Easily the worst series of the season, and let's hope we have jettisoned most of the suck now before we further along in the season.
Maybe a sweep at the hands of the Rockies, the last-place team in our division, will convince our guys that Denver has a major league team. That's five straight L's against them, for those of you who are counting. In this series, we scored four, four, and three runs, all at Coors Field, with a DH. Ouch.
We made another average pitcher, this time Antonio Senzatela, look like Cy Young, while our Cy Young, Blake Snell, looked like one of the ball boys, and pitched no better. Snell started out with a bang, retiring the side on eight pitches. Could it be, I wondered? Has he finally learned something, like knowing what a batter will do with a ball when pitched at a certain location? Boy, wouldn't it be nice, as the Beach Boys used to sing. Well, it isn't. Snell threw 29 pitches the next inning and made his scheduled departure in the fifth inning. The line: 4 2/3 innings, five hits, five runs, four walks. For the first time this season, we might just have a starter with an ERA higher than their guy. Senzatela, was nothing special, but we built him up. I think we should trade Snell, provided we could get something for him in return. He and the Padres just bring out the worst in each other. Maybe we can trade him to his hometown Mariners. He is doing us absolutely no good here.
It gets worse, though. We lost Manny in the first inning as he ran to first base. Ankle injury, we replaced him with Segio Alcantara, just another out machine usually sitting on the bench. Replacing Manny with Alcantara is like replacing a Harley with a trike, and the results agreed with me. Cron had two more hits, but with Manny not hitting behind him, all he did was raise his batting average. Luke hit a solo dinger to get us on the board, which we need to see more of. Other than that, we just sucked.
One thing we need to do is learn how to handle winning. Not just the losing, that's in the Padres DNA. Coming off that sweep in Chicago, we puffed our chests out again, and I knew we were going to get hammered for it in Colorado. Besides talent, this team lacks maturity. At least we have Bob Melvin. If anybody is going to coach these guys properly, then him.
I dread the Padres without Manny.
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