Detroit Tigers in the context of "1971 Major League Baseball season"

In baseball, batting is the act of facing the opposing pitcher and trying to produce offense for one's team. A batter or hitter is a person whose turn it is to face the pitcher. The three main goals of batters are to become a baserunner, to drive runners home or to advance runners along the bases for others to drive home, but the techniques and strategies they use to do so vary. Hitting uses a motion which is virtually unique to baseball and its fellow bat-and-ball sports, one that is rarely used in other sports. Hitting is unique because it involves rotating in the horizontal plane of movement, unlike most sports movements which occur in the vertical plane.

Marcus Markley Thames (/ˈtɪmz/ TIMZ; born March 6, 1977) is an American professional baseball player and baseball coach who currently serves as a hitting coach for the Kansas City Royals of Major League Baseball (MLB). He played in MLB for the New York Yankees, Texas Rangers, Detroit Tigers, and Los Angeles Dodgers as a left fielder and designated hitter from 2002 through 2011. He coached with the Yankees from 2016 through 2021, the Miami Marlins in 2022, the Los Angeles Angels in 2023, and the Chicago White Sox in 2024 and 2025.

For his career, Thames averaged a home run every 15.9 at-bats and holds the Tigers franchise record for average at-bats per home run, at 14.8.

The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball team based in San Diego. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West Division. The team plays its home games at Petco Park in downtown San Diego. Founded in 1969 as an expansion franchise, the Padres adopted their name from the Pacific Coast League (PCL) team that arrived in San Diego in 1936. The name, Spanish for "fathers", honors the friars of the Franciscan order who founded Mission San Diego de Alcalá in 1769.

In 1976, Randy Jones achieved the first Cy Young Award for the Padres. In the 1980s, Tony Gwynn became a major star, winning eight National League batting titles. Under manager Dick Williams, the Padres clinched their first NL pennant, only to lose to the Detroit Tigers in the 1984 World Series in 5 games. In 1995, Kevin Towers became general manager; under his lead, Ken Caminiti became the first Padres player to win the MVP Award. The Padres achieved their second NL pennant alongside Trevor Hoffman, only to be swept by the New York Yankees in the 1998 World Series.