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.