Before the game I was able to attend a party out in the bullpen BBQ area for the Hutch Award. With Trevor Hoffman in town we were going to represent him the award before the game. I had been out in that area a few times but it is really fun when it is roped off for a limited amount of people. We even had a few balls fly out from those taking batting practice for the Padres. Right before the start of the game Jamie Moyer was out at home place (he won the Hutch Award last year) to be with Trevor Hoffman as the award winner this year (our committee threw the luncheon for him back in February).
Tonight I sat in the center field bleachers which I had never done before. The view gave us a perfect view of if a pitch was a ball or a strike. Until late in the game we really did not disagree at all with what the umpire called. As for the game the M’s first ran into the red hot Padres and then we had to face who is my prediction to win the Cy Young award in the NL this year, Jake Peavy. Poor Ryan Franklin got no run support for the M’s. The Padres won 6-1 off of only four hits! The M’s only run came off of a late inning home run by Olivo. They did not even get their first of five hits until half way through the game. Jorge Campillo made his major league début for the M’s pitching in the top of the ninth. The rest of the AL West won their interleague games and with the loss the M’s fall to 16-25 and last place in the AL West. They are 8 games out of the division lead and 8.5 games out of the Wild Card.
Ichiro watch: He had another 1-4 night with a strikeout. That gives him 980 career hits in 675 games. His average is now 1.451852 hits per game. This still has him on a pace of getting his 1000th hit in game 688 (688.7755). He needs to get really hot to have a shot at game 683. Even if he went 2-4 for the next 8 games he will fall short of the breaking or matching the record.
A digital recording of my life 