The Enigmatic Mets; Time To Trade Padilla; Lugo's Error Costs The Red Sox

• Mets 12-Dodgers 1:

    This game was a prime example of what's so irritating about the Mets; they'll knock around one of the best pitchers in baseball in Brad Penny (granted, they always knock Penny around), then they'll lose to a bunch of mediocre teams with mediocre to weak players. And they won't just lose, they'll embarrass themselves as they did last Wednesday against the Pirates.
    Truth be told, this recap was intended to discuss how Penny isn't the sharpest knife in the box and proved it by hitting Ryan Church to lead off the fifth inning after John Maine had knocked Jeff Kent down earlier in the game. The pitch to Kent looked completely unintentional and I was under the mistaken impression that Church was hit to lead off the inning which opened the floodgates for a six run outburst to blow the game open. Church was the second hitter after Carlos Beltran had grounded out; Endy Chavez struck out after Church was hit; the entire rally occurred with two outs. It would've been a stupid thing to do to hit a guy to lead off the inning even trailing by five runs and Penny would've heard about it from manager Joe Torre, but he retaliated in a smarter fashion even though it was probably unwarranted. A 5-0 deficit could easily be turned into 5-2 or 5-3 against the starter and with the Mets corps of late-inning arsonists in the bullpen, few leads are safe.

• Rangers 2-Mariners 0:

     Like Oliver Perez, Vicente Padilla is an immensely talented pitcher who could induce the most docile manager or pitching coach to want to strangle him. When he was a free agent after a 15-10 campaign in 2006, the Rangers had little choice but to re-sign him to the contract they did even though there was every possibility that he was either going to get hurt, be terrible, or both. (He was both last year.) Now, he's back to making everyone shake their heads wondering what would happen if he were able to maintain his health and focus for an entire season.
    Padilla's been nothing short of brilliant this season and with only the remainder of this year and next on his contract; the dearth and desperation of and for starting pitching around the majors; and the Rangers unlikelihood to contend this and probably next year, they should start trying to trade Padilla now before he implodes. If I were team president Nolan Ryan, I would seriously consider making the move and have some established talent evaluators in the Rangers system pick certain players from the offers the Rangers would receive for Padilla and deal him before something----who knows what?----sabotages Padilla yet again.

• Tigers 10-Red Sox 9:

     I watched the ninth inning of this game and after Julio Lugo made that error, I knew that the Tigers were going to come back and win. I haven't given Lugo too hard a time this season because he's been hitting well, but defensively he's made ten errors already and that's something that's going to cost more games over the course of a season than a guy like Lugo's going to help the Red Sox win with his offense. The whole idea of signing Lugo was that he was an offensive upgrade over Alex Gonzalez and the Red Sox had such a large group of fly ball pitchers that Lugo's defensive liabilities would be negligible. They won the World Series last year, so it didn't matter all that much that his offense was worse than that of Gonzalez and his defense was as bad as expected; the Red Sox they look like the class of the AL East this year, so it won't be a big problem during the season, but they're going to need someone to vacuum balls up during the playoffs and Lugo is a terror in the field.
    I'd love to have overheard what was said in private by Jonathan Papelbon after the game (probably something like: "That <bleeper> couldn't catch a cold standing buck naked in <bleeping> Alaska," or some other pithy assessment of Lugo's glove work.) The politically correct stuff is saved for the media; the truth is grumbled into cell phones to confidants after the games; that's where the juicy stuff lies.

• Twins 13-White Sox 1:

     I should've mentioned this yesterday, but why was Nick Swisher even in center field as Gavin Floyd tried to complete his no-hitter on Tuesday night? Isn't Brian Anderson supposed to be a defensive whiz out there? Shouldn't Swisher, below adequate in center field despite maximum effort, have been removed for defensive purposes? It wasn't like they were in a tight game; it was 7-1.
    As for this game, as gutty as Mark Buehrle is, it doesn't do much good if he's going to get pummeled every third start. I have to say that Octavio Dotel's stuff looks dominating, but stuff has never been Dotel's problem; his problem is that he's always getting hurt.
    With the Twins, Livan Hernandez is proving that if a pitcher throws strikes, has fielders behind him who catch the ball and keeps his team in the game, he's going to get his wins. I wouldn't expect such brilliance over the course of the season, but I don't understand why more teams weren't interested in Hernandez as more than a desperation backup plan; there's value in guys who go out to the mound every fifth day and are willing to throw 150 pitches to help their team. And before everyone gets crazy over the "tools" of Carlos Gomez, just wait until he runs into a slump and is still swinging wildly at the first or second pitch even if it's so far over his head that the catcher has to leap for it. His plate discipline is atrocious and doesn't appear to be getting any better, cycle or not.

• Braves 5-Padres 2:

    It's no crime to be shut down by Tim Hudson, but hitting is contagious and the Padres need someone susceptible to the disease. Ten games out of first place in early May wouldn't be that big of a problem for a team with a roster full of players who have a history of success and aren't entering the land of geriatric baseball players, but the Padres have no margin for error and after another month of this, they might start sending out circulars to clear out their warehouse (which is past it's sell-by date).

    Please check out and purchase my book The Prince Of New York's 2008 Baseball Guide, also available on Amazon.com and BN.com.