Pain for Padre Pitchers

The San Diego Padres busted out for a 10-1 home clobbering of Miami last night, increasing their total season scoring by 11%. 

The "Hitless Wonders" were positively Ruthian compared to the 2014 Friars, who are not just last in the Majors in scoring, batting average, on base percentage and OPS this year, but for half a century.

Pitcher Ian Kennedy smacked a home run earlier this season, tying him for fifth on the club. Of the nine Padres with 50 or more plate appearances, just three are batting over .230 or getting on base better than 28% of the time. Overall, the team is roughly replacement level at the plate and on the base paths. Considering that they've stolen 23 of 31 bases as a team, replacements might be warranted at bat.

Petco is partly to blame for their struggles. The park is baseball's leading run-killer. But going into yesterday's game, Baseball Prospectus's R.J. Anderson reports, "even park-adjusted numbers produce a bad odor, as the Padres' .219 True Average is more than 10 points below the worst offense on record since 1950: the 1981 Blue Jays, who were led in plate appearances by Alfredo Griffin, owner of a .243 on-base percentage." 

Injuries have robbed the team of some of its top performers. Center fielder Cameron Maybin has missed two thirds of the season with a torn bicep. His replacement, Will Venable, is hitting half of Maybin's .361/.410/.500. Utility infielder Alexi Amirista (.185/.267./.272) is no Chase Headley at third; then again, Headley hasn't been himself either (.186/.250/.314) when healthy.

It's hard to imagine the offense not improving, if only because the worst offenders will eventually be replaced. In the meantime, Padre pitching has done its part to keep the team within five games of .500. But without more of those 10-1 shellackings, some history is going to get make in San Diego this year.

Not the Hitless Wonders

Well, that was exactly as predicted. I had the Giants scoring 11 runs. All series. It's nice to polish off the to-do list in Game 1. That leaves them the rest of the week to kick back with a beer.

It's fun to trash the Giants for offensive offensiveness, but it overlooks one inconvenient fact: the Giants of October aren't the Lilliputians who opened the season.

Consider the pathetic roster Bruce Bochy put on the field to open the season. The top-paid free agent signing, center fielder Aaron Rowand, had gained renown mostly for dramatic outfield fence collisions in which he usually finished in second place. Rowand limped through half the season before being yanked, hitting a paltry .230/.281/.378.

Starting cornerman Pedro Sandoval was the Giants' big swinger last year, but his decline this season was utterly predictable. For one thing, the guy is made of jello. For another, he's allergic to walks. He's a decent fielder for his size, which is like saying that Charlie Sheen is a good husband for a drug addict.

San Francisco's run scoring juggernaut was capped by backstop Bengie Molina, who couldn't tear a paper bag with his swing from inside it. Molina hung 221 empty plate appearances on the team, making 152 outs and 84 total bases. The word that performance brings to mind is "minors," which is where the team went to find his replacement.

And that's the point. NL Rookie of the Year Should-be Buster Posey replaced Molina -- literally; they brought up Posey and fired Molina, who is now contributing to the Rangers' championship run -- and instantly topped the team's hitting chart. His .305/.357/.505 represented a 32 run upgrade for them.

Instead of Rowand, the good Dr. Jekyll Burrell arrived, pounding 18 homers and a .364 OBP in just 341 plate appearances. Just removing Rowand saved the team two runs; Burrell added another 19. Add waiver claim Cody Ross doing his Shane Victorino imitation and keeping Jose Guillen (.692 OPS) and Nate Schierholtz (.677 OPS) on the bench and the offense is visibly improved.

Bringing back Edgar Renteria from injury allowed Juan Uribe to slide over to third and sack Sandoval. Sum the parts with Aubrey Huff's (.891 OPS) year-long slugging and you are stuck with a conclusion that's bad for punchlines: the Giants are not the team that started the season. They're a decent hitting squad with some outfield power, representative bats at first, short and third and a budding superstar behind the plate.

Combined with their formidable arms and a Goth closer, it's suddenly not such a surprise that the Giants are in the World Series. They aren't the hitless wonders that began 2010.

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My God, How Did We Get Here?

And so here we are, two series remain in the season and there is just one race. The Padres, Giants and Braves competing for two spots.

What a long, strange trip it's been. (Later note: I wrote this sentence and yesterday's post just before Baseball Prospectus unveiled its new Pecota system designed specifically to eliminate projections like the Matt Wieters over-reach to which I referred. The first sentence of this paragraph is the title of theirs. The Grateful Dead lives.) The Phillies, clearly the cream of the NL, suffered through a broken lineup until September when they caught fire and torched the Braves. Atlanta in turn played like Ted Williams at home (52-23) and Esther Williams (35-46) on the road (credit: Schnitz) to earn their invitation to the Wild Card gala.

In the Central, St. Louis spanked this year's playoff contenders but went all masochist when taking on the league's basement dwellers. (12-6 vs. the Reds; 21-26 against the detritus that comprises the rest of the division.) Surprising Cincinnati rode Joey Votto, a resurgent Scott Rolen and positive contributions from 16 pitchers to capture the Central. Out west, midnight seemed to strike for the improbable Hitless Wonders from San Diego, but now it's morning in SoCal and the Padres are back on the pulpit. The pitching Giants and their teammates, the hitting Midgets, are in the driver's seat after relinquishing three or fewer runs in 21 of 24 September games, yet managing to win just 15 of them.

The final six-pack of contests finds the Braves mercifully finishing at the Ted to school the Fightin' Fish and the second string from Philadelphia. The Pads and Giants tussle with each other to wrap the season, so Atlanta has an edge on the Wild Card.

The beauty of this race is that it approaches reductionist perfection. Win, you're in. Lose, go home. Of course, they could all muddle to the finish line, which would mean settling it in overtime. With these three they should just play until someone scores. That'll keep it at nine innings.

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