Padres shutout the Giants AGAIN! 4-0. Leading this series vs. the Giants 2-1. Bring on the 3-peat, folks! Don't discount the Padres for another NL West championship. They're feeling it this year, can't you tell?

While we've been watching a lot of our old Padres play for the Giants this week, I want to mention some of the new folks that have joined our team this season. You already know I feel the love for Heath Bell. Maddux continues to prove that age is just a number, hopefully silencing some of the Padres critics that are lurking out there. If I haven't mentioned it already, Jose Cruz, Jr. is definitely a new Padre to watch this year. I've been very happy with him so far this season. If you participated in the live chat with Kevin Kouzmanoff today, or even if you didn't, click the link for the transcript. If you participated, did you get to ask a question, or was it pretty busy? Hope Kouzmanoff's elbow is better soon and that he is back in the game Friday. I get the feeling Padres fans are slowly settling into Bud Black, I mean, their season so far, how can you possibly complain? Who else are you feeling the love for this year?

Next game, Friday night vs. Dodgers. Keep the fire burning, Padres! Loved the game tonight, great stuff.

Unbelievable, but true- Monday night was my first visit to Petco Park this season, and the first time I have seen the Padres play the Giants. Boy, was I ever not disappointed. First of all, do the Giants ever bring out the best and the worst in the Padres fans? Jeesh. It was nice to see the stadium come alive, and simply electric when Trevor came out to close up the deal. Secondly, my first visit to Petco of each season is always the most exciting. The sights, the smells, the sounds- the fly ball landing 3 feet away from me (I admittedly can't catch, am always happy to let someone else get the ball, and keep it away from my head). The long wait from October to April is finally over, and I can settle in to many fantastic months of baseball.

Fittingly, Young was given a nice contract after helping the Padres to a glorious 1-0 victory Monday night. With an attendance at over 31,000 for a worknight, it was a fun crowd for celebrating a hard-earned victory.

Last night's game, the Padres doubly impressed me, despite their 6-5 loss to the Giants. Instead of giving up when they were down 6-0, they rallied their precious little hearts out to darn near win the thing. (But, near is not near enough!) I was happy to see Heath Bell (recall, my new favorite Padre, see here...) pitch last night for the first time this season.

Maddux leads off tonight's game to close out the series. As the linked article mentions, we sure are playing a lot of NL West teams this month- we've got 23 games in April vs. our rivals.  So, if it seems we're seeing a lot of the Dodgers or the Giants, you're not just imagining things. Hoping the Pads bring it on tonight!

To close things out today, here is a photo of me after the win Monday night (I know, I need to invest in a good Padres sweatshirt, or the jacket. I'm having trouble deciding)

Padres shut out the Giants 7-0!!! What an awesome opener. Peavy certainly held his own over Zito today (my daughter can be all the more proud of her Peavy poster). Padres fans everywhere are causing the Ticket Marketplace server to fail today, the scramble for tickets is still continuing as a 3-peat seems within our reach.

I wonder how Bochy feels about this one... Hoping the SD Union Tribune will have something to say about it tomorrow! For now, here's what they have to say about it today. For the record, we also defeated the Giants on opening day last year, but it was not a shutout. This was the Giants' first opening day shutout since 1967.

A limited amount of opening night home game tickets were released today, good luck... Padres.com

The only thing I love more than baseball is shopping. Here's a nice item for your collection- a Padres on-field cap from the MLB.com store. It's on backorder, so be quick before they're gone completely.

Stay tuned, the next match-up is Wednesday at 7:15PT.

Well, if you're like me, you didn't get chosen in the lottery to purchase Opening Day and Red Sox tickets. I found out yesterday and was, indeed, pretty bummed out. So, hopefully YOU got lucky and you have now scored opening day tickets, and Red Sox tickets. I do have tickets to one Red Sox game that came as part of my season ticket package.

If you are not a season ticket holder, single tickets are going on sale Saturday, March 3rd, right over here. 9am PT, be there! Limited quantities of opening day and Red Sox tickets will be available, so I will be trying (again) for opening day tix. Otherwise, my first season home game won't be until April 10th vs. Giants. I will also be buying up my tickets for the large groups of people who come with me to single games throughout the season.

Their first spring training game is tomorrow vs the Mariners. You know what that means, right? We're getting that much closer to April!

402, Petco Park outfield

Live Chat with Bud Black, TODAY at 12:30pm PT... you must register to participate...

I apologize for the extended absence- we've all been battling Bronchitis in my house lately. I had written a huge update on all of the Spring Training news, but it got deleted somehow. I am working on re-creating that massive post! In the meantime, check out Friar John's Blog at http://padres.mlblogs.com/ for a great insider scoop!

Yes, the answer to last week's "Where in Petco?" question was, indeed, a chair in front of a locker.

But to those of you who were able to attend Friar Fest, you may have noticed you never saw these chairs!

Those were the chairs from the Visitor's Locker Room. Not as plush as the Padres chairs, eh?

Let's see, while most of the country is focused on football, I'm still focused on baseball. I'm sorting out the games I'll attend this year, and in case you missed it, you can register here for a chance to purchase opening day tickets and Padres vs. Red Sox tickets. Unless you're a season ticket holder, this is going to be your best bet! Other individual game tickets will go on sale beginning March 3.

Which brings me to another question- if anyone can answer it for me- when will Tickets begin popping up for sale on the Padres Ticket Marketplace? This is a great service, on both sides of the coin. Season Ticket Holders can sell their extra tickets, and buyers get both the assurance of the validity of the tickets and know the tickets are being sold at face value.

I know the folks at Gaslamp Ball saw him, did anyone else see Trevor Hoffman ring the closing bell at the NYSE on Thursday? President Bush was there, too, but it was Trevor (below the Padres logo, of course) who got to do the honors. Photo and coverage can be found here.

In other Padres news of the week, Dave Winfield left for a humanitarian mission in Ghana on Thursday. Other notables on the tour include John Moores and President Jimmy Carter. I wish them all the best.

If you're a baseball collector, I strongly suggest you visit MLB Auctions and hold on to your wallet while you click. This is a cool site, glad to have found it.

The Yankees were awarded the 2008 All-Star game, so my 1986 All-Star game attendance will remain standing as the only one I've attended.

And finally, the Padres have their spring training guide up for fans... Now's the time, we're rooting for a threepeat!

Yes, we had a great time at Friar Fest 2007. My daughter and I went with a friend and her children. The entryway was a little chaotic, but the lines for autograph vouchers were clearly marked. They were quickly running out of vouchers, but since I promised my daughter she'd get to meet a baseball player today, I grabbed her and we headed straight for the Heath Bell/Darren Balsley signing.

First of all, my favorite part of the autograph signing was, indeed, the voucher system. We got our vouchers and headed to the autograph line. Once 11:30 came around, they filed us all into our seats in section 110. Yes, our seats! Instead of standing up for an hour, we got to sit down while we waited. People were very friendly and I didn't see any line-cutting, it went smoothly. Once the overflow from the prior signing (Brian Giles) ended, our section moved quickly.

Pitcher Heath Bell was first. He was so adorably sweet to my daughter, he has now earned a place in my heart for being so kind when he could have just signed her baseball and sent her on her way. They had a nice little conversation about her pink Padres baseball, and I know we'll be rooting for Heath this season.

Padres pitching coach Darren Balsley was next. By the time she got to Darren, she was pretty much tongue-tied. He also complimented her on her cool baseball.

We were allowed to take photos of them signing her baseball, but sorry collectors, she's not giving up this baseball! Not even to me.

Next we headed over to the Padres Garage Sale, which was raising money for the Madres Foundation. I thought this was a brilliant idea, and a quick way for a baseball fan to spend a ton of money in one place! My daughter really wanted a signed baseball bat, but at $75 we passed on that. We did spend $50 for Balsley's game-used jersey and $15 for his locker nameplate. A nice way to remember who she met that day. We also spent a lot of time going through the signed baseballs, and when I came across the "assorted pitchers" baseballs, I found one signed by Trevor Hoffman and Woody Williams, and we got that one, too.

From there, we ran the bases. VERY crowded. That was kind of annoying, people just standing there, making it difficult to actually RUN the bases. It was, however, very cool to stand on the bases. Thumbs up from the kid.

Next we went to the outfield fences, really cool to see just how tall they are. I'm pretty short, that just reiterated that fact for me! We headed to the Park at the Park for the kids games. My friend's children only wanted to play wiffle ball, but I couldn't get my daughter to go try. She was still too enamored with her jersey.

Our last activity for the day was the clubhouse. We waited entirely too long to go on the clubhouse tour, because by then it was 1pm and packed. The line moved quickly but there were so many people in the locker room, we were just tired by then of all the people. Ditto the dugout, very crowded. The thing I found most amusing about the clubhouse was that the weight room has the Padres logo stamped on every single weight in there. Having visited the visitor's clubhouse, it's overwhelming how nice the Padres clubhouse is- much bigger, much plusher.

I did manage to pick up my season tickets that day (yay!), so now I really can't wait for April to get here! Single tickets go on sale on March 3rd, mark your calendars!

Lessons learned: if you want to shop at the garage sale, go the first day. If you want autographs, get there by 10am when they start handing out vouchers (not 11am, like I thought). If you want to go on the clubhouse tour, do that earlier in the day or late in the day, to avoid crowds.

Here are a few photos from the day:

Heath Bell

Darren Balsley

Scoring big at the Garage Sale

Petco Park- third base

Crowd running the bases

The Giles Brothers lockers

Weights in the locker room

Entrance into Petco Park

You wanted a harder one, yes? Bonus points if you can tell me EXACTLY where this was taken. *What* this is should be easier than *Where* this is...

Good luck!

Yes, it's time for Friar Fest! If you went today, please post a comment letting me know how it went. We're going tomorrow, we can't wait! Should be really fun.

In the meantime, Ducksnorts visited today and has a post up about his visit.

The answer to last week's "Where in Petco?" was, indeed, the press box. Did anyone notice that it said "Los Angeles Times"? For some reason, that was the one I chose to photograph (some stations were blank). I'm sorry for the delay in posting the answer, I've been sick all week, trying to get better so I can make it to Friar Fest tomorrow.

I will post photos from Friar Fest after my visit tomorrow! Here's hoping for some good stuff, it looks like so much fun!

Another easy one, yes? A hint- this is the first stop on the Petco Park Tour.