XX Sports Radio: Kevin Towers Interview (MP3)
- The team is a lot more athletic with the youth movement. Blanks is hitting home runs as far as Albert Pujols, just not as consistent. Venable is showing power. Latos is a bright spot, may get ROTY consideration. Towers is enjoying watching the team in the last few weeks.
- The draft 3 or 4 years ago put an emphasis on speed and athleticism. "It's nice to have power, but contact hitters can make things happen."
- Towers says they are rotating all the outfielders to get them all consistent AB's.
- Venable's confidence is starting to come.
- Giles will get at bats, they won't be as many as he's used to. Giles will do some pinch hitting. He'll get occasional playing time in the outfield. Towers is sure that Giles sees the writing on the wall that the young players are going to get the plate appearances.
- The Padres have accumulated a lot of pitching. They've got a lot of depth in the rotation, but not a lot of experience. Bunch of power arms in the bullpen.
- In the off season, the Padres will try to improve the catching and will try to bring in a big right handed power bat as a corner outfielder. He'd like to bring Eckstein back because he's such a great leader.
- Padres will shut down Mat Latos in September because of the number of innings he has already thrown this year. "Last thing we want to do is hurt this kid." Padres might go to a six man rotation but it won't include Latos.
- Towers talks about the pitchers the Padres have acquired during trades.
- It's by design that the Padres have traded for pitching. When the Padres have succeeded in Petco they've had pitching, they've always been at the bottom when it came to offense.
- The Donovan Tate signing will probably go down to the last minute. Towers thinks they will sign all three top draftees. The Padres had a significant budget for draftees even before trading Peavy.
- Padres still plan on being a force in the Dominican Republic.