As the Dodgers season continues to decline, the latest hope for some pitching solidity is a guy who was suffering the dreaded Swine Flu only a couple of weeks ago.
Vicente Padilla is expected to make his major league debut with the club on Thursday night against Colorado, and the way things have been going in recent weeks, their best hope might be that he infects a couple of the opposition players with some kind of virus!
With both clubs off on Monday, Dodgers boss Joe Torre had plenty of time to worry about an alarming decline in performance levels, which has seen the Rockies close a once-impressive gap down to just 3 games with nearly 40 still to play in a packed end to the regular season.
Injuries to Jason Schmidt (predictable) and Hiroki Kuroda (unlucky) have left the rotation looking so thin that it is the Swine Flu Kid and knuckleballer Charlie Haeger who may have to be relied upon for some major innings.
Haeger has impressed in a couple of outings so far, but as with pitchers of his ilk, consistency is not a byword – expect some horror shows to come but hope that the overall results are positive.
As for Padilla, he has never been anything but a streak pitcher – when he’s good, baseball betting confirms, that he’s very good, but when he’s bad, you might as well have me out there on the mound (and that is something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, or the Giants!
Although he was fine in five innings for Triple-A Albuquerque on Saturday, the 31-year-old, who was released by Texas after an apparent bust-up, has a career ERA of 4.36 and barely strikes out one batter every couple of innings.
While it is tough to start criticizing players before they even turn up with the big club, it seems strange that Padilla will be taking the mound just a few days after St Louis debuted John Smoltz, just the sort of pitcher that management should have been looking at to turn things around and to give the club a play-off contender’s look.
It really is a shame management didn’t make him an offer, instead going for the cheaper and, sadly, nastier option.
