Last night’s game needs to be addressed, because people pay good money, plenty of it, to watch the Padres play baseball.  The Padres play hard as a team overall but they do not do the things that a team of their caliber should do to score runs.  By “caliber”, I mean a team that has very little in the way of quality hitters, or power, or speed.  This type of team has no choice but to maximize the few quality scoring chances they get.  Every player on the team needs to be proficient at advancing runners, taking the extra base, stealing a base when necessary, to try and squeeze every last run out of a deficient offense. 

            Ron Gardenhire knows this.  He’s got some quality hitters in Mauer and Morneau, and some young exciting players like Carlos Gomez and Alexi Casilla, but for the most part he’s got a lineup of grinders.  In the first inning last night, Casilla sliced one to left, and Headley pursued it properly, but with just the slightest bit of hesitation.  Casilla did not hesitate, he took second base on a close play, and later came around to score on another flare to right off the bat of Michael Cuddyer.  It was a telling play.

            The Padres, meanwhile, had their leadoff man single with one out in the 6^th, but get gunned down trying to steal.  Jody Gerut is playing quite nicely for San Diego, but he’s not a speed merchant and is at least a little miscast in the leadoff role.  Sure enough, next guy singles.  In the 7^th, the Padres get 1^st and 3^rd with nobody out and can’t get the ball out of the infield, only one run scores.  In the 8^th, two on, nobody out, and Gerut fails at four shots to get a bunt down, he winds up taking a huge swing and whiffing.  This goes beyond quality Minnesota pitching, it’s a season-long struggle. 

            This should have been a night where the manager was upset with his team, for failing to take advantage of what was given to them.  A night when the veteran hitters stepped forward and said this one’s on us, not the guy who wound up giving up a couple of runs in the 9^th.  Maybe that’s how they felt back in the corner of the lunch room, or around the leg press in the weight room, but San Diego won’t know about it, because no veteran hitters who appeared in the game last night made themselves available.  The room was empty when we were allowed inside.  Empty.  Tony Clark sat down, but what are you going to ask him?  Eventually, who becomes the spokesman for the team’s offense (and might I add, for the second time in two days)?  Chase Headley, who’s been here all of a week. 

Trevor came out, of course, in a tight-lipped performance that told me he was as upset as he’s ever been after a loss, but your closer CAN’T be your team leader.  Neither can a starting pitcher.  Jake Peavy will say the things others won’t, but he plays one day out of five.  He’s got cred and a Cy Young award but he still can’t be the everyday leader.  Some teams don’t have a natural player leader in the room, and one of two things happens.  Either the organization finds one fast, or they have a strong manager who pulls the team together and keeps the right people on a tight leash.  Bud Black is a fine guy to have at the helm when the wind is blowing and your sails are full, but this was a night when Bud needed to firm with his crew.  I don’t see that.  I like him a lot but see him as more of a steward than a true captain of the team, and when you don’t have a player leader either, this is what you wind up with.

You get a leadership void.

When did this team get at least a little bit of fire in their belly?  It happened after the GM came out and said things weren’t OK, heads could roll, drastic change was going to happen if the team didn’t pick it up.  Players grumbled and rolled their eyes, and people wondered if the criticism was coming from the right place…but hey!  Somebody’s got to say something!  When your general manager is the one who winds up being the strongest voice in the room, you know what you have?

You have a leadership void. 

When the owner is understandably consumed in a divorce and his assets are being sized and divvied and the team is one of those assets, you have to know he’s not locked in to the day-to-day issues of the team.   In the front office, you have to imagine that nobody really knows whether it will be John Moores, Becky Moores, Jennifer Moores, Sandy Alderson, or Unknown Future Owner calling the shots in the near and far future.  The team president who is overseeing this team’s collective failure seems impervious and entrenched, but while he may be collecting power, his leadership isn’t translating to the locker room. 

A power struggle in the front office, a GM who’s got to be wondering what greener pastures would offer, a past GM who’s waiting in the wings as an influential assistant, a manager who’s more a steward and company man than a strong leader.  A locker room sitting empty after a close loss, bereft of veteran players.  Would Kirk Gibson be able to rally this group?  Would Caminiti?  I’ll say this, if one of those heroes of the past were able to stride in right now, they would be the leader the moment the door closed behind them. 

Let’s face it: this is not the most interesting time to be following the San Diego Padres.  Stuck in the limbo of being too far under .500 to be worth discussing but too close to the top of the NL West to be written off completely, the Pads are just kind of mucking through these middle months, waiting for something to change.  Here, in order, are my points of interest for watching Padres baseball these days:

1)      Chase Headley.  At least we get to see a kid with a big-league swing feel his way through playing every day at the highest level.  Honestly, the biggest gyp of the 2008 season was having Headley in AAA for the first two+ months.

2)      Gonzalez Bros.  We know all about Adrian, but Edgar is getting his first (only?) chance to play every day and he has responded with a rather stunning .309/.362/.433 stat line, good for a .795 OPS.  Edgar is far too limited a defensive player to be anywhere but 2B on the diamond, so there’s really no question that he has to keep swinging a hot stick to keep his job.  That, combined with the symbiosis and the “Bro-B-I” potential of him batting in front of Adrian in the lineup, has been fun to watch.

3)      Watching for Trade Potential.  When Randy Wolf or Greg Maddux starts, you may be watching but so are dozens of scouts from around the big leagues.  Other teams are starting to nervously circle around the Padres like those over-eager garage sale shoppers who knock on your door at 5:30am hoping you’ll open up early just for them.  If and when the front office decides to officially give up on ’08 and move on, there will be a line out the door waiting to kick the tires on veteran starters, some bullpen pieces, and perhaps for the final two months + option year of Brian Giles’ contract.

Now, the Padres are going to keep lying to you while this tedium plays out.  Sandy Alderson was quoted this morning as saying the team is neither in a buying or selling mode, but instead is still in the process of observing.  Trust me, there’s not much to see here.  It’s a lie to say that the front office hasn’t already figured out what any fan who has plunked down money to see this team play already knows.  It’s not a contender.  The offense is far too weak, the defense far too forgiving, the bullpen far too spotty.  All this hyperbole about “well if we can just get to .500…” or “we’re just one hot streak away from being right in this thing…” is just that.  A bad team can get hot for a short period of time, but eventually the check comes due.  Sure enough, SD won 7 out of 8 a couple of weeks ago and got all the homers and shills crowing about a comeback, and then they promptly flipped around and dropped 6 of 7. 

The front office feels like they are obligated to talk a good game, though, because they do not want to be accused of adding any downward pressure on attendance or revenue.  I don’t think they have much to worry about.  Walking the concourse at Petco Park or drifting through the Gaslamp during our Friday Night Home Game Happy Hours, I see plenty of folks, many out-of-towners, who are perfectly happy to spend an evening at the ballpark regardless of price or the performance of the home nine.  Attendance this year, combined with beer profits and all the other ancillary income streams, will keep the Moores’ family coffers filled (soon to be split) and the team solidly in the black. 

To me, while KT and Sandy may feel like they are doing their fans a service by “not giving up” on 2008, really they are doing the opposite.  The team is not going to feel the pinch of this bad season right now.  They WILL feel it next year, when people decide not to renew season tickets.  Delaying the needed changes which could help lead to a better product in 2009 will only hold down this franchise in the long run and make them even less palatable to their fans next year.

ON ANOTHER SUBJECT…

                I’ve heard the Saw talking a lot about the Steve Foley trial taking place right now, and I want to throw my two cents in here.  It always irritates me to hear people in the media throwing out the “facts” of the case like they are indisputable.  There were no cameras present when Aaron Mansker shot Steve Foley.  There were three people present, one of whom had a gun.  Yes, Steve Foley had too much to drink that night, this is an undisputable fact.  However, I have heard Hacksaw say multiple, multiple times that his blood-alcohol level on the night in question was .33, and that is not true.  It took no more than a casual survey of news accounts to pick up that he was at a .21 BA level on the night of the shooting.  Does that make it right? No.  But it’s also not right to distort the facts. 

                I have also heard Lee perpetrate the MYTH that Steve Foley drew the fire from Mansker by “reaching into his waistband”.  This is the classic “he had it coming” meme that every wild-shooting police officer has used from the Wild West until now.  But the problem is, it doesn’t hold up to even the most cursory examination.  Think about this for a second.  Whether you are sober, drunk, stoned, or stupid, adrenaline does a little something to juice your system in a life or death situation.  Now…you are in your cul-de-sac.  You have been followed home by some guy who’s been honking and waving at you at street lights.  Now, at 3 in the morning, here this man is pointing a GUN at YOU.  You, however, do not have a gun.  You are unarmed.  What do you do?

A)     Reach into your waistband for the gun that you DO NOT HAVE?

B)      Reach into your waistband for the knife that you DO NOT HAVE?

C)      Do not reach into your waistband.

C’mon, honestly.  I have never had the misfortune of staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, but if I ever do, the one thing I guarantee I WON’T do is bluff having a gun of my own.  In fact, nobody would ever do that.  It’s insane.  This weak lie was thrown out by Mansker at the start, and given the “weight” he commands as a police officer (albeit one who was completely off-duty and in an unmarked car when he decided to make an example out of Steve Foley), people have repeated it without critical thinking. 

My feeling is, we’ll never know for sure what happened on that night, but we’ve got a pretty good idea right now.  Steve Foley made a criminal mistake by getting into his car under the influence.  I am NOT ABSOLVING HIM OF BLAME OR SAYING WHAT HE DID WAS OK.  But Steve Foley was just trying to get home with his lady friend.  Aaron Mansker is the one who followed him across half the county before cornering him in a cul-de-sac with a loaded gun, and then shot Foley three times, ending his football career forever.  I support Foley’s attempt to get something back from the City of Coronado in his civil trial, because what he will never get back is his livelihood.  He will also never get his reputation back, and that is at least partially deserved.  But for those who want to make Mansker out to be some sort of do-gooder or hero, just understand that it absolutely did NOT have to end the way it did.  And those who would come back two years after the fact and continue to throw around spurious claims and falsely bumped-up BA levels are just adding to the misinformation.

                I’m not going to be the one to tell you that a comeback can’t happen.  Not today.  Not after what I watched last night, as my favorite team (the Lakers) built an insurmountable lead (24 points) on their home floor (8-0 in the playoffs), all with the best player in the world (Kobe) cooling his jets and dishing the ball.  I was so sure of the outcome, when I got home from work last night, not only was I agreeable to the idea of going out to dinner, I even accepted the seat facing AWAY from the bar, where the game was on several TV screens.  I mean, Farmar hit a three running toward the basket to beat the halftime buzzer, an impossible shot!  A troubling Celtics mini-comeback had been turned away and the lead was 18 with 2 quarters to play.  Bring on the sushi, the game is secure.  It’s in the refrigerator!

                By the time dinner was over, I was craning my neck, turning around with horror as a rain of missed jumpers and Celtics hoops erased the lead.  Surely, they made a great run, but their energy had to be sapped…all the Lakers had to do was hold firm and grind out the last quarter, and they would be tied in the Finals, with Game 5 coming Sunday.  Instead, when we got home, LA was down four!  NO, not possible, some great escape was coming at least, right?  Nope, this time the Hollywood ending had Ray Allen as the star and Sasha Vujajic playing the role of the snobby prom queen snubbed at the ball.   

                The Celtics had toughness, and while their defense had very little chance against the Lakers at their sharing, cohesive best, they knew how to defend LA when Kobe was searching for his shot.  By the end of the third quarter, everything accomplished in the first half no longer mattered.  The game had changed, and the Lakers were unable to respond to the new challenge, to rise up and beat Boston twice in the same night.  It was a colossal failure for Phil Jackson and Kobe, two of the all-time greats who were sent packing on their home floor.  I have no choice now but to accept that Boston is the better team, and whether the series goes five games or six, the Celtics will surely send this version of the Lakers packing. 

                I will not hammer Pau Gasol as much as some other critics will.  There is no question that Kevin Garnett has thoroughly and completely outplayed him, at both ends of the court, but Gasol’s contributions against players like Boozer and Duncan showed me that he is a valiant player with heart.  Gasol just doesn’t have anything left in the tank.  He’s wild out there, flailing, not moving his feet like he normally does.  I think this season’s run will demonstrate to Gasol what he needs to do to be ready for future runs to the title.  The Olympics will be a drain on both he and Bryant in the summer but hopefully it will help Pau build confidence and stamina.  I still like him as a piece of a championship team. 

                This is a painful pill to swallow but even with a championship fumbled away, a dream dashed, I can see how this has been a successful season for the Lakers.  It started with Kobe wanting to be dealt and the fans at Staples Center booing his Dominique-esque performance.  In between Andrew Bynum changed the course of the team by developing into a future superstar at center.  And when bad luck felled Bynum for the season, Mitch Kupchack swooped in and made the Gasol deal, cementing the Lakers’ status as contenders.  Bynum in the starting lineup pushes Radmanovic to the bench, or hopefully to some other team’s roster for a better piece.  Ariza may develop into a better fit at the three spot with a full season’s work.  As long as Kobe doesn’t become an alcoholic, he will learn, adapt, and come back deadlier than ever.  Next year and years to come should provide runs to the Finals and more banners to hang in LA.  It just won’t happen this year. 

                I do think Kobe has a stain on his record right now.  It would be good for him to at least push this series back to Boston, maybe to a 7^th game, just to redeem his reputation to some degree.  If Kobe is the next incarnation of Magic or MJ, he can’t blow 24-point leads in must-win Finals games on his home floor.  If Phil Jackson is the best team coach in American sports he should not be sitting there watching his team cough it up on the biggest stage.  The embarrassment will fade but the memory will linger of a classic pratfall, slipping on a shamrock-shaped banana peel in front of everyone. 

Last night on XTRA Innings we had Brad Cesmat, a TV sportscaster from Phoenix who used to work at the old XTRA 690, on to talk about the failings of the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks.  He told me and our listeners a stat that sent my jaw to the desk with a thud: the D’Backs have gone 13-21 in their last 34 games, a sputtering freefall…and during that time, they have lost only a ½ game off their lead in the NL West!!!  That’s almost impossible to do, unless you have an entire division of teams struggling to put one foot in front of the other.  And here they are: the oh-so-awful NL West teams since May 1^st:

Team                     Record                  GB

LA                           14-18                     ---

SF                           12-19                     1 ½

SD                           13-20                     1 ½

AZ                           12-20                     2

COL                        11-21                     3

These teams are making a lot of baseball experts look bad.  So many people, present company included, talked about the NL West as the best division and the toughest division in baseball.  Last year, the NL West had four teams which finished the season over .500.  This year, the NL West is the only division with three teams currently ten games UNDER .500!  So what has gone so terribly wrong?  Let’s take a thumbnail look at each situation:

ARIZONA: The D’Backs offense has taken a tumble.  Arizona only batted .244 as a team last month, and their team slugging percentage dropped 70 points, from a robust .470 down to .400.  Justin Upton, Conor Jackson and Mark Reynolds have been struggling to produce, and other than Jackson the D’Backs have been whiffing at a Padre-esque rate: 221 K’s in 28 May games.  Simultaneously, the setup corps which had been so strong early in the season has faded: Chad Qualls started getting knocked around, and Tony Pena has been inconsistent, all part of a team ERA which went from 3.29 in April to 4.09 in May and 4.64 so far this June.  The Diamondbacks have too good of a starting rotation to completely tumble but there is also no true rock upon which to build the offense or a veteran leader in the clubhouse to help right the ship.  Arizonans are grumbling about the loss of Tony Clark’s presence in the locker room.

LA: Injuries have absolutely been a factor in LA continuing to muck around a little below .500.  When Rafael Furcal injured his back, the Dodgers were 19-14 and rolling in the right direction.  They are 9-17 since.  Andruw Jones is also on the DL, not that he was helping much when he was upright…but the key is that the young players on LA’s roster have not stepped up to fill the void.  Ching-Lung Hu has been an offensive cipher, and the team’s #3 and #4 spots in the order are not hitting (combined OPS .727 for the #3 spot, a woeful .682 for the cleanup spot).  One of the Dodgers’ biggest problems is with their Big Boy: Jonathan Broxton has gone from a dominating setup man/future closer to a question mark in the 8^th, with a 4.88 ERA and a handful of blowups which have cost the Dodgers dearly.  Also, their presumptive “ace”, the always mentally fragile Brad Penny, has been pitching well below replacement level this year with a 1.57 WHIP and 5.45 ERA. 

SF: Actually, I think things are going pretty well for the Giants all things considered.  The team with by far the weakest lineup in baseball is still getting great pitching from Lincecum and Jonathan Sanchez, and they’ve got Alex Hinshaw to team up with Brian Wilson now in the bullpen.  The Giants are never going to be able to score runs with the team they have now, so floating around the middle of an awful division could almost be considered over-achieving.

COL: By far the biggest disappointment in the National League, and a team that was playing horrible baseball even before all their key players went down simultaneously.  Now, with Tulowitzki, Holliday and Hawpe all out of the lineup and Atkins ailing, the Rockies are empty offensively.  Their pitching staff was in big trouble from Day One, though.  Jeff Francis and Ubaldo Jimenez are a combined 3-11, both with ERA’s in the fives.  Franklin Morales is in the minors and Greg Reynolds has not been a phenom although he has held his own in the rotation.  Early on, it seemed the Rockies were shell-shocked after their amazing postseason run and a stumbling start to the season, but then, right about where you would have figured their offensive stalwarts to pick up the pace and right the ship, Tulo popped his quad and Holliday hurt his hamstring.  Now, it’s hard to imagine anything but a 95+ loss season in Denver. 

SD: We know all about these guys, but I’d just like to note that of all the mistakes made in the offseason by San Diego’s braintrust, the biggest might have been gambling on an average defense with below-average range.  Kevin Towers realized the importance of defense in Petco Park after the 2004 season, but either he slipped in the bathtub and hit his head, or his ideas have been blocked by the Ivory Tower decision-makers…either way, this is the slowest Pads team defensively in the history of the downtown ballpark.  On the infield, Greene is a plus defender and Adrian is a very solid first baseman, but Iguchi has about the same range as Jeff Kent or Mark Loretta, and Kouzmanoff is a slightly-below-average 3B.  The outfield’s defensive leader is Giles, who still has the best jump and positioning of any Padre, but Gerut, while an improvement over Edmonds, is not a defensive stopper in CF, and LF has been embarrassing at times.  The catching situation is just sad, although the backup Carlin is a good defender with a strong arm.  Barrett is uncorking Mackey Sasser-style three-hoppers to 2^nd base. 

                I fully expect the Diamondbacks to right the ship at some point, with their young hitters getting streaky-hot again and the pitching carrying the team to the division title.  I also figure LA to get things turned around eventually and heat up in the middle of the season.  But for a division where it was thought to be a tight, four-team race for the top, instead it appears to be an equally competitive battle between COL, SD and SF for the worst record in the league, and little can be expected to change in the immediate future.

                One last note: one of the latest themes being reprinted in the oh-so-lax SD media is the notion that thanks to the weak division, the Padres could still “make noise” and fight for a playoff berth.  Keep dreaming.  This division only looks 2005-bad right now, it will get better.  The problems confronting San Diego’s baseball team go beyond just the competition in the division.  I’ve said it before and will write it again now: the WORST thing that could happen to this year’s Padres team would be a run at mediocrity.  A little 12-4 stretch which causes the front office to reconsider, hold on to their aging veteran parts or even (gasp) trade off a prospect for some short-term help, would just help nudge the Padres down the San Francisco path of patching holes and putting off the serious work to be done.  This team needs an extreme makeover, and nothing about cobbling together a run at an 84-win season is going to help make the foundational change necessary.