre fans started a familiar refrain… Where’s the bats?

13 men stranded on Tuesday night in a game the Gigantes eventually took in extras, 3-2.  Tonight, only 4 hits and questions about the speed of Edmonds, who not only could not get to  Daniel Ortmeier’s  2 out RBI double in the ninth, but also got thrown out at the plate to end the seventh.

It’s not the pitching.  Justin Germano pitched great, Randy Wolf was fine the night before.  And for all the short-sighted talk about Trevor, one of Hoffy’s losses came on Sunday in a tie game… a game where the Padres  had men on second and third in the first with no one out and could not score either runner.  Hoffy’s game is using the batter’s instincts to force early swings and frustration, and he is far more effective when desperation is gnawing at his opponent.  If the Padres had even managed a long fly ball, he would have had that to exploit.

With the exception of tonight’s pitchers duel, it could be successfully argued that the Pads are doing better average wise.  But they are not getting the hits when they need them.  Another base hit in the seventh tonight and the Padres have a two run lead.  Edmonds plays a little deeper, since the runner on second scoring on a single would have been meaningless.  He makes that catch, and the Padres leave San Francisco with a series win.

Maybe the off day tomorrow can shake some cobwebs out of the bat rack.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 9:23 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.