yagsy
10-03-2006, 11:41 AM
By Chris Jenkins
STAFF WRITER
October 3, 2006
The starters
The set-up men
Watching from the row in front of the front row, he saw the magic happen, right before his very eyes.
Primarily a pinch-hitter a year ago, Geoff Blum kept a seat in the Chicago White Sox dugout, and even that wasn't close enough to believe what he was seeing. Blum witnessed the most phenomenal postseason series pitched by any rotation since the days of Koufax, Drysdale and Podres, more than four decades past.
First, Jose Contreras of the Sox went 8 1/3 innings in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, a loss to the Los Angeles Angels. In four games thereafter, the Sox never once summoned a relief pitcher. Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland, Freddy Garcia and Contreras produced four complete games in a row to win the pennant.
“Nobody'd ever seen anything like that,” said Blum, who later created a little magic of his own to win a World Series game for Chicago with a 14th-inning homer. “You could feel something happening within the pitching staff, too, the way it built and built with every game. I think those guys started feeding off each other, competing against each other.
“It was like, 'OK, he threw a complete game last night. Now it's my turn.' Nobody wanted to be the first guy to have to come out of a game.”
Blum has seen stuff this year, too, much of it as the Padres' shortstop. He saw Trevor Hoffman break the all-time saves record. He saw a rookie, Cla Meredith, break the team record for consecutive scoreless innings. He saw the Padres lead the National League in ERA (3.87), a franchise first, without a single starter winning more than 12 games.
Pitching. Pitching. Pitching.
And defense.
“Everybody says defense wins championships,” Blum said. “In our sport, pitching is defense.”
In the painfully abrupt end to last year's postseason, and again at the start of this year, the Padres were on the defensive against all those snide remarks about the NL West and its champion from San Diego. But the criticism has turned to whispers that, with their pitching, the Padres just might find themselves in a World Series on Oct. 21. Might.
Pitching's the thing in the postseason. Coming off a 162-game regular season, arms in both the rotation and bullpen are weary, but everyday players are sore from hair to heel. Starting pitchers get four days off between starts throughout the season, then lots of time between playoff games to study and focus on the hitters they'll be facing. Hitters, conversely, must adjust to pitchers from day to day. Inning to inning.
Advantage, pitcher.
“It will be a good test (for the Mets) if San Diego wins and we'll see how (the Padres') pitching does, because we always think good pitching is going to stop good offense,” said Houston Astros manager Phil Garner, asked about the favored status heaped on the New York Mets in the NL playoffs. “That's the one team whose pitching, up and down (the staff), probably is good enough to do something. That's the classic matchup. You've got a good offensive ballclub in the Mets going against a good, solid-pitching club.”
You won't hear such premature talk from any of the Padres – who have remained fairly stealthful all season, wisely and effectively so – but they clearly are well-armed for the occasion at hand. No higher than 27th among 30 teams in runs scored, 23rd in home runs and batting average, the Padres often seemed more on the offensive when one of them was on the mound. San Diego pitchers work quickly and quietly. “Hells Bells” notwithstanding.
“No disrespect to anybody, and I really don't mean this to sound that way, but these guys know they're not going to get huge run support all the time,” said left-handed starter David Wells, brought back to San Diego for the express purpose of perpetuating his tremendous postseason success. “That's just how they all pitch. When you have to scratch and claw for runs, everybody really bears down, like it's always 0-0. That's good, because that's exactly how you have to pitch in the postseason.”
San Diego has steadily gone about the business of assembling and riding a pitching staff whose 3.87 ERA is bettered only by the celebrated stable of phenoms in Detroit (3.84). The Padres have allowed 40 fewer runs than any other NL staff.
More remarkably, the Padres have done it with a team “ace” who at one point was 6-12 with a 4.55 ERA. Jake Peavy took until September to get back to his real self, repeating his status as the NL's top strikeout artist, but didn't win consecutive starts all season.
“I don't think this club has an ace,” pitching coach Darren Balsley said. “Our ace is whoever has the ball that game.”
Indeed, there isn't a Cy Young Award contender in the bunch, although manager Bruce Bochy stumped hard for Hoffman's candidacy on road swings. Even with superior numbers, the Padres' staff isn't nearly as acclaimed as Minnesota's or Oakland's or Houston's.
Obtained over the winter in trade, Chris Young was about the best pitcher in baseball in late May and June, yet the 6-foot-10 right-hander managed to stay underneath the national radar until coming within two outs of the Padres' first no-hitter Sept. 22. Woody Williams, the 40-year-old terrier who didn't even make the rotation out of spring training, wound up as the San Diego starter with the second-lowest ERA (3.65).
The rotation lost lefty Shawn Estes for the season after one start and Chan Ho Park twice to a mysterious intestinal disorder that required three blood transfusions. The bullpen twice lost Doug Brocail, first to a coronary artery so blocked that he had an emergency angioplasty, then to a torn hamstring.
“Just look at the hits this staff has taken,” said lefty reliever Alan Embree, a veteran of six postseasons dating to his rookie year of 1995. “Still, whoever we plugged in, that guy did the job. Whatever hand was dealt to us, we made it work. No matter what happens to us, nobody on this staff panics.”
“Fearless” is the word that first comes to the mind of General Manager Kevin Towers when asked about his pitching staff. Even as he was catching heat for a few of the position players the Padres were fielding, Towers adapted to the odd maladies that befell his pitching staff with personnel moves. That included trades with the Boston Red Sox that brought Meredith and Wells, each having at least one of the same qualities as the pitchers they were joining in San Diego.
“Strike-throwers, all,” said Towers, whose club is second to Cincinnati in fewest walks issued. “I'm just a big believer in strike-throwers, guys who throw their secondary pitches for quality strikes when behind in the count. I'm less concerned with velocity. Our ballpark's a pitcher's park. It will not be a pitcher's park if guys can't command the strike zone and give away walks. That takes away what that ballpark gives you.
“All our guys may not have No. 1-type stuff, but they'll all battle you like a No. 1 starter would. They've got good heads on their shoulders and they never give in.”
Diversity is another strong suit. In terms of pitching style, the Padres offer different challenges, start to finish. Peavy's the one with the breathtaking stuff; Young is the emerging force with the deceptive delivery; Williams and Wells are a pair of 40-somethings who win on guile from different sides of the rubber; Hensley, while likely ticketed for bullpen duty in the playoffs, is a groundskeeper's nightmare with his sinker.
“Sometimes you see cookie-cutter rotations, all guys who throw the same stuff the same way,” Williams said. “That's not us. In that way, we're kinda unique.”
“It's the same story in our bullpen,” Towers said. “Just look at the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. Meredith is different from (Scott) Linebrink, who's different from Hoffy. You get three different looks in three different innings.”
Most other teams with just one left-hander in the bullpen – that would be Embree in this case – might desperately have signed another to avoid getting caught short-handed in the postseason.
“An extra lefty would be nice, but I'd rather have a right-hander who can get guys out than a lefty who can't,” Balsley said. “We've got really good numbers against lefties.”
Baseball's best, actually. Leading the majors with its .249 average for opposing hitters, the Padres are even better against left-handers, who are batting a majors-low .247 off San Diego.
“They've got great, great balance, top to bottom,” said Arizona Diamondbacks veteran Luis Gonzalez. “I think they're well-set for the playoffs because of their good mix of young arms and experienced pitchers.”
Emphasis on postseason experience. The Padres are short on left-handers, but those two lefties are long on playing time in October.
Fully half of Wells' 20 major-league seasons led to the playoffs, and over 26 postseason appearances, he has compiled a 10-4 record and 3.15 ERA. Embree has pitched in 30 postseason games.
Williams has started Game 1 of the division, league championship and World Series, and Hoffman has pitched in all three over his 14 years with the Padres.
“I don't care how great you are in the regular season, a lot of these guys have never seen what happens in the postseason,” Wells said. “It's a whole new ballgame. My first playoff game, I was so nervous, I had these huge butterflies. You gotta learn to deal with that, because you're going to have the butterflies every time out. I always get them. They never go away.”
Peavy had fractured a rib on the right side while bouncing off teammates in celebration of the division championship. Clearly bothered by the injury, Peavy gave up eight runs in only 4 1/3 innings.
With him went, essentially, San Diego's hope. The same syndrome, in retrospect, actually had worked in the Padres' favor in 1998.
Towers likes to recall the way the Padres' pitching elevated its game considerably in the World Series that postseason, how Sterling Hitchcock suddenly turned into a southpaw possessed, how the run to the pennant seemed to grow from Kevin Brown's winning showdown against Randy Johnson in the very first game of the division series at Houston.
“Brownie came up with a monumental effort,” said Hoffman, who saved that 2-1 victory, “and it just sucked the wind right out of the Astros.”
With his combination of velocity, movement and confidence, Peavy clearly is thought of as the Kevin Brown of this San Diego staff, regardless of his record.
“I like the fact that Jake hasn't had the type of year he wanted, but nobody in baseball wants to face him,” Hoffman said. “That's a luxury, knowing we got a top-of-the-rotation guy who can no-hit anybody at any time. He has the ability to set the tone of any short series or seven-game series.”
However Peavy pitches, the challenge is passed to the next guy. It's been that way all season for the Padres, who talk like a staff, pitch like a staff. A staff whose pitching numbers, by the way, are remarkably similar to those of last year's champions.
“I don't know if anybody can ever duplicate what the White Sox did last year,” Williams said, “but it does show you what can happen.”
STAFF WRITER
October 3, 2006
The starters
The set-up men
Watching from the row in front of the front row, he saw the magic happen, right before his very eyes.
Primarily a pinch-hitter a year ago, Geoff Blum kept a seat in the Chicago White Sox dugout, and even that wasn't close enough to believe what he was seeing. Blum witnessed the most phenomenal postseason series pitched by any rotation since the days of Koufax, Drysdale and Podres, more than four decades past.
First, Jose Contreras of the Sox went 8 1/3 innings in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, a loss to the Los Angeles Angels. In four games thereafter, the Sox never once summoned a relief pitcher. Mark Buehrle, Jon Garland, Freddy Garcia and Contreras produced four complete games in a row to win the pennant.
“Nobody'd ever seen anything like that,” said Blum, who later created a little magic of his own to win a World Series game for Chicago with a 14th-inning homer. “You could feel something happening within the pitching staff, too, the way it built and built with every game. I think those guys started feeding off each other, competing against each other.
“It was like, 'OK, he threw a complete game last night. Now it's my turn.' Nobody wanted to be the first guy to have to come out of a game.”
Blum has seen stuff this year, too, much of it as the Padres' shortstop. He saw Trevor Hoffman break the all-time saves record. He saw a rookie, Cla Meredith, break the team record for consecutive scoreless innings. He saw the Padres lead the National League in ERA (3.87), a franchise first, without a single starter winning more than 12 games.
Pitching. Pitching. Pitching.
And defense.
“Everybody says defense wins championships,” Blum said. “In our sport, pitching is defense.”
In the painfully abrupt end to last year's postseason, and again at the start of this year, the Padres were on the defensive against all those snide remarks about the NL West and its champion from San Diego. But the criticism has turned to whispers that, with their pitching, the Padres just might find themselves in a World Series on Oct. 21. Might.
Pitching's the thing in the postseason. Coming off a 162-game regular season, arms in both the rotation and bullpen are weary, but everyday players are sore from hair to heel. Starting pitchers get four days off between starts throughout the season, then lots of time between playoff games to study and focus on the hitters they'll be facing. Hitters, conversely, must adjust to pitchers from day to day. Inning to inning.
Advantage, pitcher.
“It will be a good test (for the Mets) if San Diego wins and we'll see how (the Padres') pitching does, because we always think good pitching is going to stop good offense,” said Houston Astros manager Phil Garner, asked about the favored status heaped on the New York Mets in the NL playoffs. “That's the one team whose pitching, up and down (the staff), probably is good enough to do something. That's the classic matchup. You've got a good offensive ballclub in the Mets going against a good, solid-pitching club.”
You won't hear such premature talk from any of the Padres – who have remained fairly stealthful all season, wisely and effectively so – but they clearly are well-armed for the occasion at hand. No higher than 27th among 30 teams in runs scored, 23rd in home runs and batting average, the Padres often seemed more on the offensive when one of them was on the mound. San Diego pitchers work quickly and quietly. “Hells Bells” notwithstanding.
“No disrespect to anybody, and I really don't mean this to sound that way, but these guys know they're not going to get huge run support all the time,” said left-handed starter David Wells, brought back to San Diego for the express purpose of perpetuating his tremendous postseason success. “That's just how they all pitch. When you have to scratch and claw for runs, everybody really bears down, like it's always 0-0. That's good, because that's exactly how you have to pitch in the postseason.”
San Diego has steadily gone about the business of assembling and riding a pitching staff whose 3.87 ERA is bettered only by the celebrated stable of phenoms in Detroit (3.84). The Padres have allowed 40 fewer runs than any other NL staff.
More remarkably, the Padres have done it with a team “ace” who at one point was 6-12 with a 4.55 ERA. Jake Peavy took until September to get back to his real self, repeating his status as the NL's top strikeout artist, but didn't win consecutive starts all season.
“I don't think this club has an ace,” pitching coach Darren Balsley said. “Our ace is whoever has the ball that game.”
Indeed, there isn't a Cy Young Award contender in the bunch, although manager Bruce Bochy stumped hard for Hoffman's candidacy on road swings. Even with superior numbers, the Padres' staff isn't nearly as acclaimed as Minnesota's or Oakland's or Houston's.
Obtained over the winter in trade, Chris Young was about the best pitcher in baseball in late May and June, yet the 6-foot-10 right-hander managed to stay underneath the national radar until coming within two outs of the Padres' first no-hitter Sept. 22. Woody Williams, the 40-year-old terrier who didn't even make the rotation out of spring training, wound up as the San Diego starter with the second-lowest ERA (3.65).
The rotation lost lefty Shawn Estes for the season after one start and Chan Ho Park twice to a mysterious intestinal disorder that required three blood transfusions. The bullpen twice lost Doug Brocail, first to a coronary artery so blocked that he had an emergency angioplasty, then to a torn hamstring.
“Just look at the hits this staff has taken,” said lefty reliever Alan Embree, a veteran of six postseasons dating to his rookie year of 1995. “Still, whoever we plugged in, that guy did the job. Whatever hand was dealt to us, we made it work. No matter what happens to us, nobody on this staff panics.”
“Fearless” is the word that first comes to the mind of General Manager Kevin Towers when asked about his pitching staff. Even as he was catching heat for a few of the position players the Padres were fielding, Towers adapted to the odd maladies that befell his pitching staff with personnel moves. That included trades with the Boston Red Sox that brought Meredith and Wells, each having at least one of the same qualities as the pitchers they were joining in San Diego.
“Strike-throwers, all,” said Towers, whose club is second to Cincinnati in fewest walks issued. “I'm just a big believer in strike-throwers, guys who throw their secondary pitches for quality strikes when behind in the count. I'm less concerned with velocity. Our ballpark's a pitcher's park. It will not be a pitcher's park if guys can't command the strike zone and give away walks. That takes away what that ballpark gives you.
“All our guys may not have No. 1-type stuff, but they'll all battle you like a No. 1 starter would. They've got good heads on their shoulders and they never give in.”
Diversity is another strong suit. In terms of pitching style, the Padres offer different challenges, start to finish. Peavy's the one with the breathtaking stuff; Young is the emerging force with the deceptive delivery; Williams and Wells are a pair of 40-somethings who win on guile from different sides of the rubber; Hensley, while likely ticketed for bullpen duty in the playoffs, is a groundskeeper's nightmare with his sinker.
“Sometimes you see cookie-cutter rotations, all guys who throw the same stuff the same way,” Williams said. “That's not us. In that way, we're kinda unique.”
“It's the same story in our bullpen,” Towers said. “Just look at the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. Meredith is different from (Scott) Linebrink, who's different from Hoffy. You get three different looks in three different innings.”
Most other teams with just one left-hander in the bullpen – that would be Embree in this case – might desperately have signed another to avoid getting caught short-handed in the postseason.
“An extra lefty would be nice, but I'd rather have a right-hander who can get guys out than a lefty who can't,” Balsley said. “We've got really good numbers against lefties.”
Baseball's best, actually. Leading the majors with its .249 average for opposing hitters, the Padres are even better against left-handers, who are batting a majors-low .247 off San Diego.
“They've got great, great balance, top to bottom,” said Arizona Diamondbacks veteran Luis Gonzalez. “I think they're well-set for the playoffs because of their good mix of young arms and experienced pitchers.”
Emphasis on postseason experience. The Padres are short on left-handers, but those two lefties are long on playing time in October.
Fully half of Wells' 20 major-league seasons led to the playoffs, and over 26 postseason appearances, he has compiled a 10-4 record and 3.15 ERA. Embree has pitched in 30 postseason games.
Williams has started Game 1 of the division, league championship and World Series, and Hoffman has pitched in all three over his 14 years with the Padres.
“I don't care how great you are in the regular season, a lot of these guys have never seen what happens in the postseason,” Wells said. “It's a whole new ballgame. My first playoff game, I was so nervous, I had these huge butterflies. You gotta learn to deal with that, because you're going to have the butterflies every time out. I always get them. They never go away.”
Peavy had fractured a rib on the right side while bouncing off teammates in celebration of the division championship. Clearly bothered by the injury, Peavy gave up eight runs in only 4 1/3 innings.
With him went, essentially, San Diego's hope. The same syndrome, in retrospect, actually had worked in the Padres' favor in 1998.
Towers likes to recall the way the Padres' pitching elevated its game considerably in the World Series that postseason, how Sterling Hitchcock suddenly turned into a southpaw possessed, how the run to the pennant seemed to grow from Kevin Brown's winning showdown against Randy Johnson in the very first game of the division series at Houston.
“Brownie came up with a monumental effort,” said Hoffman, who saved that 2-1 victory, “and it just sucked the wind right out of the Astros.”
With his combination of velocity, movement and confidence, Peavy clearly is thought of as the Kevin Brown of this San Diego staff, regardless of his record.
“I like the fact that Jake hasn't had the type of year he wanted, but nobody in baseball wants to face him,” Hoffman said. “That's a luxury, knowing we got a top-of-the-rotation guy who can no-hit anybody at any time. He has the ability to set the tone of any short series or seven-game series.”
However Peavy pitches, the challenge is passed to the next guy. It's been that way all season for the Padres, who talk like a staff, pitch like a staff. A staff whose pitching numbers, by the way, are remarkably similar to those of last year's champions.
“I don't know if anybody can ever duplicate what the White Sox did last year,” Williams said, “but it does show you what can happen.”