Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
June 08, 2008
The 2-1 Padres
Greg Maddux

Greg Maddux, shown earlier this season, started the Padres winning streak with a strong seven inning performance against the Cubs on June 4th.
Photo: Icon SMI

I don't remember seeing anything like this. The Padres beat the Mets for the third time in a row last night, each by a score of 2-1. San Diego also defeated the Cubs in the last game of their series 2-1, giving them four 2-1 victories in a row. They also had a 2-1 win on April 1st, giving them five on the season, and a 1-0 victory on April 13th.

While the Padres do own six wins when scoring two runs or less. they also lost a ton of games in that situation:

Best records scoring two runs or less, 2008
TeamRecordWinning Pct.
Angels6-9.400
Rays7-12.368
Red Sox4-10.286
Rangers3-9.250
Padres6-21.222

The interesting thing is that the Padres should have been blowing out their opponents in the last four games. Look at the difference in batting stats. That's a good line for San Diego Batters:

Padres and opponents batting, 6/4/2008 through 6/7/2008
StatPadresOpponents
Batting Average.268.188
On Base Average.352.225
Slugging Percentage.417.219

Padres batters are 5 for 39 with men in scoring position during these four games. The offense starts innings fine, but doesn't finish them well. The three home runs they hit were all solo shots. It's an amazing four game winning streak, made so by the ineptitude of the Padres offense.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:30 AM | Team Evaluation | TrackBack (0)
Comments

You don't remember seeing it before because it never happened before - a team winning four consecutive games by identical 2-1 scores, that is. The Mets announcers talked about it last night. It had happened three times in a row before, most recently (if I remember correctly) by the Astros in 1995(?).

The announcers also said Mets batters are 2 for 20 with runners in scoring position in this series so far. (That might have gone to 2 for 21 by the end of the game.)

The influence of Petco on this streak shouldn't be overlooked. Just last night there were several long fly balls that would have been out in most other parks (Delgado's and Wright's come to mind).

Posted by: Steve H at June 8, 2008 12:10 PM
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