My Mama And The Papas

My mom was one of those old Brooklyn Dodger fans that actually followed the team when they were in L.A. for a while. While most middle aged women loved Steve Garvey (quite literally from what I've heard), my mom took a liking to Ron Cey. But after the Dodgers beat the Yankees in the '81 World Series, Mom took pity on my team getting it's head beat in all the time and started backing the Mets in support of little old me, bless her heart (I guess this makes her Momstradamus).

Which brings me to the only baseball game that I ever attended with my mom...it was on August 23rd, 1987 against the San Diego Padres. Mom takes me along with a cousin and a friend of mine, and Eric Nolte was the Padres starter and loser as the Mets took a 9-2 decision. Mom's motives aren't exactly altruistic, as she had developed a crush on Tim Teufel and his booty shaking batting stance, which turned him from a .247 hitter in '86 to a .308 hitter in '87. Teufel wowed my mom with two hits out of four in the Mets win.

The game was also notable because it was one of the only times that I hung out after the games waiting for autographs. I didn't get any, but got lots of pictures of the team leaving in their cars, and pictures of Nolte signing autographs for fans, and Darryl Strawberry walking out of the press gate. Sid Fernandez, who was described in Jeff Pearlman's "The Bad Guys Won" as not the sharpest tool in the box, proved it on this day as his Corvette was sitting in the parking lot...and on the seat was Fernandez's mail and personal papers with his mailing address and his credit card number exposed for the fans to see and copy down on pieces of scrap paper. I copied his address but not his credit card number, and almost sent him a letter to tell him what a mook he was for letting drunken Met fans copy his credit card number down.

Again, it was the Padres that the Mets played that day, hence my lame lead-in to this upcoming series:

Tuesday: Brian Lawrence (5-9, 4.27) vs. Kris Benson (6-3, 3.57)
Wednesday: Woody Williams (5-5, 4.15) vs. Tom Glavine (6-7, 4.71)
Thursday: Jake Peavy (8-3, 3.03) vs. Victor Zambrano (4-8, 3.51)

The division leading Padres will improve themselves just in time for the Mets series, activating Mark Loretta and Phil Nevin in time for Tuesday's game. Lorreta is batting .316 lifetime at Shea, while Nevin is a lifetime .375 at Shea.

Lawrence is 0-3 in the month of July, but his ERA has gone down by 0.01 in that time from 4.28. Has a 5.23 ERA on the road, but Shea is a big park like Petco so Lawrence may pitch more along the lines of his home ERA, which is 3.28. Lawrence did hit three Diamondback batters on Thursday in the first two innings.

Woody Williams also has a similar home/road split (as I'm sure most Pods starters have, except for one notable exception). Williams is at 3.38 at Petco, 5.65 on the road. His batting average against is 61 points higher on the road.

Jake Peavy is the exception...he has a better ERA on the road (2.81) than at Petco (3.18). The kid is a monster, plain and simple.

The Padres may have collectively, the best bullpen in the N.L. They're second in wins (19), 2nd in ERA (3.54), second in K/BB ratio (2.51), third in K/9 (8.42), and third in WHIP (1.34). Once a game gets to Akinori Otsuka and Scott Linebrink, it's as good as lights out.

The Padres are 6-0 vs. the N.L. East this season, sweeping Florida and Atlanta back to back at home in May.