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Padres win but may lose Gonzalez

By wrveres - Posted on July 1st, 2009
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nooooooooo. Pleease no.

Adrian Gonzalez was injured sliding into 3rd base and was forced to leave the game in the 4th inning of the San Diego Padres 4-3 win over the Houston Astros at Petco Park tonight.

While we still do not know the extent of the injury that the Padres are calling a strain, losing Gonzalez would be the capper on a season that has been plagued by injuries to key players such as Jake Peavy, Chris Young, Scott Hairston and Cha Seung Baek. The Padres currently have 9 players on the DL and are on pace to equal last seasons MLB record 1244 player days on the DL.

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great read
Submitted by wrveres on July 1, 2009 - 01:29.

here is a great read in SI on Adrian and more on the Ryan Howard incident,,

It was Howard who boosted Gonzalez's stock as much as anyone, triggering his evolution from gap hitter to power hitter. In July 2007, during a lull in a game against the Phillies at Petco, Gonzalez started talking to Howard at first base. Conversations on the base paths are typically casual, but Gonzalez asked Howard what size bat he used and why. Howard said that he prefers a heavy one, not only because it generates more power but also because it keeps him from overswinging. Gonzalez promptly traded his 34-inch, 31-ounce bat for a 35-inch, 33-ouncer, and his home run totals rose from 24 in '06 to 30 in '07 to 36 in '08. "I changed my whole approach after that," says Gonzalez. He did not, however, change his stroke. He was still hitting to the opposite field—he was just hitting home runs to the opposite field. Before a spring training game this season,

Gonzalez noted that lefthander Joe Saunders was pitching for the Angels. "Saunders is going to pitch me away," he told hitting coach Jim Lefebvre, "and I'm just going to shoot the ball to left." "You're a power guy," Lefebvre replied. "Why are you just trying to shoot the ball to left?" Gonzalez pointed to a grassy hill over the leftfield fence where families were setting up picnics. "When I say I'm going to shoot it to left," Gonzalez clarified, "I mean I'm going to hit it up there." In the first inning he hit a home run onto that hill, scattering picnickers. Of Gonzalez's 24 homers through Sunday, 10 have been to centerfield, seven to left and seven to right, an unusually democratic distribution. Going oppo requires muscle that not many players have. At 6'2", 225, Gonzalez looks lean compared with Howard, but his strength is in his wrists. "The guy has a crusher grip," says physical therapist Bob Foley, a former amateur boxer who trains Adrian and Edgar in the off-season. Foley takes the Gonzalez brothers to an alley in San Diego and has them flip 500-pound monster-truck tires, throw medicine balls off the sides of buildings and do pull-ups from gymnastics rings attached to fire escapes. When a UPS truck rolls down the alley, they get to take a breather.

Teammates describe Gonzalez as earnest and intense, but he embraces the unorthodox. When the Padres were mathematically eliminated early last September, Gonzalez decided to take a strike against every pitcher he faced to see who was willing to challenge him. The exercise had to hurt him statistically, since he fell behind in counts, but it helped him predict how specific pitchers would approach him this season. Lefebvre has even begun using Gonzalez as a teaching aide, asking him at the end of every hitters' meeting, "Adrian, what do you think?

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