JustSON the Numbers: Padres Winning Ways

If you are a gambling man or woman you are going to want to put money on the San Diego Padres losing tonight in Arizona when they face the Diamondbacks at 6:40 pm pacific time. The reason is because the Padres have won 10 in a row and I'm writing about it which will surely jinx them.

This streak really came out of nowhere as the Padres were coming off of losing 13 out of their last 15 games when the streak started back on Friday May 15th with a 5-3 win over the Cincinnati Reds. The biggest factor in this 10 game winning streak has been the great pitching San Diego has gotten. In the 10 games Padre pitchers have given up just 23 runs (2.3 runs allowed per game), they had a streak of 7 straight games giving up no more than 2 runs per in any one game.

Leading the charge for the pitching staff has been San Diego's ace Jake Peavy (pictured in one of the ugliest uniforms ever, reminds me of rotting banana) who threw a complete game May 17th against the Reds only giving up one run then followed that up with 6 innings of no run and two hit ball against the Chicago Cubs. Also pitching very well has been Chris Young, he followed up a 6 inning, 5 hit, 1 run performance against the San Francisco Giants, with a 7 inning, 4 hit, 2 run game against the Cubs.

Not to be outshone by the pitchers has been third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff. During this streak he has raised his batting average 22 points, hit 3 home runs and knocked in 9 RBI.

I should also note that the schedule set up nicely for San Diego during this streak as they played 9 consecutive home games where they are now 17-6 on the year. The road has been far less successful for San Diego, they are 6-16 after coming from 6 runs behind in the 8th inning in Arizona on Monday.

If the Padres can win the rest of their games on this current 6 game road trip they are on they will surpass the franchise record winning streak which currently stands at 14 games set in 1999.

Like I said before, I had to write about this so I'm certain that they will lose tonight.

If anyone has any requests for this column let us know. I don't discriminate, no matter the sport or the stat.

Reasons why you're still single... Friday Night Baseball

(1) You stay up watching the Seattle Mariners - San Francisco Giants game which went 12 innings and was quite entertained by Dave Sims fake-Griffey grand slam call.

"THERE IS IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Going back, back, back, back and it's caught a few feet before the warning track"

The story of Griffey's comeback to Seattle.

(2) You and your buddy try and take the Pittsburgh Pirates to the World Series on MLB 2K8 but realize you can't beat the stinkin' Cincinnati Reds on Rookie mode.

JustSON the Numbers: Johnny Cueto

With this latest edition of JustSON the Numbers I decided to give the Cincinnati Reds some love and focus on their young starting pitcher Johnny Cueto.

Cueto entered last season with a lot of hype but was outshone by fellow young gun Edinson Volquez who came to the Reds in the Josh Hamilton trade. Volquez had a great season going 17-6 with a 3.21 ERA, 206 strikeouts and a trip to the All-Star game.

The 2008 season had it's share of ups and downs for the then 22 year old Cueto from San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic. September was a really tough month for Cueto, he went 1-2 with a 6.16 ERA in only 19 innings pitched. On the year he ended up with a 9-14 record and a 4.81 ERA with 158 strikeouts.

So far this season Cueto is showing off the talent that had everyone excited last season. The lone exception to this was Cueto's first start of this season at home against Pittsburgh when he gave up 8 hits and 4 runs over 6 innings while taking the loss. Since then he has been on fire only giving up 2 earned runs, 17 hits and 8 walks over his last 26 2/3 innings pitched. That's good enough for a 0.69 ERA over his last 4 starts (FYI if you ever wanted to calculate and ERA you can do so by dividing the pitchers earned runs allowed by the number of innings pitched then multiplying that by 9, I'm a nerd, I've been told).

Last year it seemed Cueto tried to strike everybody out and when his control wasn't there it lead to a lot of walks (68 in 174 innings pitched), which is natural for a young pitcher. On another note his batting average is up to .200 this season after batting just .044 last year.

You can see Cueto (2-1, 1.65 ERA) and the rest of Reds face the St. Louis Cardinals for the first time this year, tomorrow at 7:10 pm eastern time.

On a side note I'm going to be trying to post a JustSON the Numbers article every day during the week. If anyone has any requests for this column let us know. I don't discriminate, no matter the sport or the stat.

GRIFF-TASTIC

He did it. 600 Homers. Congrats to Ken Griffey Jr.

I can remember playing kickball and softball in grade school and sometimes we'd pretend to be our favorite baseball players. Kids would actually get into fights over who got to be Griffey.

I'd always end up being John Abbott for some reason.

How cool is Griffey Jr. regardless of what team you root for? This cool.

Why Ken Griffey Jr. is the greatest slugger of our time

Forget Bonds, McGwire and Sosa.

If there's one good thing to come out of this whole steroid mess it's the fact that the kid from Seattle returns to his rightful prominence in the recordbooks because he's the only major slugger from the 1990s that wasn't juiced up.

I mean lets look at the evidence:

- Have you seen Griffey? The man makes Kate Moss look chunky.

- The injuries, one thing that I think is really overlooked in the whole steroids scandal is the fact that the drugs help you recover after lifting or heal faster. They don't necessarily make you stronger, but the increased amount of lifting that you can do does.

You can avoid injuries by taking steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. However, if there's a baseball player that's suffered through more injuries than Griffy, god save their soul.

Now as he approaches the 600 homer milestone, you can't help but be in awe of the guy. I don't know why the media isn't making a bigger deal about it compared to the way they praised our other tainted sports heroes.

Deadspin has a nice post on it:

After all, considering the considerable steroid haze surrounding Bonds and (to a somewhat lesser extent) Sosa, one could make the argument that Griffey is the first "legitimate" player to reach the mark since Mays. And when you consider how much time Griffey has missed because of injury — injuries that, theoretically, could have been avoided a bit if he had bothered to use steroids — he probably should have reached this mark years ago.

I'm just about to bust out those Griffey Mariner t-shirts everyone had in the 90s.