Friday, May 23, 2008

Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night

I return today after an 11 day hiatus to finish finals, begin an internship and entertain out-of-town guests. So, what have I missed?

- Jake Peavy was placed on the DL and the optimistic approach appears to be about 6 weeks on the shelf. This is devastating obviously but that devastation is tempered somewhat by being 12.5 games back. Essentially what I'm saying is, its not as if the Padres need him right now. And if this thing doesn't get turned around (and quickly) there is no reason to rush him back. I posted here a few weeks (months?) ago that Peavy's pitch counts I thought were abnormally high for this early in the season. Now he has a sore elbow. Maybe it's connected. Maybe whatever Prior has is contagious. Either way, Peavy is out.

- And now, so is Chris Young. If you watched or were at the game on Wednesday, the scene was something out of a horror movie. I saw the ball hit off CY, but wasn't sure where. His back was turned to the camera on Channel 4 and when he turned around a stream of blood was running down his face. Very Wes Craven. It appears he fractured his nose and will miss at least one or two starts.

- 10 minutes later, Josh Bard was knocked out with a high ankle sprain. The culprit in both incidents? Albert Pujols. I must say though, Pujols was pretty classy regarding the CY incident, saying in the paper that he "would have rather grounded into a double play then to have that happen."

- This obviously necessitated some moves by the front office which meant FINALLY Chase Headley would be brought...wait...what? Oh, no Chase is still in Portland. It's not about his salary though...no way...definitely not.

- The Padres find themselves 12.5 games back yet in the last two weeks have shown some semblance of competitiveness which I imagine is encouraging. What isn't is having the top two pitchers knocked out and having no catcher with big league experience.

- Trade rumors abound and the thought is that absent a major turn around, major trades will be made. Brian Giles contract ends at the end of this year so one would have to think he is on the block.

- Did I mention that Chase Headley is not up with the club yet?

- Ever the optimist, I can say that the NL as a whole is not exactly lighting the world on fire. Also, there is recent precedence for teams turning it around in the second half (Astros, Mariners, etc). It's possible. So I say, do not go gently into that good night...yet.

* Apologies to Dylan Thomas

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