It Wasn’t The Sand Uniforms…

…but it might have been Henry Blanco. I don’t know how my Padres escaped the Curse of the Sand, but they were able to pull out a great win last night against the Dodgers.

My dear boy Kouz drove in our first run in the first on an infield single. We got another run in the inning on an Edgar Gonzalez groundout.

We got our third run in the third on a Chase Headley single.

Kevin Correia quickly gave back a run to the Dodgers, but after a single in the second, he did not allow a baserunner for the rest of his outing of six innings. Going out on three day’s rest, he was spectacular. He only threw 81 pitches in the six innings, but Buddy decided to give it to the bullpen, who have been amazing.

Greg Burke and Edward Mujica combined for two scoreless innings. Heath Bell made it interesting as usual, but he got a double play and a fly-out to close his major-league leading 18th save.

XX 1090 intereviewed Heath after the game, and it was pretty funny. Heath LOVES to talk, so if you get him going, he doesn’t stop. He said that the guys in the bullpen had planned to put runners on to make it more entertaining because people were saying the Padres were boring. LOL!! Here we are, pulling out our hair when the bullpen gets a few runners on in a close game, and Heath’s telling us that that’s intentional. What a funny guy!

It was a great, great game. My boys got just enough runs, and the pitching took care of the rest.

Clayton Kershaw threw his shortest outing of the season, going only 2.2 innings and throwing 83 pitches. That’s the way to do it boys!

Nick Hundley got hit on the wrist the other night. His x-ray was negative, but he’s probably going to be out for a few games. So, last night Henry Blanco caught. And I’m wondering if having Henry back there helped Correia throw as well as he did.

Don’t get me wrong, Nick is a great catcher, and he’s going to be very good. But that’s just the thing. He’s growing, he’s learning, and maybe the pitchers aren’t entirely comfortable with him. Henry has done great things with Jake this season. They haven’t come out and said that Henry is Jake’s personal catcher, but Jake hasn’t been caught by anyone besides him.

Henry has a lot of experience catching and mentoring. He’s done wonders to catchers like the rookie from the Cubs last year. I think our pitchers feel a lot better with him than Nick.

I am a huge admirer of catchers. I adore them They are soo amazing, and I would say that catcher is the hardest position to play in Major League Baseball. A pitcher’s performance has a lot to do with his catcher. If the pitcher has a catcher who doesn’t know how he likes to throw and what he like to do, it’s going to be distracting. I think that Correia was really comfortable with Blanco last night.

I think that catchers should get wins with their pitchers. Catchers don’t get much credit at all, since they don’t hit that much. If you think about it, catchers should hit really well because of their knowedge of pitchers and the strike zone. Interesting.

OK, I just had to share this. Pretty amazing, huh?

Like father like son. It’s great to have both the Gwynns here in San Diego

Well, we’ve got an off-day today, which will be good. With the series split, we are now 28-31, 11 games behind the Dodgers. We’re just going to hang in there, and when the Dodgers fall apart, we will pounce and take over the NL West. I think we’re going to the playoffs this year.

GO PADRES!!

(photo credits: homerunderby.com, Stephen Dunn/Getty Images, AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)