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Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Expansion Padres Pray for Hits

 

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Rich Klein of Plano, TX, who correctly identified Mike Paul as the pitcher who struck out Ron Hansen for the fourth time in the game where he had an unassisted triple play. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

NEW TRIVIA CONTEST:  By answering the TRIVIA QUESTION CORRECTLY you are automatically entered into a weekly drawing for a Starbucks Gift Card.  YOU MUST ENTER VIA THE EMAIL AT THE END OF THIS COLUMN. Don't forget to put your mailing address in with the answer so if you win we can send you the gift card in the mail.

Just a note to add; If you look at the top right hand corner of the side bar you will see a link to daily sports scores. We made an agreement with Baseball 24 in a mutual sharing situation. Hope its helpful to fans of several sports.

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NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: Which relief pitcher got the first officially registered SAVE in San Diego Padres MLB history?  
 
ANSWER to the Trivia question in the previous column:
Mike Paul struck out Ron Hansen for the fourth time in the game where he had an unassisted triple play

Expansion teams aren't supposed to be contenders right away. Most won't offer a polished pitching staff but most will hit, at least to some degree. Then there were the players of the expansion San Diego Padres. 

The year was 1969 and the new San Diego team was far from it's days of Tony Gwynn and Dave Winfield. Gwynn would toy with .400 at one point and offer a lifetime BA of .338. Winfield, before leaving for Free Agency, would hit 154 home runs and lead the NL in RBI with 118 in 1979.  


 
But that was later and 1969 was now. By the time the 1969 season had come to a close 10 Padres came to the plate and closed the season with a BA of under .200. Included was the team's starting shortstop, Tommy Dean, at .176 in 101 games (308 plate appearances). Few were far better. Starting catcher Chris Cannizzaro stuck it out at .220 while starting second sacker, Jose Arcia batted .215.

On the positive side, powerful Nate Colbert led the team in homers with 24, batting .255 while striking out 123 times (no big deal today but back then over 100 K's was a setback). Downtown Ollie Brown led the hitters at .254, adding 20 dingers, and Ed Spiezio and former Dodger Al Ferrara had double figure home run totals with 27 between them. The basic starting lineup rounded out with Cito Gaston's .230 mark.  

The Padres finished last (12th place) in nearly every hitting category in 1969 including runs, hits, doubles, walks, strikeouts, BA (.225) and every important other percentage statistic including on-base and slugging figures. They were dismal. They finished 52-110, 41 games out of first place. Only eight times did they beat an opponent by five runs or more, but lost by five runs or more 30 times!

Perhaps their season can be summed up this way. Twice they lost to opposing teams 19-0 and twice more 10-0. There were other double digit scoring losses but those embarrassments were the top of the heap for the 1969 Friars. 

The pitching wasn't much better overall but the starters were not bad. Despite losing 20 of 27 decisions 21-year old Clay Kirby finished with a 3.80 ERA. In fact, the four main starters were all under 4.00 in the ERA department. Only one pitcher who pitched any kind of innings however finished with a winning record. Reliever Jack Baldschun was 7-2. 

Of all the players on that inaugural team for San Diego, probably the only offensive player who went on to a strong big league career was Colbert. He hit 173 home runs during his MLB life. On the mound it was Joe Niekro who won 221 games in his career while losing 204. His brother Phil won 318 giving them a combined record of 540-478, which in itself is pretty amazing.  

TRIVIA CONTEST; After reading this column you can enter the weekly trivia contest for a chance to win a Starbucks Gift Card. Enter via the following email. Send 1) your answer to the trivia question at the top of the column, 2) your name, address and email so where we know where to send the card if you win 3) any comment you have on the column. One winner will be selected at random each week based on correct answers with the odds being based on the number of correct entries.  Please cut and paste or enter the following email into your email system.

                             SEND YOUR ANSWERS TO; brillpro@gmail.com  
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Need to get out of a baseball hitting slump, or a golf swing slump? Order my new book "Beating the Slump; An athlete's guide to a better career." See it on Amazon for only $5.99. That is for the Paperback, you can also order Kindle on that link. You can also order paperback copies directly from me via the email below for my other books.

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