DAN SHAUGHNESSY
Plenty happening at Petco
By Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Columnist | June 24, 2007
SAN DIEGO -- Notes from Game 2 at The House That Larry Lucchino Built. They really hate Doug Mirabelli here. The San Diego Union-Tribune reprinted Padres GM Kevin Towers's rips of Mirabelli from last year ("I don't miss him. These guys don't miss him.") and fans were ready when Mirabelli stepped in to face Chris Young last night in the second inning. It was so loud that Mirabelli stepped out and asked for time. Home plate umpire Doug Eddings did not grant time and Young threw a strike down the middle. Mirabelli swung and missed at the next two offerings, much to the titillation of the home crowd. According to Towers, Mirabelli refused to play a game for the Padres last year, telling the GM, "I'm not focused on the game."Lucchino and Young are both Princeton men and Lucchino said he had Young in his classroom when he conducted a one-day seminar ("on ballpark building") at Princeton.There's a beach behind the 400-foot sign in right-center. Kids can watch the game while sitting in sand and looking through a chain-link fence. Brian Wilson would be proud.Lucchino did himself no future favors with the design of the visitors' bullpen. The Padres have a palatial pen (much like the one in Camden Yards) beyond the fence in center, but the visitors are exposed down the right-field line. "At the time, I thought it would be a competitive advantage for us," said Lucchino. "I wasn't thinking we'd be on the visiting side when I finally had a team play here."Curt Schilling was in the clubhouse before the game. He filled out his All-Star ballot and was busy with various other tasks when the media asked if he'd speak about his shoulder. Schilling declined, saying he had a "million things to do." Never saw a guy so busy while spending time on the disabled list. Perhaps he'll share on his blog or his radio show.Julio Lugo, already south of the Mendoza Line (.198 at game's start), struck out in the third and the fifth, and grounded out in the eighth, stretching his hitless streak to 0 for 23.Mike Cameron had fanned six consecutive times against Tim Wakefield when he came to bat in the second inning. Cameron reached on a bunt single, then stole second.John Henry hung out in the dugout before the game and was unusually animated. The Sox owner said he'd recently toured the new (under construction) Yankee Stadium and claims it is significantly larger than The House That Ruth Built.David Ortiz took batting practice with a metal bat before each of the games. Sounded awful. The ball went pretty far, though.Daisuke Matsuzaka, in case you hadn't noticed, is on a 20-win pace. No one in the majors won 20 last year. Dice-K was a happy guy at his press conference after beating Greg Maddux Friday night. He smiled broadly when one of the Japanese reporters asked him if he was "extra aggressive" because agent Scott Boras was in attendance.The Padres encountered 20 local lawsuits while trying to build Petco Park . They went 20 for 20. Sort of like Marvin Miller against major league owners back in the day.Young struck out 11 and gave up only one hit in seven innings. When the Sox put two aboard with no outs in the fifth, he whiffed Mirabelli (three pitches, three hideous swings), Lugo, and Wakefield. Wakefield looked better than the other two.It's hard to watch Padres shortstop Khalil Greene (who homered off Wakefield in the fifth and sixth) without thinking of Sean Penn in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High."Kevin Youkilis was not in the lineup. Not a bad idea when you have played in 68 of 72 games and are facing a 6-foot-10-inch righthander.Youkilis is hitting .331 (ninth in the AL) with 29 multiple-hit games and an on-base percentage of .443. He also has played 118 consecutive errorless games. He's got a chance to represent the Sox in the All-Star Game in San Francisco, quite a leap for a player who was still getting shipped to Pawtucket a couple of years ago. "It would be unbelievable to have that experience because you never know if you're going to have that again," he said. "For me, it would be an unbelievable accomplishment in my life. I never, ever set out a goal for making an All-Star team because I never thought about it." His only experience at an All-Star Game came when he was 9 and went to Riverfront Stadium with his dad for the 1988 Midsummer Classic. Youkilis agreed to blog at the request of the Major League Baseball Players Association."They called me and asked me," he said. "They wanted to get somebody from Boston. I don't write it all out. They just ask me questions and punch it all in. I can't write my own stuff. It's been fun. Somebody told me I had more hits than Schilling." Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. 
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
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