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TIME TO PANIC YET? By Jason Martinez sdpadrefan.com UPDATED 04/20/08 Behind closed doors, Padres management must be panicking. Kevin Towers states in a recent North County Times article that he believes the offense will get it going. Maybe he knows better than most people. After all, his team has been in a rut on and off since Petco Park opened. Yes, they do tend to get hot, especially on the road. But not even Kevin Towers could have envisioned a combined .215 BA with 0 homers and 30 strikeouts between his two offseason additions to the starting lineup, Tadahito Iguchi and Jim Edmonds. His two best hitters, Adrian Gonzalez and Kevin Kouzmanoff have seven walks and 32 strikeouts combined. Not exactly the kind of plate discipline you're looking for when they have hit a total of just three home runs. Scott Hairston, who hit two homers in the opening series against Houston, has been exposed badly as an everyday player, putting up a .200 batting average with 16 strikeouts in 60 at bats. Like Kouzmanoff last year, he could still get hot and put up good numbers but can the Padres really afford to be patient at this point? Not when Arizona is threatening to run away with the NL West title very quickly. Brian Giles has been a nice surprise, leading the team in batting average, RBI's, extra base hits, and walks. Sadly, he's scored only four runs, which says something about the lack of production from the middle of the order. Seems to me that you would be best off putting your hottest hitter in the #3 hole. Since there really isn't any other viable options in the leadoff hole, it makes it hard to move Giles down in the order. Manager Bud Black is going to have to get creative. At this point, I'm guessing that he'll go with a lefty-righty platoon in left. Why not move Iguchi to the leadoff spot and bat McAnulty/Hairston in the #2 hole, allowing Giles to move down to the #3 hole? This would push Gonzalez down to the cleanup spot and every other batter down one spot in the order. If the platoon is not productive, you can always give Callix Crabbe a shot out in left. If anything, he'd give the team speed at the top of the order. Realistically, this is probably what the lineup will look like in a few months: 1. Matt Antonelli, 2B 2. Brian Giles, RF 3. Adrian Gonzalez, 1B 4. Kevin Kouzmanoff, 3B 5. Chase Headley, LF 6. Jim Edmonds, CF 7. Khalil Greene, SS 8.. Josh Bard, C In this scenario, Hairston would move back into the fourth outfielder role, in which he thrived for the Padres late last season. McAnulty or Justin Huber would be elsewhere, and Iguchi would have been traded to a contender because the Padres would be out of the pennant race or in a better scenario, traded to make room for Antonelli, who would have been tearing up AAA. To answer the question in the headline, YES IT'S TIME TO PANIC. |