Opening Doh'...

Not like it shouldn’t have been expected but the Pads dropped their first heartbreaker yesterday out in Kobeland. There are many places that you don’t really want your pitchers starting off the season, but Colorado has to be number one on that list. Imitation Ball Park in an imitation city, with imitation air. On top of that the pitchers are still working to get the off season beers and brats off their scales and knock the rust off of their elbows. Great confidence builder starting out there in Kobeland, and it showed. Padres 0-1 with one more in Denver then home, thankfully. Although the bats were impressive there, let’s reserve judgment until, say, halfway through the season. Good. Moving on…

Woody has never really been what they would call dominant in Denver, and almost all pitchers have issues there. And Trevor knows what is normally routine is far from it in the thin air. You may be having a solid spring or a great season, and it only takes one start out in Colorado to unravel the best. Thin air makes a baseball do funny things like fly way too darned far when popped up. You’ve all heard that one I am sure, but it also does things to a pitcher’s breaking ball. Or, well, doesn’t do things to it. Thin air equals less resistance equals less movement on breaking pitches. Just the facts of physics here people, and as how that is the extent of my physics knowledge, enough science, let’s get back to baseball. When your breaking pitches aren’t doing just that, they flatten out and get hammered to all parts of a ball park that are just too big. I have mentioned this before in some forum or another, but the outfield in Kobeland is just too big. Move the fences in and let the outfielders have a chance at playing the jam shots and bloops that fall in because of the enormity of the field. Home runs are home runs there for the most part; the majority of the scoring comes from single after single after single that just can't be defended because the outfielders don’t have rockets up their asses.

This leads me to my next meaningless point. How many times have you had a discussion with people you hardly know over a couple of cold beers about the greatest feats in baseball (or insert sporting event here)? Barry’s 73 home runs, prior to that was McGuire’s 70 and Sammy’s concoction of cork and steroids, I mean 66. All those things are great. Cy Young’s 512 wins, Nolan’s no hitters and strikeouts, Pete’s 4200+ Hall of Fame Less hits. You know the best of the best. But the one true feat that may also never be touched or improved upon, steroids or not, is one that happened on a rainy night in Colorado. The night that Hideo Nomo pitched a no hitter there. And it is by far, one of the greatest accomplishments that has ever taken place on a baseball diamond. Even better than that night last October that Major League Baseball let the Farrely brothers shoot the end of their movie about the Red Sox and allowing them to be celebrating on the field with the Red Soxes. Oh, that Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore just bleed Red Sox Nation don’t they? I am just sweating in my chair as we speak with anticipation of that film…

More Kobeland on Wednesday. Adam needs a nickname is on the hill…