At least I’ll get to live blog a game for a change.

Please end the Brewers winning streak.

how long it would be before Jake’s floating schedule would be mentioned.

Is Jake the type of guy who wants to go for the easy win?

But, stupid work is being all stupid so I can’t

1-2-3 half innings we’ll see today. I’ll set the over-under at 6.5. We’ve already seen 2.

I’m taking the over.

Forgot about the game. Stupid work.

You go Padres! Strasburg!

The Padres don’t have much left to play for in 2008, besides throwing in some prospects and evaluating the players on the current roster, but they do get a shot at playing spoiler this weekend against the Brewers. Milwaukee is 3½ games back of Chicago and four games up in the wild-card race, but a bad weekend in San Diego could muck things up for the Brew Crew. You can’t do much better than a matchup between Sheets and Peavy, regardless of how poor the Padres have been as a club this season. None of that is their ace’s doing on the mound, and he’s even hitting .243/.275/.297 with a .203 EqA, not too shabby for a pitcher, and probably good enough to start in the Nationals’ outfield. Between the paired pitchers squaring off today, we have 283 innings with 254 strikeouts between them on the season thus far with a combined 3.02 RA. In any context a matchup between these two would be worth watching, a matchup that might be tighter still because today’s game takes place in Petco, the most pitcher-friendly venue in the majors.

The two aces have only allowed a combined 95 runs on the season (only a handful more than today’s Pirates starter, Ian Snell, has allowed by his lonesome), and they’re not that dissimilar as pitchers go, with both relying on low- to mid-90s fastballs. Sheets’ change of pace is his wicked curveball, while for Peavy it’s the slider, and though the two pitches bend in different directions, both are consistently clocked in the low 80s. Both starters are average in the G/F department, and neither of them rely on their defense too much in order to get outs, instead racking up strikeouts and keeping walks down to prevent runs from scoring. That’s a good thing for Peavy, since the Padres rank 20th in Defensive Efficiency this year, converting only 69.6 percent of balls in play into outs.

Gameday has highlights from that inning. Cameron pulls off some grand theft from EGon.

Stephen Strasburg – Thanks Insomnia!

by Kevin Goldstein

I don’t sleep well, it’s just how it is. I often have trouble falling asleep, and when I do, I often have trouble staying asleep. That happened last night, and I could not be happier about it. I woke about around 3:30 am for no particular reason (again, it’s just how it is), and turned on the television. Thankfully, we have 24 hour Olympic coverage these days, and Universal HD happened to be in the second inning of USA’s baseball game with the Netherlands. I don’t have a ton of interest in the Olympic contest, but pitching for the Americans was Stephen Strasburg, the only college player on the team, and the guy who enters 2009 as the favorite to go number one overall. While the Dutch might not be the stiffest competition to measure by, Strasburg was utterly dominant, taking a no-hitter into the seventh and striking out 11. He has a nearly perfect pitcher’s frame and very clean mechanics. His fastball is more than plus, and his slider is a wipeout offering. His command and control are also well-above average. I really didn’t see a negative thing in the two or so hours I saw, so if he’s just the ‘odds-on’ favorite to go number one overall next June, I’d sure like to see what others think might be better, because that was one of the most impressive showings I’ve seen out of an amateur in years.

For Kevin “Grows on trees” Kouzmanoff

was it a good game so far?

let’s go Trev.

Wish we did that more often…
… kinda.

Someone boot justdaves’s car!