Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Cody Ransom is a Jerk

Not that I was ever hopeful for him succeeding on the Padres, but Cody Ransom did his best to make us Padres fans miss him. This, he was a shoo in for the Padres Jagoff treatment today. Edison Volquez is pitching tonight so it will be a good chance to break out the high gravity brews. Lets hope for some situational hitting that's slightly better than abysmal.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Padres Face Off Against Jeff Samardzinotgonnaworkhereanymore

After a glorious sweep of the poo poo Giants, the Padres head out to Chicago to face the hated Cubs. We can look forward to Kyle Blanks hitting infinity home runs off of the Cubs pitiful pitching staff. Here's Jeff Samardzija showing that his skills as catcher greatly outdo his skills as pitcher.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Super Cheater Ryan Braun in Town to be Pummeled

Ryan Braun doesn't get enough booing for how big of a steroid using, loophole using cheater that he is.  Luckily, we have our chance tonight against the hated Brewers.  Let's hope it goes better than last season when Braun hit 3 steroid aided bombs in a game against the Padres.  Let's also hope that the Padres score at least A SINGLE run this series. 


Saturday, April 20, 2013

Padres to Decapitate Giants Tonight

Heartbreaking loss last night.  At this point, us Padres fans should be pretty desensitized to losses of all kinds, so whatever.  Worst case, we watch these losses, crush some high ABV San Diego craft beers alone on the couch, and then pass out until your dog wakes you up licking your face with smelly fish breath.  Ah the life of a Padres fan.  For tonight though, let's try to pair that solo binge drinking with a win over the Giants. 


Friday, April 19, 2013

Realistically, how can the Padres NOT sweep the Giants? Also, Madison Bumgarner is a butthead.

After a crushing sweep of the terrible Doyers, the Padres get ready to pound the stupid fartface Giants.  Clouded by controversy the past few weeks, the Padres are sending Edinson Volquez to the mound who really couldn't be any worse than he has been so far this season, so there's that to look forward to.  They are facing awful Madison Bumgarner, who was captured here in an off the record convo with Tim Lincecum:


Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Padres Win! Matt Kemp Is The Worst.

After a thrilling and crushing victory for the Padres last night, led by our newest power hitting star Eric Stults, the Padres can continue crushing the Dodgers and their weenie "star" Matt Kemp tonight.  It's good to see that Eric Stults is averaging more home runs for the season than Matt Kemp by a MATHEMATICALLY INFINITE AMOUNT.  Tonight our big dollar free agent acquisition, Jason Marquis, is taking the hill.  I actually think he is one of our top 2 starters at this point so let's hope for the best.  Today's Padres Jagoff captures Matt Kemp in a compromising act:

  


Are we that surprised after seeing his curated selection of this leather satchel to wear into a post-brawl fight in the parking lot?

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Assuming Volquez Can Hit the Target, Padres Will Behead Rockies Tonight

Edinson Volquez pitched one of the single most impressive outings I've seen EVER last year when he threw his 1 hitter.  The stadium was as into it as a 14,000 person weekday night crowd could be.  It's those glimmers of hope that keep us Padres fans backing Eddy.  Let's hope he can turn around his putrid season tonight and literally and figuratively behead Carlos Gonzalez and the stupid butthead Rockies.



Friday, April 12, 2013

Padres to Crush Rockies: Troy Tulowitzki has a Special Talent

After last night's exciting and awesome display of Ron Swanson-esque manliness by Carlos Quentin, Clayton Richard, and the Padres in general (you know, except for winning the game), the Pads are getting ready to inevitably sweep the Rockies this weekend.  With Tyson Ross going tonight, it might not be a good time to hope for a starting pitcher to go longer than 5 innings, but there's first times for everything.  For tonight's game, Padres Jagoff is going back to the basics: dick jokes, MS Paint dongs (multiple!) and hated opposing team players.  A great time for pals!


Thursday, April 11, 2013

New Petco Park Food/Beer. Beer Prices Hiked!

Opening day at Petco Park is always one of the most exciting days of the season. Not only is the place sold out, but the crowd is always super into the game, a little boozed up, and the atmosphere is usually electric. Tuesday's opening day was particularly excellent due to the Padres breaking form and winning... no... CRUSHING the stupid Dodgers. Sure Clayton Richard threw 100 pitches in innings and looked anything from dominant. Sure Carlos Quentin got hit by a pitch and had to leave the game like a little baby due to a bruise. But the Padres' bats came alive in the new era of shorter Petco fences.

Speaking of new stuff at Petco, as a season ticketholder, I know I will be at Petco about 35 times this season. Obviously, opening day is a blast, but sometimes those April night games when it's chilly outside, offense is curtailed by the sea air, and the Padres aren't playing well, it's nice to know there are some features at the Park that make the game more palatable. That's why I'm always so eager to see what new foods and beverages are being added to the Petco roster. I even nagged Tom Garfinkel about this with a question at the Season Ticketholder meeting earlier this year. Here's what I think about the changes at Petco:

HIGHER BEER PRICES - This was not announced beforehand by the Padres, nor have I seen it mentioned by any of the other Padres blogs or Twitters. The craft beer 24 ouncers are now $10.75, up 7.5% from last season. Since I am not a total pansy, I’ve never ordered the smaller size and am thus not sure what they cost last season, and whether there’s a price increase this season. 75 cents doesn’t seem like a huge increase, but multiplied out to the literally hundreds of beers that will be consumed this season, it adds up.

BALLAST POINT BEER GARDEN – I don’t think anything was met by more excitement than the new Ballast Point Beer Garden. Short review: it’s better than what we had there before, but I couldn’t help but feel underwhelmed by what was being offered here. Located behind the left field stands, the beer garden offers picnic tables, a dedicated food stand and an expanded offering of Ballast Point brews. Finally, Sculpin at the park! Unfortunately, besides Sculpin, I didn’t feel like the new additions were really that big a difference from last season. Ballast Point had always been available in the craft beer plaza behind home plate with various offerings including Wahoo Wheat, Pale Ale and Big Eye IPA. The plaza itself is cool, and was
definitely packed, but it would be much cooler if they’d convert the Budweiser Patio into the Ballast Point Beer Garden so you can actually see the game. Nothing against the Budweiser Patio, other than the terrible swill they are serving, but Ballast Point’s beer garden is
going to pull in way more people. Pricing on the cans was very high, and there is really no reason not to just get the 20 oz. Sculpin for a couple bucks more. Considering Sculpin can run 6-8 bucks at some bars, the $10.75 (the new large craft beer price) for 20 oz. isn’t too bad. A welcome addition for sure, but deserving of more prime real estate (can we get rid of the Kona Longboard lounge in LF and replace it with a San Diego connected brewer?!).

EL PUEBLO – As was reported here on Padres Jagoff, Cardiff’s El Pueblo taco shop is taking over for Cardiff’s Bull Taco this season. Unfortunately, their debut was incredibly underwhelming. Their slot
in the Mercado has no signage yet, and the only thing offered on their menu are carnitas and chicken burritos. Very disappointing. All I want is for San Diego’s cuisine to be represented at the park. To me, that is California burritos and fish tacos. Garfinkel, get on this.
To be fair, it might be the regular Padres food contractor doling out mediocre burritos until El Pueblo can properly take over. Who knows. All I know is this stuff should be taken care of BEFORE the season, not during. Bush league.

CRAFT BEER PLAZA – The craft beer plaza should be the crown jewel of the Petco food and beverage operations. As I mentioned to Tom Garfinkel during my question at the Season Ticket Holder meeting, it’s outrageous that the Padres keep forcing out of state breweries like
Widmer and Kona (same company) on us when there is a pleothara of San Diego breweries. How about a rotating brewery stand that changes every homestand? The Padres toyed with this late last season, positioning a cart at some games next to the stairs up from the Lolita’s gate. This was serving two different Manzanita brews, which were fantastic. The Ballast Point Beer Garden is a good addition to
the Petco craft beer ecosystem, but only adds a couple new beers to the total selection. The beers on offer in the craft beer plaza are exactly the same as last season. Some new variety would be nice and less Oregon and “Hawaiian” beers would be welcome.

Other than these, I wasn’t able to check out the new whiskey deck in RF, although I don’t anticipate it adding much other than additional group seating. The game experience was great, and the staff both at the food/drink stands and ushers were great as always. As I’ve mentioned before, it would be nice if the non-existent “members vote” involved some input into a rotating craft beer stand or a rotating
food stand, either of which would be serving some San Diego produced products.





Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Home Opener! Dodgers Hit the Golden Showers

To celebrate the long awaited home opener, we bring you our expert prediction via MS Paint illustration of today's game.  The Padres can't possibly start the season 1-6.  Right?  RIGHT?!?!  Let's hope Clayton Richard can gain somewhere between 5 and 25 miles per hour back on his fastball compared to his last start.  Padres Jagoff will be in attendance at this inevitable Padres victory.


Saturday, April 6, 2013

Dexter Fowler - Glory Hole Addict

As long as the Padres want to continue this silly charade of not playing winning baseball, we here at Padres Jagoff can keep harassing the opposing team via MS Paint dick jokes.  Dexter Fowler has been a particular thorn in the Padres side, especially when I think about he is pretty much what we wish Cameron Maybin would be.  It's unfortunate that Fowler loses focus during innings when he starts thinking about the notorious center field glory hole at Coors Field.


Friday, April 5, 2013

For Serious - Padres Season Ticket Holders... Sorry, "Members"... Totally Boned

Putting the MS Paint dick jokes on hold for a second, I think it's important to discuss an important issue facing the Padres.

I saw some recent discussion on Padres Public and in the Friarhood chat rooms yesterday regarding the Padres moves to switch season ticket holders' seats out of their designated days and into, many times, inferior seats.  This all bubbled to the surface due to a KGTV article about it, along with some drama queen comments within the article from a season ticket holder that is so "disgusted" that she is going to pass out fliers to dissuade people from buying tickets.  I am a Padres fanatic, rarely miss a game, and have lived through this team's travails for several decades now.  I am also a season ticket holder.  In fact, after last year's disappointing season, I actually upgraded my package to a half season package.  I am one of the half season B plan "members" that had their Saturday seats swiped from them and reassigned to Sunday, while also moving my normal front row location in Section 305 to the fifth row, a major downgrade in my opinion.  They moved my opening day seat back a row also, which is actually equally as infuriating because that is a game I actually want to go to. 

In the short term, I can see the business sense of what the Padres are doing.  By moving me to Sunday, moving A plan holders to Monday, the Padres can now sell more seats at the "dynamic" higher price due to assumed high demand.  So yay.  A short term revenue gain for the team.  Not sure how this benefits me, the person that has invested a significant amount of money and time into season tickets, and thus the team.  But good for the 2013 fiscal year results, I guess.  But is this really what the team wants to do?  Alienate those that are investing so much time attending the games, money purchasing season tickets, beer and food, and those that are clearly among the most fervent of fans?  Especially coming off of a relatively lackluster season, and not going to lie, probably heading into a relatively lackluster season (but let's hope not...). 

In my opinion Tom Garfinkel's response was lackluster.  I wasn't among the group that was surprised by this policy.  Anyone that looked at their schedule months ago would have seen the change.  The Padres emailed a notice that STH could buy "up to six tickets for each Yankees game."  Great, right?  Except, this is what we should have been able to do anyways.  It's what we can do for every other game, and in my opinion, shouldn't be any different for a series against the Yankees.  So I don't see a net positive in that "concession" made by the Padres sales department.  If I had cared at all about the Yankees series (which I don't), I'd be furious.  I ended up trading my Sunday Yankees game for an additional Saturday night ticket for a game we had a ticket for already.  Unfortunately for the A plan member,s, they are screwed harder.  The Padres allow a weekend for weekend ticket trade, or a weekday for weekday ticket trade.  The A planners lost a weekend, Sunday game, and gained a weekday ticket.  They don't have an easy trade path to trade their new Monday night ticket for the Yankees Saturday night game, like me, the B planner, could have done. 

Outside of the nuts and bolts issues related to swapping tickets to try and see an inevitably underwhelming series against the stupid, overrated Yankees, it's just a total lack of respect for those that have invested so much into the team.  I'd say it's an uncharacteristically tone deaf move by Tom Garfinkel and the front office, whom I feel generally do a good job of improving the STH program and the gameday experience.  This is especially true when the Change the Padres movement is gaining traction and media exposure, and a new ownership is supposedly trying to show the community that they aren't just treating the Padres as another private equity acquisition (Seidler Equity Partners) that they will wring profits and value out of before setting them adrift Jeffrey Loria style. 

As long as we're covering the season ticket holders getting boned, there are a few small, nagging issues that need to be addressed:

1.  Season ticket holders were promised an "annual members vote" at the season ticket holders meeting.  This was supposed to be an issue of substance, where "members voices can be heard".  I never believed the vote would be for anything binding (although that would be nice), but the front office didn't even try.  As soon as the crowd questions were asked at the meeting, everyone was dismissed to run around the field (which was awesome), with no vote held.  The power of the members via democratic vote was never to be felt.  Now, I fear it will be forgotten and will be chalked up to another "broken promise" people will inevitably harp on.  But imagine the potential for this.  Possible voting issues that the Padres could actually institute policy based off of their members popular vote: getting rid of Widmer and Kona beer booths and replacing them with more San Diego craft brews, voting on which beers to carry on tap at the craft beer plaza behind home plate, a specialty food item to be offered monthly/quarterly/season/whatever.  Obviously, they aren't going to allow "members" to vote on baseball decisions or personnel decisions, but I'd be happy voting on gameday experience type issues.  Very happy.

2.  Understanding there are issues getting season tickets printed and whatnot, it is outrageous that we didn't receive our tickets until this week, AFTER Opening Day.  Especially after numerous e-mails from account specialists saying we'd have them last week.  Why couldn't we get them a month ago?  I reupped LAST SEPTEMBER.  Why's it matter?  I tend to trade out a lot of my tickets for either additional seats I'm going to, or other games when I have a trip or vacation planned for a day a game falls on.  Had the online account management system been functional and loaded with our tickets weeks ago, I could have done this online.  Alas, with the season already started, the trading function is still inoperable.  To do a series of trades, you really need the tickets in hand to efficiently get it done at the box office.  Instead of getting their most valued customers their merchandise in a prompt fashion, I received them after Opening Day, shipped to my house after requesting THREE TIMES that they be held at Will Call so I didn't lose a day of ticket sales to make my trading even more difficult than it already is.  As a result, I was unable to add a ticket next to my seats for all April and May games because seats had been sold already.  Thanks for looking out for me Padres sales department.

Now that I got this off my chest, hopefully it spurs some discussion and helps Padres "members" to receive better service and benefits for their substantial investments.  On the bright side, I still get to go to a ton of Padres games, which is obviously awesome.  But it'd be nice if the "member" thing actually meant we were valued and that our voices were heard by the Padres.  Regardless of the actual service issued by them (which is overall good I think), the fact that we are even talking about it means that the Padres have failed.


Todd Helton Gets Iced... with PEEN

This picture was almost too easy.  With the crushing Padres victory yesterday, it's time for our BIG FREE AGENT ACQUISITION to show he's worth all those millios.  Jason Marquis will undoubtedly mow down the putrid Rockies lineup with his blazing mid-80s heat.  I'm also going to go ahead and make a conservative prediction that Yonder Alonso hits 85 billion home runs in Denver this weekend. 

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

*FART* Matt Harvey *FART*

The Padres hope to get on pace to an 81-81 record today against stupid buttface Matt Harvey and the putrid Mets. Watch out though, Matt Harvey pitches with some gas!

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

TOTAL EXCLUSIVE: New Grub at Petco: EL PUEBLO


As a season ticket holder, wait... sorry... a MEMBER, I obsess over the food options at Petco.  I nagged last season about why, oh why, the Padres would tease us with a Lucha Libre graphic in the April program, and then cruelly yank it away with no explanation from ol' Tommy Garfinkel.  I actually got a question approved at the season ticket holder meeting a few months ago at Petco where I asked about why we can't have less Oregonian and Hawaiian beers and more San Diego brews.  I also asked why the food isn't indicative of San Diego, specifically since Rubio's got booted out of Petco.  I get it, Filippis and Phils BBQ and Hodad's are great San Diego joints, but pizza, barbeque and burgers is not what people think when they think San Diego.  Conventioneers and tourists want a taste of San Diego when they visit the ballpark, and when I have a guest visiting, all they really want is a fish taco.  Bull Taco last season was a nice experiment, but the lack of burrito options and the quirkiness of a lobster, bacon and chorizo taco was just not what I was looking for.  As a result, Lolita's and Valentine's got much of my business.  Luckily, this year, in a semi-exclusive except the U-T is about to publish it also, EL PUEBLO, another awesome taco joint from Cardiff is stepping in to fill Bull Taco's shoes.  I have no clue what is on their Petco menu, but come on, knowing El Pueblo, there have to be fish tacos on it.  And a California burrito.  And rolled tacos with guac.  Those items alone would sufficiently represent San Diego to go along with the upcoming Ballast Point Beer Garden.

So, Tom Garfinkel, you are coming through so far.  But don't go getting complacent.  Padres Jagoff is watching you, and don't think you're too high and mighty to get MS Paint'd.

That Didn't Go Well...

The season started with a thud, but hey, Yonder Alonso home run! I've got a feeling he is going to have a huge year. Meanwhile, big stupidface Jon Niese and world class dicklick Collin Cowgill are too busy shopping to realize the Padres are bringing out the big gun tomorrow to throw some high 80s southpaw heat.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Opening Day vs Jon Niese the Pe-niese

In honor of opening day, Padres Jagoff is making a triumphant return. The Padres are facing the sad sack Mets this morning, led by relative unknown Jon Niese. As this exclusive photo shows, win or lose, Jon Niese can always enjoy a nice spurt to the face to relax after his inevitable shelling by the "potent" Padres lineup.