Padres to break in new fences starting Tuesday

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Padres manager Bud Black, general manager Josh Byrnes and assistant G.M. A.J. Hinch spent several minutes throwing baseballs off the new fence in right field at Petco Park on Monday, trying to get a crash course in how they might play starting with the home opener Tuesday against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The big hope, of course, is that more balls will fly over the fence.

From the right-field porch to the right-center gap, the fence was moved in from 402 feet to 391 feet and lowered to just under 8 feet, matching the rest of the outfield wall. In left-center, the fence came in from 402 feet to 390 feet. In a safety-related move, that allowed the visiting team's bullpen to be relocated from right-field foul territory to behind the home bullpen.

The dimensions remain the same down the left-field line (336 feet), right-field line (322) and straightaway center (396).

While Petco is expected to remain a pitchers' park, the Padres hope that players who crush a ball end up with a homer rather than a frustrating long out, the kind that have left sluggers angst-ridden since the downtown ballyard opened in 2004.

''Those balls that you really hit well, you're going to get rewarded for them,'' said Padres third baseman Chase Headley, whose breakout season of 2012 included 31 homers and an NL-best 115 RBIs, as well as his first Silver Slugger and Gold Glove awards. ''And then the confidence you take from those swings - it's tough when you're going really bad and you hit a ball that in most places is a home run or a double and it turns into an out. Confidence for this game is huge. It's frustrating when you do everything right and you don't get rewarded for it.''

Headley won't get his shot at the new fences for a while after breaking his left thumb in spring training.

When he's back, though, he'll try to continue to be aggressive in attacking the big outfield. Without Headley, the Padres went 1-5 with just one homer in their season-opening trip through New York and Colorado.

While the Padres stand to benefit, so too will the visiting team. While many visiting players have hit impressive homers at Petco, they don't have to play 81 games a year there. As much as anything, moving in the fences will give the Padres a psychological boost.

When Petco Park opened in 2004, then-general manager Kevin Towers joked that the Padres had made it Barry Bonds-proof, since the San Francisco Giants slugger always tormented San Diego. Bonds later quipped that the Padres had made Petco Park ''baseball-proof.'' Bonds hit his 755th homer at Petco Park on Aug. 4, 2007, tying Hank Aaron with an opposite-field shot to left-center.

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Padres to break in new fences starting Tuesday