At this point, I guess we should just be happy to have a team with our home town stars still intact. In case you have not heard, the Padres are spectacularly unimpressive this year… again!  But, on the bright side this team cut $40,000,000 from their payroll and they look better than last year on paper…which ain’t sayin‘ much.  After all, its been 80 degrees the past 2 weeks and its barely March.  Why be greedy?  We live in Paradise while Chowds and Yankee fans deal with freezing snow storms that could kill you on your way to work.  It’s a fair trade off in my opinion.

Have you heard the Padres-owned radio station pumping out their standard hype which goes something like this, “The Padres will be competitive in the NL West.”?  It could be true, but I find it highly improbable based solely on our pitching staff.  Peavy and C.Y. are sweet, but Josh Geer and Chad Reineke are unproven, Cha Seung Baek will not be a starter after May in my estimation, Joe Thatcher was a miserable failure at best last year with an 8.42 ERA, and Heath Bell has some pretty big f@cking shoes to fill and we do not know how he will handle the pressure in his new role.

Let’s take a look at the Pitching #’s

Pitchers:

1. J.Peavy / 10W-11L  / 2.85 ERA
2. C.Young / 7W-6L / 3.96 ERA
3. C.Baek / 6W-10L / 4.79 ERA
4. J.Geer / 2W-1L / 2.67 ERA
5. C.Reineke / 2W-1L / 5.00 ERA

Bullpen

H. Bell (Closer) / 6W-6L / ERA 3.58 / 0 SV

C. Meredith / 0W-3L / ERA 4.09

M. Adams / 2W-3L / ERA 2.48

J. Hampson / 2W-1L / ERA 2.93

J. Thatcher / 0W-4L /  ERA 8.42

M. Worrell / 0W-1L / ERA 7.94

1. S.Patterson / 0W-0L / ERA 1.93

Well, at least we have a beautiful ballpark and summer came early this year.