By Yours Truly
http://throneberryfields.com/2016/04/09/the-story-for-the-padres-famine-to-feast-in-less-than-a-week/Let Trevor (Tell Me a) Story have his fun. Long as he’s doing it on the wrong side of a ball game, that’s just fine
with the San Diego Padres, who came into Colorado Friday looking for a run any way they could find one.
They were probably wondering whether they’d have to scratch, claw, burrow, or bribe their way across the plate
even once, after the Los Angeles Dodgers opened their season by shutting them out three straight.
You could forgive new manager Andy Green and his charges if they’d begun to wonder whether the plate was
something they’d see on the postgame clubhouse spread but not under even one baserunner’s feet. Right up
to the top of the fourth Friday afternoon.
But when the ninth was finished the Padres hadn’t just broken their scoreless streak. They destroyed the Rockies,
13-6, despite Story’s continuing wreckage.
The kid wants to hit home runs in his fourth straight major league
game? Sure! We can afford to be generous, the Padres must have thought, when Story’s two-run bomb in the
bottom of the fourth chased San Diego starter Colin Rea.
Of course, the Padres hit the field for the bottom of the fourth after a six-run eruption in the top, smashing the
scoreless-inning funk and overthrowing a 2-0 Colorado lead while they were at it. Story had something to do with
that early lead, too, his RBI single with two outs producing the first of the two runs, after which Carlos Gonzalez
doubled home D.J. LaMahieu.
But with one out in the top of the fourth, after Rockies starter Jordan Lyles entered the inning in cruise control,
seemingly, the Padres put first and second aboard after a leadoff strikeout on a single (Melvin Upton, Jr.) and a
walk (Rea).
Then Jon Jay singled to right center to send home Upton and move Rea to third, then stole second before Cory
Spangenberg sent them both home with a triple. Matt Kemp singled home Spangenberg and Rea yielded to Chris
Rusin. Who promptly yielded a single (to Wil Myers) and a two-run double (Yangervis Solarte, swinging on the first
pitch), before retiring the side at last.
Who knew the Padres weren’t even close to finished just yet? Not Kemp, who hit a three-run shot with two out in
the fifth after Rusin yielded to Justin Miller after plunking Spangeberg to set up first and second in the first place.
Not Upton, who measured Miller for a two-run bomb with one out in the sixth. Not Solarte, who faced Rockies
reliever Jason Gurka with two out and sliced a two-run double to left in the top of the ninth. Don’t tell these Padres
thirteen is an unlucky number.
Why, they’ll even be kind enough to let Story hit his second bomb of the game, a leadoff yank into the mostly
empty left field bleachers, after Padres reliever Ryan Buchter brought the kid back to a full count after opening
in the hole 3-0 on him. Let the lad have his fun, long as it isn’t costing them a ball game.
There’s nothing like an afternoon in the easiest hitting park in baseball to jerk a team from season-opening funk to
fourth-game flight. “Everybody loves to hit here,” Green said after the Padres’ carnage was finally done, putting on
his Captain Obvious cap shamelessly. “I think that’s across baseball. I think it’s just the way it is. It’s a good time
to come here.”
Eighteen hits on the Padres’ side of the ledger ought to stand as evidence enough.
“It’s been kind of a running joke in the clubhouse — we’ve got to score eventually,” Upton told the
San Diego Union-
Tribune. “We were just trying to keep it loose. We kept it loose yesterday on the plane, we kept it loose today
before the game. We stopped trying to force the issue today, and we just let it happen.”
About the guys who started their season so nastily? You might catch a few twinges of sympathy for the Dodgers,
who dropped their first two to the Giants in San Francisco to start the weekend. Including the staggering 12-6
spanking Thursday.
Especially the strange sight of pulling rookie Ross Stripling in the eighth Friday—with a no-hitter in the works
and a 2-0 Dodger lead, all in his Show debut—which was strange until you remembered Stripling is also returning
from Tommy John surgery and the Dodgers wanted to take no chances.
Especially seeing that precaution blow up right in their faces when the next Giant hitter, Trevor Brown, busted the
no-hitter and tied the game by hitting one into the left field seats on Chris Archer’s dollar; and, when Brandon
Crawford won it in the bottom of the tenth with a shot about three sections left of where Brown’s blast landed.
But only a few.
