This week in actual Padres baseball was pretty terrible. The team continued its trend of losing two out of every three games and had a particularly crushing loss on Monday when Brad Hand blew a 2 run lead. We were greeted with another round of dismissive “WELL WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?!?” from local media. I’m guessing most of us expected the first wave to not totally crash and burn, and for apple of our eye Austin Hedges to not have elbow polio. On the bright side, the Padres are playing a weekend series in Monterrey against the Dodgers which of course I’ll be attending. In fact, This Week In Padres Twitter is currently being written at a fairly crappy brewery restaurant in Monterrey. And the Padres’ pride and joy Joey Lucchesi is starting tonight, at least until the thunderstorms hit and I begin binge drinking and eating tacos (JK ALREADY STARTED). Let’s get down to business.

Days Since Marver Has Actually Written Something: 318 days

Instead of working on his vaunted Keith Law manifesto, or really, whatever dumb crap he wants to write about, Marver has been working on manufacturing a glory hole at his house.

Gwynntelligence Posts:

Look, at least This Week In Padres Twitter is back. There’s a real possibility I’ll have a new, actually reputable outlet for some of my writing soon (#EatItPartello), but I’ll of course have a Monterrey recap next week.

Padres Blogsophere Posts:

Once again, most everything that I actually read is behind either The Athletic paywall or the Madfriars paywall. Of particular note was Dennis Lin’s article on Christian Villanueva and Sac Bunt Dustin’s look at the Padres poor baserunning (but we definitely can’t evaluate Andy Green on anything until he’s in his sixth year as manager, right Devilish Danny Ortiz?).

ESPN: The Padres Want To Win Over Fans And Become The Team of Mexico

I get it, the Padres want to be Mexico’s favorite team. It sounds really good on paper. They’ve invested in Tijuana, and then pulled resources out of Mexico. I’m thinking of making this topic my debut LEGITIMATE writing topic, but thought I’d touch on it here. This ESPN article, and any discussion around it, is full of fantasy. The thought is if the Padres can have Mexican players be good, they can seize the market. The reality is a lot more difficult. They’ve tried that. They had Adrian Gonzalez and his brother Edgar; arguably one of the best first baseman in the league at that time. It didn’t register. Why? In the end, MLB has seized the right to negotiate and award broadcast rights for all of Mexico, which are currently held by Televisa. Televisa broadcasts marquee matchups through game of the week formats, as well as a single nightly game on a few nights. It’s not surprising that the Padres are not being shown very often on these games. Meanwhile, the Padres have never really fought to add Northern Baja into their home television market so their games are not available in Tijuana. La Poderosa broadcasts on the radio but that is the only Spanish language affiliate for Padres games and the signal barely reaches Rosarito. Mexicali, a city of over a million, has no coverage at all by radio signals. The battle is a lot bigger than just having a token Mexican player, there are structural issues that are preventing the Padres goal from happening (and this doesn’t even get into the difficulties and time to cross the border to see a game).

The Golden Age of Padres Podcasts:

The Kept Faith – A Look At April: The Kept Faith Gang welcomed on John Gennaro who is apparently fighting to seize the crown of most cynical Padres fan from Marver and myself. I highly enjoyed it, and while I think the easy route is to say he doesn’t get it, he makes a fair point that the Padres STILL haven’t successfully developed a prospect. The first wave isn’t looking too great, and even a guy like Lucchesi or Lauer were 4 year college guys that needed very little development time (Alderson specials, if you will), and so, under John’s framework, were able to make it through without being cursed. Scott Lewis provides some really interesting analysis on sports coverage in San Diego, and took issue with Gennaro calling Acee bought off. I don’t think John meant literally bought off, like cashing checks from Ron Fowler, but I get why Scott is sensitive to the phrasing. In the end, Acee has a long track record of getting too cozy with the subjects he’s assigned to report on, and I think it’s foolish to ignore the past. It’s also naive to ignore that the Padres have openly used the phrase “Control the message” as their primary PR strategy (shocking that Wayne Partello is hamhanded and short sighted in his strategy and execution).

Zero Chance Podcast – Conga Line Around The Bases:  On this week’s look at The Podcasteralyzer 5000 (TM), Rick had a major jump to 16% share of the talking on the episode, with Brady taking 84%. Needless to say, this was a sea change, and will mark an interesting data point once we collect enough data to create a histogram. More seriously, I wanted to say very clearly that #IStandWithZeroChance on the issue of the wave at ballgames. I could try to blame it on my 4 year old and say “hey the wave makes things fun for kids” but come on, it makes it fun for everyone. If massive numbers of people are enjoying the wave at a ballgame, and yes, it is a big percentage of fans enjoying or participating or else there would not actually be a wave, why do we want to take a dump on their heads. It’s fine. IT’S FINE! There was also an important discussion of Padres Meat Twitter at the one hour mark and I think it’s important that Bobby Cressey get’s his due as well as some of our conversation after getting his new sous vide were what sparked the phenomenon.  Also no thanks to Marver for trying to selfishly co-opt #PadresMeatTwitter into #PadresMeatsTwitter which makes no goddamned sense, sounds like something Arby’s copy writers came up with, and did not necessitate one of Marver’s trademark stupid Twitter polls.

The 5.5 Podcast – David Jay: The 5.5 gang brought on notable curmudgeon David Jay to talk prospects. Danny also talks about how Andy Green should be given an interminable number of years to prove he’s a good manager, which is exactly the kind of accountability that I like to apply professionally [shaking head no vigorously].

Hells Belles – No Hitters, Franch Benefits, and #Savage Talk:  Look, full disclosure. I haven’t listened yet. If I’m not too hungover tomorrow, I’ll go for a long run on the riverwalk here in Monterrey. I’m sure it’s great, Angela and Liddy have great chemistry and provide a unique viewpoint.

Dave and Jeff Podcast – Sileo:  I don’t usually include Dave and Jeff because they aren’t really a Padres podcast. I greatly, GREATLY enjoy their podcast however, and they touched on a major issue this episode. Sileo, great issue with (and anyone with taste and/or that has gone through cancer episodes with loved ones). Jeff commented to the Padres and Entercom and got assurances Sileo would be talked to, which Dotseth was very satisfied with. The key point is that Ron Fower went on the show immediately after the comments. If I had to guess, Jeff believes that after his calls with the team, maybe Fowler would think twice before going on again. But here’s the thing, he’s already on the record as saying Sileo is fine because he plays ball wtih sticking to the Padres’ messaging. Sileo has a very long track record of saying terribly offensive things on air, this last leukemia comment isn’t new, nor is it surprising. When Fowler agreed to go on the air, even without the latest leukemia comment, he was being complicit with EVERYTHING Sileo has said in the past. And that’s not OK. And I’m glad for Jeff that he got satisfaction after the fact, that’s good! But let’s not pretend the Padres and Ron Fowler were clueless lambs before this latest Sileo abomination.

Tweet Of The Week:

And the Jaggy goes to…

This selection was entirely self serving and I enjoyed it. Also, it was pathetic, and what I’m saying here is that Wayne Partello and his marketing team are pathetic.  Seemingly every Padres employee that is fired or quits sends us reports of embarrassing and buffoonish stuff going on within Petco Park that we had decided to sit on. Maybe it’s time to open the vaults.

Terrible Marver Tweet Of The Week:

SHUT UP ABOUT THE CHARGERS ALREADY

Nick Canepa Is An Irrelevant Out Of Touch Old Timer Or Possibly Doing A Bit:

FREDO! GET IT?!?!?! LIKE GODFATHER! #FreshHumorTakes Also, SHUT UP ABOUT THE CHARGERS ALREADY