It's still the defense

July 12, 5:41 PMSan Diego Padres ExaminerJudson Green

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Baseball language is tricky. The game's two basic structures are offense and defense. But that latter part can be confusing. I say defense to refer to how good a fielder a player is, such as "Everth Cabrera plays great defense at shortstop." I don't say fielding, because I am concerned people will mistakenly think I am referring to fielding percentage. But on a team level, when I say defense, I refer to preventing runs. That includes pitching and fielding. Offense is much easier to deal with, as it isn't divided. "The Padres had no offense going against Jonathan Sanchez on Friday," is easy to understand.

And that second invented quote allows me to make this cool transition into how the Padres have been much better offensively than defensively this season. Sanchez's no-hitter, which was a Juan Uribe error away from a perfect game, was humiliating. But the driving force of the Padres' struggles all year has been on the other side of the ball.

It's easy enough to take a quick peak at the 2009 Padres page at Baseball Reference, and see the Padres have an 89 OPS+, and a 79 ERA+. But that isn't a complete picture of offense and defense. I use runs per inning, creating offensive innings by subtracting wins at home and adding losses on the road, then factor in the Baseball Reference park adjustment. Then it's just a matter of comparing the team to expected performance. That said, how obvious is my case? Let me count the ways:

1. Their runs relative to expectation (R+) is 94. Runs allowed relative to expectation (RA+) is 80. The lower the number, the worse it is.

2. They are six percent worse than expected on offense, 25 percent worse on defense.

3. Given offensive and defensive innings, they are 22 runs worse than average on offense, 88 worse on defense.

You'll have to take my word for it, because I forgot to save my work.

I suppose this could be widely known among Padres fans, but sometimes it's necessary to be a Captain Obvious when something happens to disrupt common sense, like a no-hitter. Especially when some always seem to hold tight to their belief that the low batting averages are clear evidence that the real culprit is the offense. But these folks can be handled with a blunt object and a lime pit. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Just show them this article.

ADD: It's tougher for this article to work as something clever and surprising after today's 10-4 ownage of the Giants. But the hell with it.