'Name That Padre:' What a joke!

Now for the newest joke of a game show in town, we have “Name That Padre.”

This is a game that Florida Marlins television announcers Rich Waltz and Tommy Hutton were playing during Tuesday’s night’s Marlins-San Diego Padres game.

“It was one of Bob Barker’s earlier shows,” Hutton said with a laugh in between emails on the “Late Night with the Fish” telecast.

Yes, it’s even come to that now. Visiting announcers are laughing at the Padres … and rightfully so. What else are you supposed to do with a team that has lost 17 of its last 20 games and is 13-36 since a 10-game winning streak in May?

Waltz and Hutton were justifiably amused by some of the names that Padres had on their roster during their “Name That Padre” running commentary.

Everth Cabrera? Joe Thatcher? Mike Ekstrom? Luis Perdomo? Jose Lobaton?

Sorry, those were among the group of characters on the Padres roster that were amusing to the Marlins’ broadcasters … and the Florida team on the field that swept three straight games in San Diego.

And now we hear that the Padres have laid off 13 front-office employees.

Too bad they can’t lay off at least a similar numbers of players at this point.

Umpire Joe West needs to eject himself

Even when Major League Baseball umpire Joe West gets it right, he gets it wrong.

West rightfully overturned a call by third base umpire Chris Guccione in the Florida Marlins’ 3-1 win over the Padres on Monday night.

Guccione called a line drive by Hanley Ramirez fair in the seventh inning; replays showed it was barely foul and West made the right call in overturning Guccione.

Then West did what he does best; he made the wrong call with his overly aggressive actions.

As soon as Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez came out to argue, West put up his hands up as if to tell Gonzalez not to come out. Within five seconds of arguing, Gonzalez was ejected by the hot-headed West.

Great umpires over history such as Doug Harvey let managers have their say and don’t eject people right away for arguing overturned calls. Ones like West think they are the show; and they are only too willing to prove they are the boss, such as West did Monday night.

“To me, that’s when an umpire tries to get a little bigger than the game,” color analyst Tommy Hutton said on the FSN Florida telecast. “That’s not his job.”

Hutton’s comments were right on.

If anybody needed to be ejected, it should have been West for trying to be bigger than our National Pastime; which he’s not!

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.