The Padre Post

WASHINGTON — Homerun, homerun, and one more homerun was all the offense that took place Friday night between the San Diego Padres and Washington Nationals, both last in their respective divisions.

For two teams that struggle to score runs, it is not much of a surprise that this opening series game was a pitcher’s duel, with the next two likely to have the same fate.

Both starters, Clayton Richards of San Diego and John Lannan of Washington, pitched some of their best ball of the year thus far.  The only mistake came upon Richards who allowed a solo shot to Danny Espinosa for the Nationals first run and lead of the day, 1-0.

Clayton Richards pitched seven innings in which he allowed just three-hits in the effort.  However, Lannan was just a bit better, lasting 7 2/3 innings and issuing two-hits on two walks for an impressive combination of five-hits between the two starters.

This game was not only a favorite for the fan who craves a pitcher’s duel, but also the fan who loves ninth-inning drama; and there was plenty of that in the last frame.  Padres shortstop, Jason Bartlett, led off the ninth by sending Nationals relief pitcher, Drew Storen’s first pitch into the left-field blenchers for the 1-1 tie.

In addition, for the fan that loves getting a little extra for his money, it appeared that this game would go extras with the Bartlett homerun and the way the pitchers were performing last night.

But, that lonely fan would quickly have the smile turned upside-down with Michael Moore’s walk-off homerun for a Nationals 2-1 victory.  He also led-off the ninth with a first pitch homerun, marking the Nationals first walk-off victory of 2011.

SAN DIEGO — It will only be a matter of time before the 30,000+ fans that show up become frustrated over the Padres lack of offense that PETCO Park will start to look as empty as the Florida Marlins or Oakland Athletics ballpark.

San Diego continues to struggle at home this season; scoring just a total of two-runs in their three-game Interleague series against the Seattle Mariners.  Seattle swept the Padres easily as San Diego has now dropped five of its last six games.

Seattle outscored San Diego 14-2 over 27-innings leading to many questions needing be answered about this team soon.  Granted, the Padres were going against American League Cy Young winner, Felix Hernandez, in Sunday’s finale, but the Mariners offense is not any more talented than San Diego’s, yet, Seattle was able to support their pitchers in the series.

Hernandez was fantastic in his best start of 2011.  He pitched eight strong innings allowing just one-run on six-hits.  But, more impressive was his command that earned him a season high, 13-strikeouts.

Not much can be said of Tim Stauffer’s start with the lack of run support, but worse were the ten-hits he surrendered leading to three Mariners runs.

Seattle took a 3-0 lead after a double by Carlos Peguero to center that scored Justin Smoak and Miguel Olivo in the third.  Another two-run RBI-double by Brendan Ryan allowed the Mariners to further run away with this game and take the visitor sweep of San Diego.

San Diego’s lone run came in the bottom of the seventh off an RBI-single by Chris Denorfia that scored Chase Headley from second.

The Padres need an offensive power threat, and need it quick.  The trade of Adrian Gonzalez is doing more damage than the organization probably anticipated.  Not only has the offense drastically dropped, but, the fans now have no big name player to cheer for and generate media attention around the club.  A free-agent trade is looming and needs to be executed to a long-term contract to keep fans interested in baseball in San Diego.

DENVER — A six-run lead quickly turned into a two-run loss for the Colorado Rockies as the San Diego Padres rallied for eight-runs over the final three-innings of the game to defeat the Rockies in a heart-breaker final of 9-7.

Brad Hawpe of San Diego seemed to be involved in just about every offensive play that took place in this game.  He singled to center to leadoff the second and scored the game’s first run on Kyle Phillips one-out, RBI-single to center.

Colorado then blew open the game, scoring seven runs in the middle frames, with a four-run third.

Aaron Harang jumpstarted the Rockies rally by issuing Dexter Fowler a free-pass to start the inning.  A bunt single by Jonathan Herrera that should have gotten one-out, maybe two, resulted in two runners aboard with no-outs.  Carlos Gonzalez followed with a soft single to left scoring Fowler and positioning Herrera at second, still with no outs.  Troy Tulowitzki doubled to the deep part of left, scoring both Herrera and Gonzalez, but, was thrown out after trying to stretch his base-hit into a triple.  Todd Helton followed with a deep shot to straightaway center for his fifth homerun of the season, giving Colorado the 4-1 lead after three.

Colorado continued to pour on the runs as Carlos Gonzalez hit a solo homerun to right-filed in the fourth.  In the fifth, the Rockies added two more runs with Ty Wigginton’s RBI-single and Chris Iannetta’s sacrifice-fly which ended Harang’s outing.

Leading by six after six-innings of play, it seemed like the Rockies had this game wrapped up and just had to leave it in the hands of their bullpen.  That apparently was not going to happen as the Padres began their rally, scoring four-runs in the seventh.

Cameron Maybin opened the seventh with a lead-off walk and advanced to second on Ryan Ludwick’s single to left.  Both Maybin and Ludwick advanced with Kyle Phillips walk that loaded the bases.  Following the walk, two costly errors by the same player, on the same play, resulted in two San Diego runs.  Eric Patterson reached first on a fielding error by pitcher Jhoulys Chacin scoring Maybin, and a throwing error by Chacin allowed Ludwick to score and advance both Phillips and Patterson at third and second respectively with all three-outs still remaining.

After a pitching change, Mattt Lindstrom proceeded to surrender an RBI-single to Chris Denorfia as the Padres would not be put away.  Patterson then advanced to third on Will Venable’s line-out and scored on Jason Bartlett’s ensuing sacrifice-fly.

Brad Hawpe came up big again, singling to leadoff the eighth, and score on Ludwick’s sacrifice-fly that cut the six-run deficit to one.  With Maybin at second-base, Eric Patterson’s RBI-single to center tied the game at 7-all.

With a man on base and Hawpe at the plate, Hawpe continued his tear on Colorado’s pitching by sending a go-ahead two-run homerun to the bleachers as the Padres piled on eight unanswered runs over their final nine-outs of the game.

Heath Bell came in for the save and got the Rockies to go down in order as the Padres overcame a six-run deficit for a 9-7 victory over Colorado.  Rafael Betancourt suffered the loss by surrendering Hawpe’s homerun.

SAN DIEGO– A touch ‘em all and great web gem by the San Diego Padres ensured that some madres would have a memorable Mother’s Day.  San Diego defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks on Cameron Maybin’s sprinting catch near the center field wall.

San Diego scored all four of their runs in the first inning as Jorge Cantu came up with the big hit; a three-run homerun over the left-field wall.  The first run occurred moments earlier on a Jason Bartlett double.  Chris Denorfia scored the run after singling and taking third on a throwing error at second on Denorfia’s stolen base attempt.

Arizona cut the Padres lead in half as they got back two-runs in the second.  Melvin Mora singled with one-out and advanced to second on Gerardo Parra’s ground-out bunt.  Josh Wilson then doubled home Mora.  Immediately afterwords, Joe Saunders single to center scored Wilson.

The play of the day though had to go Cameron Maybin in eighth inning whose running catch prevented the Diamondbacks from tying the game and possibly sending the game into extras.  Justin Upton doubled with one-out in the frame and reached third on Miguel Montero’s single to right.  Xavier Nady, as did many others, thought he had just tied the game with his hit to center that would typically score a base-runner from first.  But, Maybin got a great read on the ball and snatched it to give Nady a sacrifice-fly as opposed to two-run RBI-double.  Mora followed by striking out to end the inning.

Heath Bell came in to close the game and did so effectively en-route to his eighth save, but more importantly made sure a Padres pitcher got a will deserved win with the recent lack of run support occurring in San Diego.

LOS ANGELES– San Diego used two big scoring innings and starter Dustin Moseley to defeat and shut-out the Los Angeles Dodgers for the rubber match of the series.  With only five hits executed by the Dodgers, Andre Ethier was one of the lucky five to reach with a single in the seventh.

There is not enough good praise to give Moseley’s performance Sunday afternoon.  In his first win of the season, Moseley went an impressive seven scoreless innings allowing only three hits.  He has now reduced his ERA to 1.63.  San Diego needs to give him more run support as he has kept them within striking distance of a victory every time he takes the mound.

Nick Hundley walked to lead off the second for San Diego and Orlando Hudson singled to right moving Hundley to third with no outs.  Cameron Maybin got an RBI on his fly ball to left field and reached second on a throwing error by Dioner Navarro.  Brad Hawpe then followed with a two-run RBI single to left field.  San Diego took the early 3-0 lead, and that would be all they needed to defeat the Dodgers, but, they added a few more runs late in the game.

Again, the Padres high scoring inning started with a lead-off walk, this time by Maybin in the ninth.  Hawpe moved Maybin to third on his single to center.  Jorge Cantu singled home Maybin on a groundball.  Things did not get much better for Los Angeles reliever Hong-Chih Kuo as he hit Will Venable to load the bases, ending his day.

With the bases juiced, Jason Bartlett scored Hawpe from third on a sacrifice fly to right field.  Chase Headley followed with a double to left field scoring Cantu and Venable from first, increasing the Padres lead, 7-0.

Ethier’s hitting streak is now at 27 despite the Dodgers loss.  He looks to continue it against the Chicago Cubs Monday evening.