Padres Offense Wakes Up In Home Opener

What a relief. Just when you think the season can’t get any worse, the opener is against a bulked up Dodger team coming off a three game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The rival isn’t even the problem. None of us want to hear our stupid friends or coworkers rant about losing to them. Well, good thing the boys stepped up.

The Padres put up a 5-run 8th inning to win their home opener against Los Doyers 9-3. Will Venable led the offense with 2 hits, a solo homerun and a base clearing triple. Oh and he had 2 walks. And stole a base. And scored twice.

The game was close to going the other way in the first inning. Clayton Richard loaded the bases with 1 out but got Juan Uribe to ground into an inning ending double play.

In the bottom of the inning, Venable opened up the scoring with a solo shot to deep right field. Jedd Gyorko extended the lead with an rbi single after Yonder Alonso hit a 2 out double.

In the second, Richard escaped trouble again getting a double play after the Dodgers had runners on first and second with nobody out. He labored through five innings giving up 8 hits and 3 walks and allowed 2 earned runs. Unfortunately, the two runs was a 2-run homerun by Uribe that barely cleared the new right field wall. (The Padres have now been out homered 11-3 this season.)

Nick Hundley gave the Padres the lead with a homerun off the Western Metal Supply building in the bottom of the fifth. As much as I want Grandal to come back, its so good seeing Hundley make use of his playing time.

After the Dodgers tied the game in the seventh, Mark Kotsay came up to pinch-hit in the bottom of the inning with Cameron Maybin on second. Do yourself a favor and watch the highlight of Kotsay’s double on MLB.com. Any faith you lost in the team this season will be restored after watching it, I promise.

In the eighth, Chris Denorfia would come through with a first pitch single to bring in Alexi Amarista. Everth Cabrera followed with a walk to load the bases for Venable who ripped a triple to right center clearing the bases.

As much fun as it was to watch this sort of offensive production and clutch hitting, the game did have some low spots. Richard threw 99 pitches through only five innings and gave up his fourth home run in just two starts. Left-handed specialist Joe Thatcher, gave up an RBI hit to the only batter he faced. Yes it was Adrian Gonzalez but still.

Enjoy this win Padres fans because come tomorrow’s work shift or class, we might be eating whatever crap we talked today about last nights game.

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