The National League is beginning to heat up for the 2011 regular season and that is one of the highlights of this year’s off-season period.
The San Francisco Giants triumphed in their pursuit of the World Series in 2010 and while that may have brought forward an uncommon champion to the winter season, the competing sides in the National League West region have been gearing up for the coming
challenge in April’s Major League Baseball start off.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres are strengthening their squads over the past 2 months and that has seen many players come in and go out. The Padres, who were leading the National League West table for most of the regular season period were
inconsistent during the last quarter of the season which is one of the reasons why the Giants moved up to the top of the table. San Francisco then went on to win the World Series.
For the Padres, it was a lesson and it seems they have learnt it well as they made swift movement recently to acquire Jason Bartlett from the Tampa Bay Rays and Orlando Hudson from the Minnesota Twins. The two additions will hopefully put the club on a better
standing in terms of hitting in the coming season. They were ranked 28th, this year. General Manager Jed Hoyer is ecstatic about the two additions and talked about the team’s defensive strength at the moment.
"The stronger we can be defensively up the middle, the better our pitching-staff is going to be," Hoyer said. "I think when you think about run prevention you can't ever ignore that aspect of the defence on run prevention. Our pitchers are good, they've
got good stuff, but now they've got good help as well."
Cameron Maybin is another player to come in but the Padres seem more upbeat about the additions made to their infield sector. Manager Bud Black had a terrible time in 2008 when he tried to fix the area with 8 players on the second baseman position and 5
on shortstop. It seems the woes have ended for the club to take a positive step forward on.
"Our focus at the beginning of the offseason was to really to strengthen ourselves up the middle," Hoyer said. "I think with the addition of (center fielder) Cameron Maybin, Jason Bartlett and now Orlando, we feel a ton better about our team up the middle.
Orlando is a proven winner, a four-time Gold Glove winner, and I think he's going to bring a ton of offense to our team, a ton of defense and a ton of energy."
Time will tell if the Padres have indeed made a difference in their roster. The effect of the change in the squad will need to be measured during the 2011 Major League season.
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