Vicente Padilla is like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.
One day, you get a dominant one-hit performance. Another day, you get something like yesterday's game.
The big story, of course, isn't the 12-3 loss or Padilla's bad outing or Derek Holland struggling, but that Padilla hit Mark Teixeira twice. I don't think there's much question that it was intentional, and I'm baffled as to why so many Rangers fans seem to think that hitting an opposing player -- two times -- is so awesome, particularly when the justification seems to be that he's a douche. Based on what a certain lefty reliever says, if that's your criteria for a player deserving to be hit, then we'd have a dozen HBPs per game.
And it also strikes me that there's a certain double-standard when it comes to, say, Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez...the attitude seems to be that they suck and should be booed and reviled because they are douches and whined their way out of town. Of course, in Teixeira's situation, in particular, the Rangers are a hell of a lot better now than they would have been if he were still here, and ARod is now in his 6th season as a Yankee, so I'd think that a lot of that would be water under the bridge.
Meanwhile, Rafael Palmeiro and Juan Gonzalez suck, in part, because they vetoed trades that would have sent them out of Texas. So if you want to be traded from the Rangers, you suck, and if you don't want to be traded from the Rangers, you suck.
Personally, if you want to be pissed off at someone, it makes more sense to be angry at Carlos Lee, who dogged it late in his stint with the Rangers, or Milton Bradley, who admitted not playing last season when he could have because he didn't have a long-term deal, or Vicente Padilla, who has had some questionable injury issues and has a history of putting his teammates in the line of fire by throwing at guys.
But then, I also don't get the huge hatred for the Yankees (or BoSox, for that matter) that so many fans seem to have. I have a lot more animosity towards the M's and Angels than I do the Yankees. Maybe if the Yankees weren't working on a decade without a World Series win I'd feel differently, I guess.
Anyway...Evan Grant's game story is about Padilla throwing at Teixeira, which prompted Teixeira to aggressively take out Elvis Andrus and A.J. Burnett to throw at Nelson Cruz later in the game. The game was actually tied when Padilla hit Teixeira the second time, and hitting him to load the bases helped open the flood gates, with the Yankees being up 9-3 at the end of that inning.
Jeff Wilson says that Padilla's command was off yesterday, and quotes Padilla as denying that he threw at Teixeira.
And in other lousy news, Josh Hamilton has a sports hernia, and will apparently be out a couple of months.