Bring the pain

With several important players on the disabled list, the Padres have been heading downhill for the past month or so. I feel like I deserve to be placed on the DL. I am in pain as a fan. With the Padres 5 games under .500 and injuries accumulating, many think it is time to give up on this season. Yes, we are in the hole. Yes, we will need to save par after driving into the rough. But perhaps, can we even make birdie? It will be difficult, but it will be possible. Remember the Rockies of 2007? They won 27 of their last 28 games, or something ridiculous like that. Now, I do not expect a run of that caliber, but I do foresee success in the future, even with a new manager. For some reason, this team has not clicked. When will we start winning? I don't know. What needs to happen if we are to start winning? I don't know. What I do know since I have passionately followed the Padres over the past decade is that we are good at losing. We lost 99 games in 2008 and weren't very good the year after that. Other than 2010, we have not presented very many good teams onto the field. The team we have this year is loaded with talent. We could take off at any time, catch the Dodgers and make it into the playoffs. We just need something to put a spark under this team. What will it be? TBD

Congratulations to the Golden State Warriors on winning the NBA finals! I know this is late, but just needed to throw that out there. LeBron and company were tired and worn out. But hey! The draft was last night! You know what that means, right? A new generation of NBA players coming up the pipeline. Minnesota fans were cheering while New York fans were booing. The final results? We'll just have to wait and see.

This is the time of year to focus on Summer! Baseball, warmth and nothing else!

Rundown of the NBA finals

With the NBA finals tied at 2 games apiece, things look pretty intriguing as the series shifts back to Oakland. The Warriors have the depth of the ocean in comparison to the Cavaliers, who have the depth of a swimming pool on their roster. Last night's game exposed Cleveland's weakness: bench depth. With LeBron James playing many minutes as well as Delavedova and other players, the team is getting worn out already. The Warriors' bench, consisting of players like Andrew Bogut and Leandro Barbosa, has shown signs of consistency with their depth. We'll just have to wait and see who will turn out on top. Game 5 is on Sunday in Oakland on ABC.

Bud Black and the Padres have slowly started to turn things around. After beating the Mets in two out of three games at Petco Park, we went on to take two of three from Cincinnati and two of four from Atlanta. Both the wins in Atlanta showed toughness and resiliency as we came from three down in the eighth to win in the eleventh. Former Padres Cameron Maybin and Jace Peterson haunted their old clubs in each game, seemingly getting a base hit in every at bat. In game 2 of the series, The Padres staked a 5-0 lead for James Shields. But in the sixth, everything unraveled as he yielded 5 runs in the inning. A pinch-hit solo homer off of Benoit in the 8th was the difference as the Braves won 6-5. It was a strange occurrence since we seemingly always hold a lead of that size. But I guess it just wasn't meant to be. This weekend we enter a series against the hated Dodgers from up north in LA at Petco Park. If we are intent on making the playoffs, we need to beat the best teams and the best pitchers in the game, including Friday's starter Clayton Kershaw. Zack Greinke will be the test on Saturday. So we have some games to play. Will we come into the series with a chip on our shoulder, confident that we can beat these guys? We need to. Because I wonder when the last time it was that the Padres swept the Dodgers either here at Petco or up north in LA.

Other headlines to note include Sepp Blatter's resignation as the president of FIFA, Adrian Peterson will not participate in offseason workouts, the deadline for the Chargers to put together a vote for a new stadium is December 15 and the Stanley Cup finals is also knotted  at 2 games apiece with the Blackhawks of Chicago taking on the Lightning of Tampa Bay. Thank you for reading today and please post comments for any improvements you would like to see. Thanks!