Sez Me …
The Padres used to get their money’s worth. They didn’t spend any.
You’re supposed to get what you pay for, and they did. They were cheap sheep in major league clothing for too many bad years to even contemplate remembering.
Advertisem*nt
So now what’s their excuse?
They are not getting bang for buck. Their best everyday player has been afterthought Jurickson Profar, who will make $1 million (plus bonuses) this season.
They are an unreliable jalopy with a Rolls Royce sticker.
The Pads have around $1 billion invested in three players — Manny Machado ($350 million), Fernando Tatis Jr. ($340 million), and Xander Bogaerts, who is out for a while with a broken shoulder ($280 million, $25 mil this year).
Great players get that kind of dough. These guys are not great, Not this year. Not now. As our Kevin Acee points out, the “Big Three’’ had a combined batting average of .236 heading into Friday’s game.
I realize injuries have come into play, although Bogaerts, banged up since he’s been here, was having an off year before he got hurt. Machado is coming off elbow surgery seven-plus months ago, but he sure seems healthy to me. If he isn’t he shouldn’t be playing, putting up bad numbers, swinging at pitches headed to the dugout.
Tatis, who has become a great right fielder, hasn’t been the same with the bat since his three wrist surgeries and motorcycle stupidity.
Fernando hits the ball hard, so I understand. But “exit velo” means nothing when it gets into gloves. He’s not nearly the same offensively. Not now. Not close. The devil seems out of his may care.
Manager Mike Shildt, who has cornered the market on rose-colored glasses, should join the media so he can ask questions to himself that he likes.
He takes offense to saying this team has been on a roller-coaster ride, which it certainly has been on. Good for a while, then awful, getting swept by the stinking Rockies at home, where the Padres continue to stink it out.
Sure, they go to Kansas City and get 11 hits in an inning. Can they do it at Petco? Again anywhere?
I am tired of the whole Petco National Park Thing. Other teams hit there. Since being acquired from Miami, two-time batting champion — Luis Arraez — has batted close to .400 at home.
Great hitters hit, man.
I’ve been watching baseball since Dizzy Dean did play-by-play, and I’ve seen all the great players. They have slumped at one time or another — excluding Tony Gwynn, whose slump was 1-for-4 (Arraez is similar in approach) — but they all came out of them.
It’s baseball, the only game founded on failure. The best batters fail two-thirds of the time. But great hitters don’t go into slumps for months.
This team keeps going through hitting coaches as if they’re nachos. It can’t be all about them. Can’t. But I know Tatis still hasn’t learned the strike zone, and Machado is another who should be well informed of it on his own.
Baseball isn’t very good right now, so they remain in playoff contention, thanks largely to their pitching — especially the bullpen. The sudden excellence of reliever Jeremiah Estrada has been unfathomable. But injured aces Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove are on the IL. Without them, ciao.
There is no consistency to supposedly good players — even defensively — and all too often they’re a hard watch. That fans continue to show is a tribute to this being a good baseball town.
Nothing in sports is worse than dull. Baseball can be tedious enough.
G.K Chesterton said the “unpardonable sin is being bored.” Which is why the great man never went to Petco. …
Ty Cobb’s description of Walter Johnson’s fastball: “The thing just hissed with danger.” So good. Ty was straight out of Raymond Chandler. …
Bill Walton, the avid cyclist, once told me I hate bicycles. I explained it wasn’t bicycles. I hate bike lanes. …
Just as with cars. Love cars. Hate the roads. I’d be in favor of a Road Tax if someone in this state ever told me where, up to now, the money has gone — which is not on my byways. …
Now, another K.C. Chief is in trouble. Isaiah Buggs is accused of animal cruelty. If they ever leave the city, the biggest losers will be lawyers. …
The Dolphins re-up Jaylen Waddle for $84.75 million. Wide receivers do not win Super Bowls. …
Did the Jaguars use marijuana and alcohol on the plane back from London to JAX? Really? What was so unusual? Was it a commercial flight? …
Meanwhile, there’s a report that American high school coaches are fixing players’ stats to make them more attractive to universities. As do the rich and famous, paying off colleges to get their kids into school, this is the first time it’s happened? Any recruiter who buys this is an idiot, anyway. …
Back when I was covering preps, I heard an East County tailback scored five touchdowns. I called Bill Dickens, sports editor of the Daily Californian. He talked to the reporter who was at the game. The player didn’t score one. …
If you saw Luka Dončić walking down the street, you’d think he’s the guy who asks: “Need your windshield cleaned?” …
Ty Lue, enjoying his tenure as the latest Clippers coach who can’t win anything, signs a contract extension. …
When Rafael Nadal loses in the first round of the French Open, which he’s won 14 times, it’s time to tell Roland Garros, “Hey, Ro, hand me a fork. Au revoir and adios, muchachos.”
Do you realize they actually keep track of NBA alley-oop dunks? What’s next, most shoelaces come undone? …
Congratulations. Our track and field boys and girls won a San Diego Section record 10 events at the State Meet. Amazing work at one of California’s greatest annual sporting events. …
Happy 81st, Broadway Joe. No one threw the football like Joe Namath. It made noise. …
The mayor of London wants to host the Super Bowl. I love London. What difference does it make? Locals don’t get into Super Bowls, anyway. …
Now we see Bicycle Mayor and his Ham & Eggers want to take a hunk out of Mission Bay Golf Course — turning it into a pitch-and putt — for marshland. Does anyone ever ask themselves: “What the hell are these people doing?” …
Marshland. Tough lie. …
Ray Charles sang “What’d I say?” Scottie Scheffler walks. No chance he was going over. …
Hours after I learned Bill Walton had passed, came the awful news that Jack Brenha, my friend, a friend of many, what a good guy is supposed to be, had passed from Parkinson’s. RIP. …
Angel Hernandez, the baseball umpire of unmatched inability, has retired. If he was having Italian at the table and tried to scoop himself some pasta, he’d miss the plate. …
Media has become the most popular club in America. Nearly everyone with a computer or cell phone is allowed in without vetting. …
Somebody put out a list of the NFL’s sexiest head coaches, and Andy Reid was No. 5. So nobody was No. 6.
