San Diego, CA

San Diego Padres Daily Farm Report June 19

Published

2 years ago

June 20, 2024

San Diego Padres Daily Farm Report June 19

Sugarland Space Cowboys 7, Chihuahuas 1

Key Stats: LHP Jackson Wolf 3 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 4 BB; RHP Luke Westphal 3 IP, H, 4 K; 1B Nate Mondou 2-for-4, 2B; C Brett Sullivan 1-for-3, RBI, BB; DH Tirso Ornelas 2-for-4

Jackson Wolf has struggled to find the zone in his return to the Padres organization. (Photo: Jorge Salgado)

Prospect Watch: Jackson Wolf cruised through the first three innings, allowing two hits but getting two double plays to neutralize any threat. Then, the first six batters reached base in the fourth inning before Wolf gave way. This is the third consecutive outing the lanky lefty has started strong, only to be undone by a big inning. Wolf has a 7.55 ERA with 36 walks in 55 innings since rejoining the Padres. … After Wolf departed, the Chihuahuas received an excellent outing from fellow lefty Luke Westphal. The veteran pitched three scoreless innings, allowing just one hit without walking a batter and notching four strikeouts. The 35-year-old is as well-traveled as any player in professional baseball. His resume includes stops with eight different indy ball teams, a stint in the Twins and Padres’ organizations, and time in Mexico. He’s also played winter ball in Australia, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. He re-signed with the Padres as a free agent earlier this month after a successful stint with the Tijuana Toros. … Despite going hitless, Eguy Rosario was able to extend his team-leading on-base streak. Thanks to a walk, Rosario has reached base in 19 consecutive games. He is hitting .306/.405/.611 since he last failed to reach base safely on May 25. … On the other end of the spectrum, Graham Pauley went hitless and is hitting just .153/.180/.220 in June, with no home runs. While the 23-year-old left-handed hitter has typically shown impressive patience and pitch recognition at the plate, he’s posted an uncharacteristic 14:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 61 trips to the plate this month.

Amarillo Sod Poodles 7, Missions 4

Key Stats: C Brandon Valenzuela 2-for-4, HR (6), 2 RBI; CF Clay Dungan 1-for-2, 2 BB, 2 R; 1B Robbie Tenerowicz 2-for-4; RHP Francis Pena 2 IP, 3 K; RHP Cole Paplham 2 IP, H, BB, 3 K

Cole Paplham delivers for San Antonio. (Photo: San Antonio Missions)

Prospect Watch: After allowing only four earned runs over 16.2 innings in his previous three starts, Jared Kollar could not make it out of the first. He was tagged for five runs in just two-thirds of an inning as he loaded the bases on two walks and an infield single before giving up a double and a towering home run in the shortest outing of his career. He labored through 33 pitches, only 19 of which were strikes. … Brandon Valenzuela, 23, homered and collected multiple hits in his second straight game. The switch-hitting catcher has connected on four of his six home runs on the year this month and is hitting a sweltering .333/.431/.604 in 58 trips to the plate for June. In the process, he has raised his overall OPS from .630 to .737. … There may not be another relief duo in the Texas League as filthy as Francis Pena and Cole Paplham, who worked two scoreless innings each and both struck out three batters. The only hit Amarillo managed against them was a dribbler down the third base line against Paplham. Pena threw two perfect innings, rebounding from giving up a run in back-to-back outings. The 23-year-old, who dialed it up to 98 Wednesday, has only been pitching stateside since last June. He opened the year with a dominant run for Fort Wayne before a promotion to Double-A in late May. Between the two stops, he has a 1.42 ERA and 0.95 WHIP in 31.2 innings. Encouragingly, he has 11 strikeouts and only one walk in his first 10.2 innings for the Missions. … Paplham, 24, has allowed just the one hit in his first three appearances after spending the first two months of the season on the injured list. He’s struck out six with a fastball that’s settled in the 95-97 mph range and a mid-80s slider that can be devastating when he has the feel for it.

Yu Darvish got his work in during a rehab appearance for the TinCaps. (Photo: Jeff Nycz)

Wisconsin Timber Rattlers 8, TinCaps 3

Key Stats: RHP Yu Darvish (L, 0-1) 3.1 IP, 7 H, 6 ER, BB, 3 K; LHP Jagger Haynes 4 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 K; C Ethan Salas 1-for-3, RBI, BB; 3B Devin Ortiz 2-for-4; LF Joshua Mears 1-for-3, R

Prospect Watch: It was Yu Darvish Day in Fort Wayne. Before the game, Darvish showed his class by providing an amazing dinner spread for both teams. On the field, Darvish seemed comfortable mixing his pitches and varying speeds. He hit 95 mph with a fastball, with the gun reading 71 mph on a slow curve. Three of the seven hits he allowed were of the infield variety, and he gave up two more weakly-hit singles. The only hard-hit balls came from Wisconsin’s number nine hitter, Jesus Chirinos. He hit a towering home run in the second inning and had a hard-hit RBI single in the fourth. Darvish threw 49 pitches, 33 for strikes in what is expected to be his only rehab appearance. …In the first few innings, the TinCaps announcers talked about the battery of Darvish and Ethan Salas as A.J. Preller’s dream, despite Salas being half Darvish’s age and so early on his path to San Diego. The now 18-year-old had an RBI single and walked in the game. He has reached base safely multiple times in four straight games, going 6-for-15 with two walks. … Jagger Haynes, 20, followed Darvish in his first non-start of the season and pitched the last four innings of the game. The young lefty, coming off of his first career double-digit strikeout performance, allowed two runs while striking out three. Haynes is one inning away from doubling the 25.1 innings he threw in 2023, so the organization could start to shorten his outings later in the summer. Over his last eight appearances Haynes has pitched to a 2.64 ERA with 33 strikeouts in 44.1 innings.

Transactions: Before the game, Romeo Sanabria (.311/.433/.493), left-handed pitcher Jackson Smeltz (5 IP, 1 ER, 7 K), and righty Sam Whiting (3.15 ERA, 30 K in 34.1 IP) were all transferred to Fort Wayne from the Storm. None were in uniform for the start of the game.

Visalia Rawhide 8, Storm 3

Key Stats: SS Leo De Vries 2-for-4, 2B, RBI; LF Wyatt Hoffman 1-for-2, BB, HBP, 2 RS, 2 SB (10); RHP Jose Luis Reyes (L, 3-5) 1.2 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 5 K; LHP Javier Chacon 2.2 IP, H, BB, 3 K

Wyatt Hoffman had a big day on Sunday. (Photo: Robert Escalante)

Prospect Watch: The Storm fell behind early and couldn’t mount a comeback a night after clinching a playoff berth. They managed only four hits on the day, half coming from Leodalis De Vries. The 17-year-old shortstop’s RBI double in the first inning broke an 0-for-12 stretch that saw his average plunge back below .200. De Vries would later single in the fifth, breaking up a stretch of six consecutive hits dating back to June 5 that went for doubles. De Vries has 10 hits in June, seven of which are doubles. While he has yet to hit his first professional home run, he does have 13 doubles and a triple in 32 games. … Batting in front of De Vries, Wyatt Hoffman reached base three times on the night and stole two bases. The utility man, who is eight years older than De Vries. swiped multiple bases for the first time since July 9, 2023. Hoffman is having the best month of his career, hitting .303/.415/.485 in 10 games.

The ACL Padres were not in action.

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San Diego, CA

San Diego Zoo Safari Park’s Elephant Valley: Get closer to elephants

Published

8 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

San Diego Zoo Safari Park’s Elephant Valley: Get closer to elephants

Todd Martens
| Los Angeles Times

San Diego — Before we see elephants at Elephant Valley in the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, we come face to face with destruction, only the wreckage is beautiful. A long, winding path takes guests around and under felled trees. Aged gray tree hunks form arches, for instance, over bridges that tower over clay-colored paths with hoof prints.

The design is meant to reorient us, to take us on a trail walked not by humans but traversed and carved by elephants, a creature still misunderstood, vilified and hunted for its cataclysmic-like ability to reshape land, and sometimes communities.

“It starts,” says Kristi Burtis, vice president of wildlife care for the Safari Park, “by telling the story that elephants are ecosystem engineers.”

Elephant Valley will open March 5 as the newest experience at the Escondido park, its aim to bring guests closer than ever to the zoo’s eight elephants, which range in age from 7 to 36, while more heavily focusing on conservation. The centerpiece of the 13-acre-plus parkland is a curved bridge overlooking a savanna, allowing elephants to walk under guests. But there are also nooks such as a cave that, while not previewed at a recent media event, will allow visitors to view elephants on their level.

In a shift from, say, the Safari Park’s popular tram tour, there are no fences and visible enclosures. Captive elephants remain a sometimes controversial topic, and the zoo’s herd is a mix of rescues and births, but the goal was to create a space where humans are at once removed and don’t impede on the relative free-roaming ability of the animals by keeping guests largely elevated. As an example of just how close people can get to the herd, there was a moment of levity at the event when one of the elephants began flinging what was believed to be a mixture of dirt and feces up onto the bridge.

“Our guests are going to be able to see the hairs on an elephant,” Burtis says. “They can see their eyes. They can see the eyelashes. They can see how muscular their trunks are. It’s really going to be a different experience.”

Elephant Valley, complete with a multistory lodge with open-air restaurants and bars, boasts a natural design that isn’t influenced by the elephant’s African home so much as it is in conversation with it. The goal isn’t to displace us, but to import communal artistry — Kenyan wood and beadwork can be found in the pathways, resting spaces and more — as a show of admiration rather than imitation.

“We’re not going to pretend that we’re taking people to Africa,” says Fri Forjindam, now a creative executive with Universal’s theme parks but previously a lead designer on Elephant Valley via her role as a chief development officer at Mycotoo, a Pasadena-based experiential design firm.

“That is a slippery slope of theming that can go wrong really fast,” she adds. “How do we recognize where we are right now, which is near San Diego? How do we populate this plane with plants that are indigenous to the region? The story of coexistence is important. We’re not extracting from Africa, we’re learning. We’re not extracting from elephants, we’re sharing information.”

But designing a space that is elephant-first yet also built for humans presented multiple challenges, especially when the collaborating teams were aiming to construct multiple narratives around the animals. Since meetings about Elephant Valley began around 2019, the staff worked to touch on themes related to migration and conservation. And there was also a desire to personalize the elephants.

“Where can we also highlight each of the elephants by name, so they aren’t just this huge herd of random gray creatures?” Forjindam says. “You see that in the lodge.”

That lodge, the Mkutano House — a phrase that means “gathering” in Swahili — should provide opportunities for guests to linger, although zoo representatives say reservations are recommended for those who wish to dine in the space (there will also be a walk-up, to-go window). Menus have yet to be released, but the ground floor of the structure, boasting hut-like roofing designed to blend into the environment, features close views of the elephant grazing pool as well as an indoor space with a centerpiece tree beneath constellation-like lighting to mimic sunrises and sunsets.

Throughout there are animal wood carvings and beadwork, the latter often hung from sculptures made of tree branches. The ceiling, outfitted with colorful, cloth tapestries designed to move with the wind, aims to create less friction between indoor and outdoor environments.

There are, of course, research and educational goals of the space as well. The Safari Park works, for instance, with the Northern Rangelands Trust and Loisaba Conservancy in Kenya, with an emphasis on studying human-elephant conflict and finding no-kill resolutions. Nonprofits and conservation groups estimate that there are today around 415,000 elephants in Africa, and the African savanna elephant is listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Studies of the zoo’s young elephants is shared with the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in the hopes of delivering care to elephant youth to prevent orphanage. Additionally, the Safari Park has done extensive examination into the endotheliotropic herpes virus. “The data that we collect from elephants here, you can’t simply get from elephants in the wild,” Burtis says.

One of the two entrances to Elephant Valley is outfitted with bee boxes; bees are known to be a natural elephant deterrent and can help in preventing the animals from disrupting crops or communities. To encourage more natural behavior, the plane is outfitted with timed feeders in an attempt to encourage movement throughout the acreage and establish a level of real-life unpredictability in hunting for resources. Water areas have been redesigned with ramps and steps to make it easier for the elephants to navigate.

With Elephant Valley, Forjindam says the goal was to allow visitors to “observe safely in luxury — whatever that is — but not from a position of power, more as a cohabitor of the Earth, with as much natural elements as possible. It’s not to impose dominance. Ultimately, it needed to feel natural. It couldn’t feel like a man-made structure, which is an antiquated approach to any sort of safari experience where animals are the product, a prize. In this experience, this is the elephant’s home.”

And the resulting feel of Elephant Valley is that we, the paying customers, are simply their house guests.

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San Diego, CA

Man fatally struck by hit-and-run vehicle in San Diego

Published

20 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Man fatally struck by hit-and-run vehicle in San Diego

A man in the Mission Bay Park community of San Diego was fatally struck Sunday morning by a hit-and run vehicle, authorities said.

The victim was also struck by a second vehicle and that motorist stayed at the scene to cooperate with officers, the San Diego Police Department reported.

The initial crash occurred at about 2:20 a.m. Sunday in the area of West Mission Bay and Sea World drives.

The pedestrian was in the southbound lanes of the 2000 block of West Mission Bay Drive when he was struck by a silver vehicle also in the southbound lanes. That vehicle fled the scene, continuing southbound, police said.

A 28-year-old man driving his vehicle southbound ran over the downed pedestrian.

“That driver remained at the scene and is not DUI,” according to a police statement. “The pedestrian was pronounced deceased at the scene.”

Anyone with information regarding the initial crash was urged to call Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.

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San Diego, CA

Here are the 9 San Diego County communities that set or tied heat records

Published

1 day ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Here are the 9 San Diego County communities that set or tied heat records

San Diego County is known for having wet, cold weather in February. But it had numerous hot spells this year. And when the month ended on Saturday a high pressure system produced heat that broke or tied temperature records in nine communities from the desert to the sea, the National Weather Service said.

The most notable temperature occurred in Borrego Springs, which reached 99, five degrees higher than the previous record for Feb. 28, set in 1986. The 99 reading is also the highest temperature ever recorded in Borrego in February.

Escondido reached 95, tying a record set in 1901.

El Cajon reached 92, three degrees higher than the record set in 2009.

Ramona topped out at 88, five degrees higher than the record set in 2009.

Alpine hit 88, four degrees higher the record set in 1986.

Campo reached 87, four degrees higher than the record set in 1999.

Vista hit 86, four degrees higher than the record set in 2020.

Chula Vista reached 84, one degree higher than the record set in 2020.

Lake Cuyamaca rose to 76, four degrees higher than the record set in 1986.

Forecasters say the weather is not likely to broadly produce new highs on Sunday. Cooler air is moving to the coast, and on Monday, San Diego’s high will only reach 67, a degree above normal.

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