Thursday, April 11, 2013

Petco Park's New Dimensions

All right, enough was said over the changes at Petco Park over the last two games, the first of the season at the newly-designed Padres' field. Here's the skinny on what changed:

• Moving in the wall that runs from the right-field porch to right-center 11 feet. The wall will also be lowered to match the height of the sub-eight-foot wall in left and center field.

• The out-of-town scoreboard in right field will be relocated. Seating modifications in that area will be announced later. In right-center, the wall will move from 402 feet to 391 feet.

• The wall in left-center will be moved in from 402 feet to 390 feet.

• The visiting bullpen, currently down the right-field line in foul territory, will be moved to center field behind the existing home bullpen area.

Early reaction from the Padres was positive. We'll see if this changes their approach (or their results) over the course of the season.

Much was discussed during the game about how the double-decker bullpen in left field is odd, having the visitors throw right to left while the Padres, below, throw left to right. Not sure why that is so confusing, but everyone seemed thrown off by this. I was more thrown off by the huge "SD" logo in the center field grass (but maybe I missed that from prior years).

photos: (1) Padres CEO Tom Garfinkel on Twitter; (2) mlb.com

4 comments:

BJ Killeen said...

It appears all ballparks are doing the letters in the grass this year.

Paul said...

Maybe Selig' s nephew is in the grass stencil business.

Hideo Nomo said...

The Giants didn't, but fuck them anyway.

Steve Sax said...

The Giants couldn't spell "SF"