Shell's bells: friends ring Hoffman

Padres closer finds solace after getting hammered in tiebreaker loss to Rockies

By Jack Etkin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Originally published 07:05 p.m., April 14, 2008
Updated 10:53 p.m., April 14, 2008

Will Powers / Associated Press/2007

Padres closer Trevor Hoffman hangs his head as he leaves Coors Field after the Rockies won a 13-inning marathon 9-8 on Oct. 1.

Lenny Ignelzi / Associated Press

Padres catcher Josh Bard says of Hoffman: "There's a lot of guys in this clubhouse that have a big part to do with why we came up short."

Josh Bard was seated at his locker in the San Diego Padres clubhouse, stunned by the 19-pitch tsunami he had just witnessed. Geoff Blum was on one side, Adrian Gonzalez was on the other and Chris Young was nearby when members of the media entered and made a beeline.

The Rockies had just rallied for three runs in the bottom of the 13th inning, beating the Padres 9-8 in a one-game wild-card playoff and steamrolling esteemed closer Trevor Hoffman. Hoffman knew exactly what to expect and, as always, was professional enough to linger by his locker and answer every last question.

"We watched the wolf pack of media just go to the calf with the broken leg and just swarm around," Bard said. "We sat there and just said, 'This isn't right, man. There's a lot of guys in this clubhouse that have a big part to do with why we came up short.' "

Hoffman, 40, the all-time leader with 528 saves, understands full well that, in his role, the spotlight's glare is always very bright and sometimes quite harsh.

Two days earlier, he was one strike from saving a 3-2 victory at Milwaukee, a win that would have put the Padres in the playoffs. With a runner on second base, pinch hitter Tony Gwynn Jr., whose father spent his entire Hall of Fame career with the Padres, pulled Hoffman's 2-2 changeup into the right-field corner for a game-tying triple.

The Padres lost 4-3 in 11 innings. Another defeat the next day coupled with a Rockies win set the stage for the media barrage at Coors Field after the Rockies' stunning win, their 14th in 15 games, pushed Hoffman and the Padres into winter.

"The hardest part is knowing you're not going to have an opportunity any time soon to do anything about it," Hoffman said. "To have to sit on it for five, six months until you get another opportunity - there's really nothing else to think about but that.

"Obviously, you're a strike away; you're three outs away at another juncture. And all that is kind of on my shoulders. And that part of it is a bit of a weight that you've got to endure."

Mixed feelings for Holliday

The Rockies and Padres play tonight in San Diego for the first time since their spellbinding four- hour, 40-minute marathon Oct. 1.

That game ended when Hoffman, who faced five batters, got his only out on Jamey Carroll's sacrifice fly to right. Matt Holliday, sliding home headfirst, reached out and, in a difficult-to-tell instant, touched home plate with his left hand - at least in the eyes of umpire Tim McClelland.

As jubilant as Holliday was to score the winning run, he glimpsed the Rockies comeback from Hoffman's side and didn't wish what happened to him on anyone.

"You want to win the game, but at the same time, you know he's a human being and he's got feelings," said Holliday, who in November crossed paths with Hoffman for the second straight year on a Nike-sponsored trip to Hawaii.

"You still care about people that you compete against. I don't think you'd want anybody who takes a lot of pride in what they do to have to stew over that all winter."

Instead of flying to Philadelphia to begin a division series with the Phillies, the Padres flew home to San Diego.

Hoffman said nearly all his teammates made a point to give him a pat on the back or say something during the flight. And Hoffman said it helped having his older brother, Glenn, the Padres third- base coach, aboard.

"He made sure he sat next to me, making sure I was all right," Hoffman said. "It was a little out of character. He comes by and says hello but (doesn't stay) for the duration. He was definitely doing his big-brother duties."

Loss handled with class

Hoffman is a San Diego icon, having joined the Padres from Florida in a June 1993 trade. Bard, the Padres catcher, said Hoffman is the undisputed leader of the team, a rarity for a relief pitcher. Like a lot of great players, Hoffman is disciplined and methodical in his pregame preparation, albeit, Bard said, with a notable difference.

"There's a lot of guys in this game that are relentlessly about their routine, but they're relentlessly about themselves," Bard said. "Trevor has always been about other people. There's not a lot of teams (where) their best player is their best guy."

Bard was in awe watching Hoffman accommodate the waves of media members that approached him after the bitter loss to the Rockies. So much so that a couple of weeks later, Bard told Hoffman, "If my son (Luke, who is 3) ever grew up to play major league baseball, I would be proud as a dad if my son handled himself that way."

Hoffman could be assured of the backing of his teammates. But he lives north of San Diego, and how would people in the community where he is entrenched respond after such an excruciating end to the season? Hoffman wondered about that himself.

In the past, Hoffman said, someone recognizing him in a parking lot as he was going to, say, the grocery store would say hello and keep going. Last winter was different.

"They'd turn around and come back and said, 'Hey, just want you to know I think you had a great season and we appreciate what you do,' " Hoffman said. "I was blown away. This wasn't once or twice. It was every day, different people. It was an outpouring that I needed."

Calamities remembered

Hoffman realizes "you are attached to certain opportunities," and in his role, the calamities, not the successes, are recalled.

He mentioned Game 3 of the 1998 World Series - Hoffman relieved during the eighth inning against the New York Yankees and allowed a walk followed by Paul O'Neill's go-ahead three-run homer - and two rough outings in the All-Star Game in 2000 and 2006. And now the playoff game against the Rockies.

"It's part of being a professional," Hoffman said. "I didn't want to go through it. I didn't enjoy it. But I enjoy competition. I enjoyed having that opportunity to be in the moment."

The 13th inning began with a leadoff double by Kazuo Matsui followed by a double by Troy Tulowitzki - Hoffman was 2-1 on both batters - and Holliday's first-pitch triple. Each hit came on a fastball and found an outfield gap. Hoffman intentionally walked Todd Helton and gave up a first- pitch sacrifice fly to Carroll to complete a comeback that was improbable and, well, inexplicable.

"I think it was just a huge amount of momentum that the Rockies had been carrying," Hoffman said. "It was falling behind in the count. It was hard-hit balls. It was timely hitting. It was just an absolute avalanche, you might want to say, that I felt like I was facing.

"It's like, if I could have called time out and gone and spent 10 minutes someplace else, if I'd have come back, I don't think much would've been different. It had that feeling."

HOLLIDAY HONORED

Outfielder Matt Holliday, an offensive catalyst to the Rockies' 4-2 record last week, was selected Monday as the National League player of the week for the fifth time in his career.

It's the 41st time a Rockies player has earned the award. Dante Bichette was selected six times. Todd Helton, like Holliday, has been chosen five times. Holliday won the award twice last season and once in 2005 and 2006.

The only other current Rockies players to win the award are Brad Hawpe and Garrett Atkins, twice each, and Troy Tulowitzki, once.

The only Rockies pitcher to earn the award was Shawn Chacon for the week of April 14-20, 2003.

NUMBERS GAME

19wins for the Rockies in 37 games at Petco Park, one of only two current NL parks in which they, as a visiting team, having a winning record. The Rockies are 8-6 in the regular season against Philadelphia at Citizens Bank Park, where they went 2-0 in the NL Division Series in October.

RELIVING GAME 163

Rockies personnel are downplaying going to San Diego to play the Padres tonight, but the team did have fun with the debated end to its NL wild-card tiebreaker victory against the Padres when Holliday slid home in the the 13th on Oct. 1.

A commercial the Rockies made for this season features manager Clint Hurdle sitting at a table in the clubhouse with a jelly doughnut on a plate. As Holliday walks by, Hurdle asks, "Did you touch it?" Several other players also ask Holliday, "Did you touch it?"

Holliday, who suffered a bloody scrape on his chin as he slid across home plate to score the winning run, finally picks up the doughnut, takes a bite and, with jelly on his face, says, "Yeah, I touched it."

HE SAID IT

"It's definitely the best game I've ever been part of, no question about it."

Troy Tulowitzki, Rockies shortstop, on the 13-inning, come-from-behind victory against San Diego

in the NL wild-card tiebreaker last season.

April showers

Trevor Hoffman has converted 528 of 592 save opportunities for 89.2 percent, the highest among pitchers with at least 190 chances since the "blown save" rule went into effect in 1988.

Typically, April has been his least-effective month. Hoffman is 4-for-5 in save opportunities this season but 0-2 with a 9.53 ERA in six games.

Most of that damage was caused by a blown save April 2 against Houston, a game in which Hoffman was one strike from retiring the side in order to seal a 6-5 victory only to allow four runs on a walk, two singles and Lance Berkman's three-run homer and lose 9-6.

Month Saves Opp. Pct.

April 58 73 79.5

May 95 100 95

June 87 99 87.9

July 95 109 87.2

August 101 111 91

September 87 94 92.6

October 5 6 83.3 Little more gas

Hoffman had bone chips and a bone spur removed from his right elbow in October. Catcher Josh Bard said this season Hoffman has "an extra 4 inches to his fastball," adding it has been clocked at "a legitimate 88 miles an hour."

So Hoffman, whose vaunted changeup is around 75 to 76 mph, can befuddle hitters with more speed variance.

Hoffman said he needed daily ultrasound treatments and other work by trainers to get ready last year, but once he warmed up, his elbow was fine.

He pointed to his 42 saves - Hoffman extended his record for 40-save seasons to nine - while dismissing any suggestion elbow issues contributed to his ineffectiveness in the National League tiebreaker loss to the Rockies on Oct. 1.

"It didn't affect anything that happened," Hoffman said.

• April 15, 2008

  6:54 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Battlehoss writes:

  You can count on Hoffman rebounding and racking up 40+ saves.