Friar Watch

The Padres are back at Petco for a big weekend series against the struggling Dodgers. Speaking of struggling, Clay Hensley gets the start tonight. I don’t think Clay is back on track yet, despite the better results in his last outing. He was still inconsistent and threw a lot of hittable pitches. Watch Clay’s follow through, when he’s going well he drives through the pitch and finishes bent over and angled towards first base. When he’s having trouble he finishes more upright and facing straight ahead. I think he does this when the blister flares up, usually after 4 or 5 innings. If he pitches well and then starts pulling up like that Bud Black should get him out immediately. Cla Meredith hasn’t pitched since the 22nd, tonight might be a good time to get him a couple of innings.

With the Padres back at Petco there should be some Enhanced Gameday data to chew over. I’ll post something about Clay’s game later tonight.

What’s going on in Dodger Land?
Getting swept by the first place (hey, it’s early) Giants is what’s going on. Last night’s game featured Juan Pierre going 0 for 5, failing to get the bunt down on a suicide squeeze and having a ball bounce of his glove for a double that led to two runs. How much are they paying him again?

Andrew at True Blue LA wonders what’s wrong with Brad Penny. His velocity is fine but he’s not striking anyone out. Andrew mentions the Gameday data shows very little movement on Penny’s fastball and speculates this may be at the root of the problem. If Penny’s pitches aren’t moving he needs to compensate by changing speeds more often. Does he even throw a change up?

Jon Weisman and Dodger Thoughts reports that Jason Schmidt could be out for months. I bear no ill will towards Schmidt but anything that weakens the Dodgers is ok by me.

Faramond at Dodgerama has a nice breakdown of the Padres lineup and pitchers for the series. Nice insight on David Wells:

The Dodgers should lay off his curveball at all times with less than two strikes, since opponents bat only 0.244 on the curve vs 0.319 on the fastball. ( According to espn.com )

This illustrates how important it is for Boomer to get ahead early in the count. If he’s ahead he can flip that big curve up there, if he falls behind he has to throw his BP fastball for a strike and that’s when he gets hammered.