Mat Latos took a baseball, threw it over a set of bleachers, and broke someone’s moonroof. Not just anyone’s moonroof, but Giant play-by-play announcer Dave Flemming. That was our introduction to Latos, and while we all figured he’s either dumb, a lunatic or both, we had no idea how much of a look into his psyche that wayward toss would turn out to be.
Latos (pictured to the left checking out something or other, courtesy of Amanda Marie) isn’t just an immature kid learning the ropes of living a public life due to a blazing fastball and unhittable movement on his pitches (until lately, anyway). He’s going to keep making statements like these, which we should celebrate since besides Heath Bell and his twitter page, the Padres are duller than Bud Black’s spikes:
“Baseball works in funny ways,” said Latos, now 0-4 with a 10.13 ERA over his past four starts. “The only way I could honestly put it is, we could be like the Giants and go and change our whole lineup, put guys with ‘San Francisco Giants’Â across their jerseys. We didn’t.
“We added two guys [Tejada and Ryan Ludwick, now hitting .221 with five homers in 54 games with the Padres]. We’ve been the same team all year. We haven’t just gone and grabbed guys from other teams.”
I know there’s a better way to express this, but … HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Quote. Of. The. Year. Trending topic on Twitter? Oh, yes. Have you ever heard such a ridiculous mixture of unripe grapes and utter cluelessness? I’m sure we have, but for now this bit of idiocy is all I can think of. The only positive thing you can say is he went anti-Kobe and instead of complaining about the front office not making enough moves to put the team in a position to contend, he accuses the Giants of doing TOO MUCH. As if a baseball team has a moral obligation to play the hand they’re dealt so teams who start out hot and fade legendarily down the stretch can keep their divisional leads. If comedy was a factor in NL ROY voting, Latos would win this thing hands down.
But it isn’t… TO THE TRACKER!
Jason Heyward
Current stats: .279/.394/.460, 18 HR, 10 SB, 3.1 UZR/150, 4.4 WAR
Last night:Â 1-for-3, BB. Braves won 3-2 over the Marlins, putting them 1.5 games ahead of the Padres in the wild card race.
Heyward’s extra-base hitless streak is now at 14 games, but he still walks a lot.
Trending: Flat
Chances of winning NL ROY: 50%
Buster Posey
Current stats: .313/.365/.508, 16 HR, 0 SB, 22/59 CS, 3.9 WAR
Last night: 0-for-4, threw out Stephen Drew when he tried to steal second.
Posey’s close. You can tell. He’s been robbed a lot lately, and he barely missed going yard twice last night. Only problem: nobody cares. Loud outs and almost-hits don’t matter to voters, all that matters is Posey needs to start collecting hits on the regular again or his average will fall below .300 and his slugging below .500, and those two milestones are really the only way he’s going to win this award.
Trending: Flat
Chances of winning NL ROY: 50%