Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 01, 2008
Hurt By his Defense?

Roy Oswalt allowed eleven hits in 5 1/3 innings Monday night in San Diego. He struck out six and walked one, however, indicating he was doing something right. The Padres, however, went 11 for 20 when putting the ball in play. Did the Houston defense play poorly? The moves the Astros made over the winter likely degraded the defense on the left side of the infield. If someone watched the game, did they notice poor defense, or were the hits against Oswalt solid?

The Padres won 4-0.


Posted by David Pinto at 07:32 AM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I watched it, but I did not notice poor defense. It just seems that the Padres are specifically built to get the line drive hits in the spacious Petco outfield.

The ESPN2 announcers were awful, talking about things like hot dogs incessantly. They did correctly point out that lots of the hits were coming from the bottom third of the Padres order, including help from Peavy.

Posted by: John N. at April 1, 2008 07:51 AM

I listened to some of the San Diego radio broadcast. Yes, I subjected myself to Ted Leitner. So bad he's good, etc...

Anyhoo, even Leitner wasn't ripping the Astros defense, as homer Ted would certainly have done if the glovework had been awful. Losing Everett certainly hurts the defense, but I think the Astros' main problem this year will be on the mound.

I'm kinda surprised that a night game at Petco with Oswalt and Peavy produced four runs and eighteen hits. I was expecting something like two runs and ten hits. Maybe the Padres really have figured out the park.

Posted by: Casey Abell at April 1, 2008 08:00 AM

I saw the first 5-6 innings and I dont think it had anything to do with the defense at all. They had a lot of liners just turned into doubles and little dinky singles that were all over the field. Oswalt just isnt consistent with his dominant stuff, especially when a decent hitting Peavy looked like one of the better hitters in the Padres lineup.

The astros offensively looked OK. Their 2-6 is formidable and is already getting overlooked, especially Tejada. He's still adapting but he's not struggling at all. He tagged a bad pitch to right field for a double. I'm wondering if he might just flip the switch and go back to his .300/30/100 self again. If so, the NL Central has gotten better, but then again, their rotation is flat out one of the worst in the league. Meh

Posted by: Chicago Chip at April 1, 2008 08:59 AM

Well, except for Wigginton and Lee, the defense looked okay. There were primarily solid line drive hits and some seeing-eye bloops. Oswalt didn't have his best stuff -- he threw lots of slow breaking stuff.

Posted by: John Royal at April 1, 2008 10:42 AM

The defense actually played good if you consider michael bourn and miguel tejada's performance. Wiggington and Lee were as good as they could be I guess. Roy just didn't have his best stuff. I mean peavey had 2 of the 4 rbi's. Plus Houston was nowhere to be seen on the offensive side of the ball.

Posted by: jason c at April 1, 2008 02:47 PM

Lee did look like he was injured when he was running. Not sure if he always looks like that or what. However, I don't think that the defense really cost them as there was only one ball that Lee might have been able to catch.

Posted by: Tom at April 1, 2008 03:51 PM

I didn't see any defensive issues which affected the score. Wigginton had one bobble which made him miss a DP, but it ended up harmless when Bourn made a terrific running catch for the 3d out. Tejada looked surprisingly good at shortstop. Some of the hits were more well placed then hit hard. Oswalt said his breaking pitches were not working well, and he had to throw mostly fastballs, and that the hitters eventually figured that out. Peavy did the most "clutch" damage, offensively, and Oswalt credited Peavy with deceiving him into believing he would bunt.

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