All-Star Game is losing proposition for Padres

Trevor Hoffman could breathe a little sigh of relief Tuesday night.

Or did you not see how American League relievers J.J. Putz of Seattle and Francisco Rodriguez of Anaheim suffered ninth-inning meltdowns in the All-Star Game?

Hoffman had the same difficulties last year, allowing two ninth-inning runs and becoming the losing pitcher.

Putz and Rodriguez both had their problems last night … and they’re lucky not to have blown the game.

The Padres did suffer another All-Star setback in San Francisco.

Chris Young became the losing pitcher after allowing an inside-the-park home run to Ichiro Suzuki.

This means San Diego has been the home of the All-Star Game’s losing pitcher for two straight years.

Since this is only an “exhibition” game (don’t tell Commissioner Bud Selig), Young and the Padres can certainly shake it off before returning to play Friday night in Arizona.

Peavy deserves All-Star honor

It’s truly an honor for Jake Peavy to be starting tonight’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game for the National League.

Peavy is the type of guy you’d like to have for a teammate because he backs you 100 percent, even if it’s your error that costs him a game.

In fact, the Padres ace is probably as good as it gets when it comes to the teammate category.

The only concern about Peavy starting the All-Star Game is that he tends to get too pumped up for these types of situations.

If he can temper himself, he should be fine – and maybe he’ll even earn the most valuable player as Padres pitcher LaMarr Hoyt did while starting the 1985 All-Star Game.

Last year’s NL starter, Brad Penny of the Dodgers, was never the same after the All-Star contest. He had a horrible second half and probably kept the Dodgers from winning the NL West outright from the Padres.

Peavy can only hope that he one-ups Penny when it comes to the second half of 2007.

And by the way, don’t forget who first predicted Peavy would start the All-Star Game in a blog titled “Peavy looking like an All-Star.” As a reminder, check out this blog from April 27.

Thank you.

Are the Padres becoming whiners?

David Wells approached the home plate umpire Saturday after giving up a home run.

The Padres pitcher argued balls and strikes, was told to return to the mound, then got ejected for coming back to argue more.

Finally, he ended his day with the childish behavior of throwing the ball against the netting behind home plate.

Greg Maddux spent Sunday arguing balls and strikes with the plate umpire. It’s obvious they’re not calling pitches off the plate strikes for him any more.

When Marcus Giles struck out to end Sunday’s 5-4 loss to Atlanta on a called strike off the plate, ESPN announcer Jon Miller said, “Those were the pitches Maddux wanted all night to be strikes.”

The unfortunate question now is: Are the Padres becoming whiners?

Perhaps that should be deferred to other teams.

The Florida Marlins certainly tired of watching Padres leadoff batter Brian Giles draw walks against them. Arguably, a lot of the pitches called balls were the same ones Wells and Maddux were begging for to be strikes.

“Brian Giles is a product of the system,” TV analyst Tommy Hutton said on FSN Florida. “I guarantee you if a few of those borderline pitches would be called strikes, he’d start swinging more.”

Maddux and Wells are being squeezed much more lately, not unlike all other pitchers. But as soon as the umpires start calling those pitches strikes, it’s certainly going to impact Brian Giles’ approach at the plate.

Padres aren't drawing any aces

Sometimes, good fortune can be way beyond your control in baseball.

Take the pitchers you face in a series, for instance.

If you’re playing the Florida Marlins, you don’t want to face Dontrelle Willis. If you are matched up against the Atlanta Braves, the last pitchers you want to bat against are John Smoltz and Tim Hudson.

The Padres just finished playing four games against Florida and now host Atlanta in a three-game weekend series.

They will end the week without having faced Willis, Smoltz or Hudson.

Talk about good fortune.

The Dodgers are playing the same teams this week. They did face Smoltz and Hudson earlier this week, and Willis pitches against them tonight.

For one week, at least, the Padres have nothing to complain about in their luck versus that of the Dodgers concerning things you can’t control.

But there is a flip side. The Padres have such an anemic offense that they make every pitcher look like Willis, Smoltz or Hudson at their best.

That has to change … or else it’s really going to get bad when the Padres are matched up against opponents’ aces again.

Black is managing quite well

Bud Black is doing a masterful job of managing the Padres thus far.

The rookie skipper has made almost all of the right moves and can be praised for two things in particular: his patience and handling of the pitching staff.

Patience was a virtue when Black stuck by rookie third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff while most others wanted him sent to the minors early in the season.

And being a former pitcher and pitching coach, Black has shown he knows how to manage a pitching staff. He certainly deserves much credit for the Padres having the lowest ERA in the major leagues.

Sure, he’s not perfect. He wasted reliever Cla Meredith on an intentional walk Tuesday night because Royce Ring did not have enough time to get warmed up while Greg Maddux was getting battered around in the seventh inning.

But that was an exception.

Black could definitely be considered a frontrunner for Manager of the Year at the halfway point of 2007.

Celebrate the Fourth ... and remember

Go ahead and celebrate. You deserve it!

Independence Day is a time to remember the fact that our nation has been under its own rule for more than 230 years.

So take in the baseball games on the Fourth of July. Enjoy the fireworks!

And remember the Declaration of Independence:

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
— John Hancock

Bradley = Trouble with a capital 'T'

Milton Bradley comes to the Padres with the reputation of a troublemaker.

Make that MilTon Bradley because the guy is trouble with a capital "T."

The least of it is that Bradley has been on the disabled list six times the past two seasons. The latest came Sunday when the Padres placed him on the DL with a strained left oblique.

The Oakland Tribune noted that Bradley played up the injury not to go to Kansas City in a proposed recent trade. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Athletics had no knowledge of the injury when Bradley used it to scuttle the KC trade.

Bradley’s childish outbursts are well documented. Here’s a list of his on-field acts in 2004 alone; which do not include 2004-05 incidents of domestic violence charges, disorderly conduct or leaving the scene of a traffic stop:

Pulled from an exhibition game by Cleveland for not running hard; traded to the Dodgers four days later.
Throws a bag of balls on the field; earning a $2,500 fine and four-game suspension.
After a fan throws a plastic bottle at him for missing a fly ball, he throws the bottle at the feet of fans; warranting a $15,000 fine and five-game suspension.

Then there’s the Bradley who accused former Dodger teammate Jeff Kent of not being able to deal with African-American teammates. This came after Bradley (again) failed to hustle.

Bradley may have a point about Kent. But if he looks in the mirror, he will see someone with strong evidence suggesting he has problems getting along with non-black players. (Or even black reporters, such as the one from the Los Angeles Times he referred to as an "Uncle Tom.")

That could be a real issue in San Diego. The Padres have only two other black players: Mike Cameron and Terrmel Sledge. And Bradley’s acquisition may mean the end of Sledge with the Padres.

The Padres, who acquired the multi-talented Bradley without a physical, are probably going on the theory that new employees tend not to create waves within their first three months on the job. Once the season is over, Bradley can leave as a free agent.

Since moving to Petco Park in 2004, the Padres have had amazing team chemistry while being a proven winner. Bradley certainly has the potential to blow up that chemistry lab.