Last night, because of two great defensive plays that robbed us by the Houston Astros defense, we lost again 5-3 to the Astros.
But beyond the defensive plays I believe there are some other reasons why this team can't seem to pull together a two-game winning streak this season.
Don't get me wrong- I love having Buddy Black as our manager. he is a very nice man and one of the best managers in the major leagues but I think he made a mistake last night putting Mat Latos on the mound in the bottom of the 7th.In the Padres top of the 7th Mat Latos was on base and he was hustling around the bags. I worry when a pitcher spends a lot of time on the bases during an inning and since this was Mat's second start I expected him to just go 6 and see Like Gregerson in the 7th.
The tried and true was left in the bullpen and when Latos gave up two walks in a row Chad Qualls came in and the Astros beat up on him giving them the lead.
So I think that decision factored into the loss yesterday.
A lot of people are saying that the Padres can't hit...well that is true for some of them but I think the bigger problem is stability in the lineup.
Yesterday, for some reason we had Hundley off (one of the two hot bats on the team) and the line up had a lot of the "B" players in it. Today the other good bat, while we go against the Astros best pitcher, Orlando Hudson is out of the line up.
Cameron Maybin did a good job at lead off the day before and yet yesterday Patterson was batting lead-off and never got on base because he was impatient at the plate and would swing at crap that either flied out or grounded out.
Cameron should have been given another day to prove he can be a good lead off guy yesterday in my opinion. How can he prove it if he does it just every 4th or 5th day?
Every day there is a new lineup and the players, aside from a couple, are shuffled around in the line up each day.Yesterday's line up looked like this:
Patterson 7, Venable 9, Hudson 4, Headley 5, Hawpe 3, Maybin 8, Gonzalez 6, Johnson 2, Latos 1
Today it looks like this:
Denorfia 9, Patterson 4, Headley 5, Cantu 3, Hundley 2, Ludwick 7, Maybin 8, Bartlett 6, Richard 1
I asked a couple of players, on Twitter, if being bounced around in the line-up messes them up and as expected they said no- probably because they didn't want to say anything negative about Buddy Black's line ups.
But I remember playing ball in high school. One year we had a coach that kept our line up fairly consistent. We had a good year and won a lot of games. The next year we got a new coach (the old one retired from teaching) and every time we played there was a different line up. I played short stop and usually was batted 6th in the order. In our winning year I, as did my teammates, got comfortable and settled in with my role and place in the batting order. The next year I was a mess and it messed up my flow.
Maybe it is different for Major league ball players but I have to think that if the line up changes every day (I know it has to some because of the righty-lefty thing) how can guys like Cameron Maybin- who I still think, if given a chance to settle into an every day role, would be a fabulous lead off hitter for our team. The kid has great speed and he is patient at the plate (something we didn't see with Patterson and Venable last night)
So I will ask anyone that reads this today- what do you think?
Do you think the daily reshuffling of the lineup is affecting the consistency of hitting on this team? Certainly Nick Hundley, who said he felt real comfortable in the 8 spot last week, kind of cooled off a bit after he was moved around.
Am I way off base or do you think not having stability in the line-up is what the real problem is with the low batting averages these guys have?
There has to be a reason why we let a team like Houston, with a pitcher yesterday with an ERA over 10, beat us and hold us to three runs like he was Cy Young himself.
Friday's line-up was a winner and I say don't fix what isn't broken. This series for the Padres should have been a 3 out of 4 win...instead we will struggle today to try to tie the series before heading to Chicago.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Today's game starts at 11:05am PT - the final game with the Houston Astros.
PLAY BALL!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment