When is this 2009 OPC card? #330 Jake Peavy

It's sweet to show pitchers doing something other than pitching and this is a nice photo of Peavy digging in as he approaches 3rd base. That ass probably belongs to 2008 Padres third base coach Glenn Hoffman.

So, can we find the date for this card?

For starters, we know that it's a Padres home game since they're wearing white uniforms. We can also see that the Dodgers visited the Rockies that day, and either the Braves (ATL) or the Cardinals (STL) visited a team with a short abbreviation, probably the SF Giants. Plus to Nationals played at home.

This one was very difficult to figure out. Turns out that there are no 2008 games that fit all the above criteria. However, this game in 2007 fits just fine.

On that day (April 19, 2007) all of the following happened:

• The Rockies (COL) hosted the Dodgers (LAD)
  
• The Giants (SF) hosted the Cardinals (STL)
• The Nationals (WSN) hosted the Phillies (PHI)
• The Padres hosted the Diamondbacks

How, the one thing that doesn't quite fit is that the team visiting the Nationals seems to have only 2 letters in its team abbreviation (which the Phillies do not.) However, other than the Padres, the only other NL team that ever uses a 2-letter abbreviations is the Padres (SD) themselves and since they are the home team in the game featured in the photo, their score would not be shown on the out-of-town scoreboard. Furthermore, the Phillies beat the Nationals that day by the score of 4-2, which is the score shown in the photo.

Finally, in the Padres game, Peavy hit a triple in the bottom of the 3rd inning. Since it's somewhat rare for pitchers to be running between second and third, I think we can safely assume that this card is indeed from the 4/19/2007 game.

That game started at 12:36 PM (west coast time) so this photo was probably taken between 4:30 and 5:00 eastern time.

Incidentally, Glenn Hoffman was also third base coach in 2007, so I still think that's his ass.

ANAGRAMS

Jake Peavy + Hoffman's ass = Pajamas off! Sky heavens!

STAT

Since 1901, only 22 times has a pitcher struck out at least 200 batters in a season but finished with an ERA+ below 100. Peavy did it in 2006, and is just 1 of 2 guys to do it in the last 12 seasons. Nolan Ryan did it 5 times and the vast majority of the pitchers who did it were very good.