Padres Series Preview

You guys know the drill by now. We've got an interleague series with a team I don't know anything about, so it's time for a series preview with some of our SportsBlogs brethren. This time it's the Guys over at Gas Lamp Ball. They like to keep it pretty light hearted over there, so I tried we tried to get a good mix of analysis and off-beat questions. As usual, head on over there if you want to see what I had to say about the Sox.

I've been a pretty regular visitor to your site, you guys keep it pretty light over there. What's the deal with the Pad Squad? Do they lead the crowd in cheers or anything like that? Whatever they do, I hope our Pods (Scott Podsednik) feels right at home because of them.

I used to really not like the Pad Squad, I always thought they were kinda stuck up. Then at the first game this season Dex and I ran into a small group of Pad Squadders Erica, Veronica and Shannon and they were really nice and I vowed to change my ways. Now I have a small collective crush on all of them, including the guys. Nothing wrong with that right? I learned a valuable lesson somewhere in this whole experience, just not sure what it was.

I think Pad squad Erica can answer the question about what they do the best in her exclusive interview with Gaslamp Ball:

The funniest thing I've seen on your site has to be Jon diving heels over head for a foul ball. Can you give a quick recap, and a link to the infamous video of the event?

First thing you gotta know about Jon is that he's a little bit crazy. He explains what happened to him here . We did an illegal video capture and Dex broke down the incident frame by frame. In short Jon went after a foul ball like a maniac and a large scrum of Padres fans tumbled over the wall and onto the field. Jon did a header into the dirt and came up with a red badge of courage, but no ball.

I'm sure you guys have seen the cartoons by Choi Hoon. Give me your impressions of the Padres cartoon... Specifically Kahlil Greene's. What's up with that? .....not that there's anything wrong with that

Thanks for sending the link. I hadn't seen this until now. Man, he makes Khalil look like a shy little school girl.

All I can say is that the ladies love Khalil here. They love his long flowing blonde hair. I think he is pretty shy. We actually thought he may be a vulcan, because he shows zero emotion on the field and in interviews.

Is there a better sound to hear at Petco than Hell Bells? What's it been like to have that that 9th inning luxury for as long as I can remember?

"A rollin' thunda! A pourin' rain!" It gets me psyched just thinking about it. The ballpark goes crazy when they hear that first bell ring and Trevor jogs outta the bull pen. In the old Qualcomm stadium with 70,000+ people going crazy in a playoff game, it's the most exciting thing in baseball. Period.

It's great now too, because they have a ton of graphics that say "Trevor Time" with flames coming off the letters. Fans go crazy for this sorta thing. It really is great. I believe he was the first closer in baseball to have this kinda hype around him and it's still the best.

Woody Williams, Tim Stauffer, and Brian Lawrence are the scheduled starters. I've seen Williams a handful of times against the Cubs, but the other two, I don't think I've ever seen pitch at all. Can you give us a brief scouting report on these guys?

Woody is a good guy to have on your team. He's a proven vetran who really takes charge when he's on the mound. He's also one of the better hitting Pitchers in the League. He just came off a long stint on the DL, so it'll be intersting to see how he does in his second start.

Tim Stauffer was brought up from Portland this year and is 1-2 so far. He's only pitched 29 innings and has been off and on.

Brian Lawrence can be lights out at times, but he's had a few rough starts so far. He's got a good slider and change up. His fastball isn't that fast, but when he's on his location will pull him through. He's 3-6 on the season.

Four runs the last 41 innings???? What happened? Did somebody put kryptonite in the Padres Wheaties?

It's frustrating watching the Pads sometimes. They will have great pitching performances but they just can't seem to generate any runs. I think they scored about 3 runs the entire month of April. The entire Pads roster has been battling a virus all week, so that may have something to do with their lack of hitting, but it's tough to tell. Luckily, we have a something here at GasLampBall that breaks us outta slumps: The Rally Unicorn!

Finally, your prediction for the series.

Padres really step it up against great teams. It seems like they always have since I can remember. I think they must like being the underdogs. Going into the STL in May really turned their season around. Taking 3 outta 4 really uplifted this team and made them believe in themselves. I'm going to predict they take 2 outta 3 from the White Sox. I'd like to predict the sweep, but I don't want to be cocky. I respect the way the White Sox have been playing I'm just really optomistic about the Pads right now. A great mind, Doc Brown once said "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything".