Padres Game Recap – Apr. 20, 2015

Holy smokes! Who were those guys that crushed the Rockies tonight 14-3? Your 2015 Padres, that’s who!!! 14 runs on 17 hits, 5 of them being doubles, 1 triple, with only 1 HR courtesy of Venable. It was a blowout from start to finish, and loved every minute of it.

Facing De La Rosa, who was making his 2015 debut, the new Friars wasted no time in introducing themselves to the lefty with Myers, Norris, Kemp, and Upton all reaching base via hits, then more familiar Padres Gyorko and Alonso chimed in with run scoring hits as well to give Despaigne a 5-run lead before even throwing a pitch.

Five minutes later the Pads were in the dugout thanks to a quick 1-2-3 thrown by Odrisamer, and back to swinging the sticks. This time Myers reached base on a through the wickets error by Tulowitzki, and the boys were off to the races again. Three more hits, a sac-fly and 4 runs later it was 9-0 Friars and the end of the night for De La Rosa and the Rockies.

All that was left was the padding of stats and the recording of outs to get out of the cold and into the post game spread.   The Pads did just that.   The offense exploded for 5 more in the 5^th capped by the aforementioned HR by Will.

Amidst all the offensive thunder the true man of the night was Despaigne. Not only did he do a great job on the mound firing 6 2/3 innings of 2-run ball at Coors Field in his Mile High debut, not only did he take two hard hit comebackers off his body and yet stay in the game, but he also…drum roll please….got his firs MLB hit!!!!   Yes, I know what you’re thinking, “Scan, I was loving this article and buying everything you were telling me, but you just took it too far with the Despaigne hit thing. Come on, Scan, don’t lie to me!” I would not lie to you, friend, it truly did happen. It was a hard hit ball no less that skipped on through the right side. As you might imagine the dugout erupted! It was a celebration worthy of reaching the 3,00 hit mark, the only thing missing was the on field congratulatory scrum…and 2,999 other hits.

With that knock I would imagine O had a nice pay day for himself, not from any contractual incentive clause for recording the hit, but from the clubhouse doubters who had his odds of getting a hit at all this season higher than the Vegas odds of Alex Rodriguez winning MLB’s Roberto Clemente Award for sportsmanship. Cha-ching, you go O!

Thanks to Despaigne accomplishing the seemingly impossible the Pads for the second time already this season accomplished the feat of having every batter in their starting lineup record at least one hit. Myers, Norris, Kemp, Alonso and Barmes each had multiple hits.

Phew…ok, fun night! Now it’s time to get ready for the next game, because regardless of the blowout nature of tonight’s contest it’s counts as just 1 W, and the Pads have 148 more to go after.  Morrow goes for the Friars tomorrow with the first pitch being tossed at 5:40 (PST).  Uncle Teddy and I will bring it all to you live on the Mighty 1090.  Hope you’ll join us!

Scan