Big-league managers like to say that spring training doesn’t mean much in terms of the regular season “” but a look at the San Diego Padres’ opening Cactus League weekend might persuade at least one of them to rethink that. The Padres lost 13-9 to the Kansas City Royals on Friday, Feb. 29, following it with an 11-10 victory over the Seattle Mariners and a 6-2 loss to the Mariners over the next two days. That’s 51 runs, almost 1 run per half-inning per team. And while that speaks well of the Pads’ offensive potential, it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the pitching department.
If San Diego manager Bud Black is indeed assessing the weekend, he’s doing it in seclusion. He and his personnel were unavailable for comment when the Village News went looking for preseason material, although the paper’s recent roundtable discussion with several experts yielded some insight into 2008. Fox Sports News radio talk-show host Ben Maller called Jake Peavey “the best starting pitcher in the [National League West]. Assuming he stays healthy, the Padres will always be a factor in the division. I worry that San Diego will again be near the top of the division all season before fading away, like in 2007.”
Former Padres coach Tim Flannery, now a third-base coach with the San Francisco Giants, said San Diego pitching is “always very deep, and [the team has] a great bullpen. That wins you games and always keeps you in the hunt. They also have character people like Trevor Hoffman. That does so much for a baseball team, even when [Hoffman] isn’t pitching.”
Peavey allowed two runs on four hits over two innings in Sunday’s contest and commented that he needs to work on the command of his fastball. He’s the NL’s defending Cy Young Award winner, so it’s fairly clear he knows what he needs to do. The rest of the pitching ledger might not read as definitive. The Padres, after all, lost two of their three weekend games despite averaging a respectable 7 runs a tilt.
Offensively, San Diego had 15 hits in the March 1 win over Seattle. Young Chase Headley, in the hunt for an outfield spot, had a two-run home run and a key double in the game, and outfield hopeful Vince Sinisi won the game with a ninth-inning single. Still, the team’s 11 runs nearly went for naught.
But a win’s a win’s a win. And the Padres will take one of those any way they can get it, especially in a division infamous for its close pennant races. Three teams were separated by one game in 2007; the year before, the Padres won the West despite finishing just two games over .500.
“The National League West teams beat up on each other,” XX Sports Radio’s Billy Ray Smith explained. “The talent was spread consistently throughout the division last season. Only one National League team outside of the National League West had a winning record against the National League West [the Atlanta Braves were 19-14]. When one team is unable to run away from the pack, the likelihood of the wild-card team appearing from that division is much higher.”
“There’s no question,” Smith continued, “that this Pads team has got to be considered as one of the favorites to win the West. Their pitching will be their backbone, and the young bats should spark an offensive effort not seen since Air Coryell,” a reference to pass-happy former Chargers coach Don Coryell.
Of course, in a division so historically close, every NL West team could make the same claim with a straight face. When the Padres open the season at home March 31 against Houston, that claim will become a tentative one through September. Anything can happen, after all, as it did over the 51-run weekend just past.
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