All in a day’s work, they say. Yesterday, in Chris Young’s first start of the season, he threw nine pitches, facing three batters and inducing one groundout and two flyouts. It was a very short and sweet inning, but Young was pleased with getting some work in.

In the next inning, pitcher Justin Hampson came into the game. He probably got the worst of it, allowing three runs on three hits.

In the bottom of the second, though, my Padres fought back a little. Newcomer Henry Blanco hit a huge home run to cut Seattle’s lead to 3-2. The Mariners added a run in the 5th.

But in the eighth, my Padres said, “We’re not done yet!” Thanks to a hit-by-pitch with the bases loaded, we inched closer to the Mariner’s precarious lead. In the 9th, we went single, double to get the tying run accross the plate.

And so, the game went into the 10th. It was a bit of a hairy top 10 for Padres’ pitcher Greg Burke, but he got us out of it unscathed. Talk about a disappointing bottom of the 10th, though. It looked like it was going really well. Rookie Mitch Canham started the inning with a single, and stole second while Edgar Gonzalez was batting. Edgar grounded out, but he moved the runner to third. It was beautiful. Chad Huffman then walked, but his run didn’t mean a thing. Colt Morton then popped out to short. Well, that didn’t get the runner in! Travis Denker then struck out to end the ballgame. I mean, there was a guy on third with ONE out, and he wasn’t knocked in. I’m not frustrated as much about the fact that we didn’t win, but I watched this situation so many times last year. We’ve gotta work on that.

Anyways, it was a pretty cool game. Ten pitchers pitched. WHY do we still have Joe Thatcher?? I cannot stand Joe Thatcher!!! He just CANNOT pitch!! Ugh. But all of the pitchers did pretty well. It was really neat to hear a couple of our first round picks from a few years ago who have had a lot of injuries and problems over the years. Cesar Carrillo allowed a run, but it’s great that he was even out there pitching! It was neat to hear Nick Schmidt’s scoreless inning. We’ve got some great arms in camp right now.

Another cool highlight was that new left fielder Emil Brown threw out a runner at home. We’ve thrown out two runners at home in two consecutive games. I think that’s pretty cool! But our baserunning wasn’t exactly the best. We got thrown out at the plate once, and we got picked off of first TWICE!! Ah well.

Well, I did keep score of the game. It was interesting, and it actually didn’t get too crazy. Except my scorebook doesn’t have an option for extra innings, so I had to improvise. Someday I will look back at that game and I’ll say, “What on earth was I thinking?” But it was so much fun to listen to Ted Leitner and Jerry Coleman again. It really has been a long time! Those two guys are so much fun to listen to, and it was just really cool.

Today we are playing the Cleveland Indians in Goodyear. Here’s the lineup:

• CF Scott Hairston
• 2B David Eckstein
• 1B Adrian Gonzalez
• DH Kevin Kouzmanoff
• LF Chase Headley
• 3B Edgar Gonzalez
• RF Will Venable
• C Nick Hundley
• SS Luis Rodriguez

And starting is RHP Cha Seung Baek, along with pitchers Jae Kuk Ryu, Mat Latos, Will Inman, Ivan Nova, Oneli Perez, Gabe DeHoyos, and Wilton Lopez. GO PADRES!!! 

(photo credit: Union Tribune)