Photograph taken from Altitude Sky Bar by Mario Lozano.
After throwing a second straight shutout for the Padres on opening day and leading the Padres to a 4-0 win against the Houston Astros, the Padres have renamed Opening Day to Jake Peavy Day. Peavy threw seven shutout innings and even contributed at the plate by hitting an RBI single and a sacrifice fly off of his Roy Oswalt.
After winning a third Opening Day start, even Houston Astros Manager Cecil Cooper had praise for Jake Peavy.
“I call Roy the best pitcher on the planet and I guess I just saw the second- best pitcher on the planet tonight,” Astros manager Cecil Cooper said of Peavy. “He’s pretty good. It wasn’t by accident that he won the Cy Young Award last year.” [source: The Sports Network]
According to ESPN, Roy Oswalt a friend of Jake Peavy is staying with Peavy’s family during the season.
I don’t know if he’s going to stay with me anymore,” Peavy cracked. [source: ESPN]
Of course Jake Peavy did not win the game alone, some local players contributed as well. One of Adrian Gonzalez two hits for the night was an RBI single in the 5th inning. Tony Clark, who some of you may remember from his days as an All-American baseball and basketball player at Christian High School in El Cajon, drove in a run with his RBI single in the seventh while pinch hitting for Peavy.
In the spirit of April 1st, we may have gotten carried away with the headline. Opening Day will still be called Opening Day by the Padres, but I will spare you from falling for another April Fools Prank, Peavy did not injure his shoulder.
P.S. If you missed the 2008 Padres Opening Day celebration, someone captured it from Icon Skybox and put it on Youtube, see it below.