Phoenix.BloggersPub

For those of us who weren’t fortunate enough to go to South By Southwest and shmooze and drink and eat breakfast tacos and drink and eat barbecue and drink more, well, we live vicariously through the hundreds of wrap-ups and roundups of the event.
Luckily, some kind folks even provide audio. Like WOXY, which hosted its […]

It has been an eternity since I was last at a game at Chase Field. Eternity in this context is equal to 179 days 1 hour 16 minutes. Today marked an end to the dark and dreary off-season as the Diamondbacks held one of their annual Spring Training games at home. Each year the Diamondbacks play two games at Chase Field after camp has broken at Tucson but before the opening of the regular season. In years past we have seen the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Cleveland Indians, Chicago White Sox, and Los Angeles Angels. It’s usually the first look I get at the stadium before games begin to count. The crowds are usually smaller with attendance in the high four figures or low five figures so there is ample room to wander around the stadium and take note of any changes that have occurred since the end of the previous season. It’s also the first time I get to see the sight lines of my seat relocation to help me get acquainted with where I will be sitting for the 81 regular season games. And for those diehard fans such as me, it is a time to see many of the people that I spend my summer with. A lot of these guys become like family since I spend just about as much time with them as I do with my regular family. Like every year, I always try to arrive early to be there just as the gates open two hours before first pitch is scheduled. I can use the extra time to make sure I can find my seat, take pictures of the various changes I find, and get a bite to eat so that I am ready and focused when the game begins. Little did I realize what the implications would be for being early for today’s game.

The Warriors like to run.  The Suns like to run.  The Warriors are fighting for the playoffs.  The Suns have their division locked up.  The Warriors have lost two in a row.  The Suns have won 1 in a row.
These teams both need the win tonight.  The Warriors need to win to keep going […]

Mrs. SnakePit’s mother turned 78 yesterday, so we took her out for dinner. Have to say, I hope I’m anywhere near as sprightly at her age; she’s totally independent and keenly interested in… Well, that’s perhaps the only problem. She is a total mark for the checkout tabloids - and she decided, very early on, that since I’m British, I must, therefore be deeply interested in the goings on of the Royal family. I feigned polite interest - a fatal mistake, since six years later, I’m still getting frequent, in-depth bulletins. [We even recorded some of her commentaries and built a website around them: please feel free to check out CarmenRants.com]

Last night I discovered there a topic on which she can expound at even greater length: Anna Nicole Smith. Wow. That’s all I have to say. My mother-in-law could recite the entire autopsy report word-for-word, without pausing for breath. Of course, in forty years’ time, I’ll likely be ranting to disinterested offspring, about how baseball isn’t like the good old days, when players just took good old-fashioned steroids, no, sir, these genetically-engineered, vat-grown forearms have turned the game into a travesty and don’t even get me started on the Giants’ new cybernetic left fielder… By that stage, this blog will probably be available as a holographic presentation, so my elderly sarcasm can be enjoyed in three glorious dimensions.

Speaking of geriatrics with unexpected energy and zest for life… Okay, a lame transition to Randy Johnson’s appearance at Chase Field. But, ooh, is there anyone in the National League who didn’t get a chill down their spine, looking at the results there? Three innings pitched, the minimum nine batters faced and five of them retired on strikeouts. He only needed 38 pitches for the three innings, 28 for strikes. It looks like Mr. Snappy - the Big Unit’s slider - is back in full effect, even though he was helped by a pair of double-plays, and this was not the greatest Padres line-up. Still, the performance can only be good news for us, and an ominous rumble of thunder as far as the rest of the teams in the division are concerned.

The team went down 5-3, with Micah Owings, who followed Johnson to the mound, taking the loss: in four innings, he gave up eight hits and four earned runs, but fanned four and walked none. Seems to me the balance tilted a little further towards Nippert after this performance, and going by the poll results, most of you seem to agree. Elliott and Harville tidied up the remaining two innings. We outhit the Padres 13-12, but were hurt by three double-plays of our own, and also left ten men on base: Snyder was 0-for-4 with six men left, for example. Tracy, however, went 3-for-4 with a walk as well, and Hudson reached three times on two hits and a walk.

Another starter pitched yesterday, Doug Davis having a mediocre game: five innings, nine hits, four runs, all earned. Five K’s to one walk, it’s true, but not the final tune-up he wanted, in front of a record crowd of 12,917 in Mesa. Worse yet was Carrasco, who gave up four hits and a walk, with a three-run homer to Hoffpauir the only damage. It was almost a D-backs ‘B’-squad, with Davis, Brandon Lyon and Miguel Montero the only ones sighted who’ll be on the Opening Day roster. Center-fielder Thompson and second-baseman Erickson had two hits apiece, while Montero had a two-run double to give Arizona the lead in the first, though we went down 7-4 in the end. Ria Cortesio, as noted yesterday, worked the game; she was at first base, and was solid by all accounts.

Some interesting movements on the roster yesterday: Eveland and Enrique Gonzalez were both optioned down to Tucson. This basically reduces the candidates for the fifth starting position to Nippert and Owings. In the Tribune yesterday, Jack Magruder speculated that we might keep 14 position players on the roster for Opening Day, and only 11 pitchers, then bring Owings up for the April 6 game. However, based on tonight’s performance, it will be Nippert who is more likely to get the call.

There was also the dropping of Krynzel, and the pickup of J.D.Durbin. We have ten days to work out a trade for the former, or else he’ll be put on waivers and probably snapped up by someone like the Marlins. He’s had a good spring, and there might be someone, lower down the waiver list, that’s prepared to offer a bag of balls for him. Given he was apparently little more than a throw-in during the Davis trade, getting anything in exchange would be nice. I guess there is a chance he’ll pass through and be available in Tucson, should he be required. No great loss if he doesn’t.

It unclogs competition for the roster spots a bit: Salazar, Hammock or Barden seem the candidates there. Looks like there’ll be two slots available initially, because it seems Quentin will be joining DaVanon on the DL too, with Melvin giving him only a 10% chance of being ready for Monday. If he doesn’t, he’ll need to be out at least until April 7. Of the above trio, my guess would be Hammock and Salazar make it onto the Opening Day roster, mostly based on the need for backup outfielders.

As for Durbin, it’s a somewhat curious move, as he’s out of options too, so either has to stay with the team or they’ll have to sneak him through waivers. Nick P reckons Durbin will go into the bullpen, completing the line-up there. His minor-league stats are solid [3.16 ERA in seven seasons, 607:258 K:BB ratio] but he hasn’t yet lived up to expectations as a 2nd-round draft pick. Oh, and he’s a local boy, out of Coronado High School in Scottsdale.

Amused to read his 2006 season was wrecked by sleeping with his arm hanging off the bed, which screwed up the nerves in it. I often fall asleep with my head on my arm, and know the tingly feeling that produces, so can sympathize. Still, that’s reminiscent of Brian Anderson, who missed a 1998 start when his arm stiffened up after he laid it across the back of a cab seat. Or perhaps Jose Valverde, who currently has a blood blister, after slamming his finger in a car door. Are the baseball gods unhappy with Arizona?

The Republic has a big pullout section today on the D-Backs Decade…even though at time of writing, it’s actually been less than nine years since their first game. The excuse is this will be their tenth season, and I’m not inclined to argue, since the pullout is definitely a keeper, with a year-by-year summary, and a bunch of other stuff too. That includes the All-Time Team, based on the poll they had on their site: basically the 2001 line-up. There’s an online version that’s worth a look.

Over at the WSJ, they got a panel of baseball writers together and asked them for their predictions. The highlights:

• Four of the eleven think Arizona will win the NL West
• Joe Sheehan thinks we’ll win the World Series - he also reckons we’ll have the biggest improvement in our record
• Paul Steiger predicts Webb for the Cy Young; Brandon Stroud goes for Randy Johnson
• The majority (six) pencil Chris Young in as NL Rookie of the Year
• Stroud think we’ll have only one All-Star. Presumably, Johnson.

Sportable.com have their AZ preview up as well, though though won’t win many friends here with this opening sentence: “When the Diamondbacks take the field next week, you might think they’re the the Houston Astros.” Enough, already, with the ‘Stros comparisons, okay? But after that, it improves, with kind words about our position players and effective mini-portraits of the team. Though I would probably have added the important word “potentially”, to the description of the rotation as “among the best in baseball.” And are we really referring to these players as the Baby Backs? That’s soooooo 2003! Don’t think we ever decided what to call them: I like “Desert Rats” or “Young Bloods” myself…

Oh, and my DeadSpin preview should be going up today, according to Will: I’ll add a link when I see it’s been posted there.

The concert calendar is filling up, and this promises to be a good one. The Hold Steady hit the Brickhouse, where I saw them in support of Separation Sunday probably a little more than a year ago. The Brickhouse is a great spot for them, a venue that feels more like a bar that happens […]

Visit RotoRob’s page and then click through to his breakdown of the Suns.  What do you think?  Is he missing anything?
Original post by Dan <info@brightsideofthesun.com> and software by Elliott Back

Their “MVP” goes out in the first half with an ankle sprain and the Mavericks still pull out a win.  Avery calls it “gutsy”.  Which it is - there’s no doubt about it.  I call it solidifying Nash as the MVP.  If the Mavs can pull out a close win without their leader on the […]

Finally we can chalk up a victory outside of basketball to the Cats. Now I wouldn’t call the “Challenge at Chase” an equivalent of the Territorial Cup match, but it is for baseball. Last night the No. 10 ranked ASU Sun Devils took on the No. 25 ranked UofA Wildcats, and lost. Anytime an upset […]

You are hereby warned that this entry is going to be one of those long, rambling discourses, that takes a screen or two before I get round to discussing the local baseball team in any meaningful sense. As a public service to those of you who don’t want to read my ramblings on non-Diamondback topics, I will mark the end of such things with a frolicking kitten.

Over the weekend, was watching Still, We Believe, a documentary about the Boston Red Sox 2003 season and their run to the Division Series. It’s a nice parallel to Chasing October (which covers the Cubs view of the same year) - both end in similarly heart-breaking fashion, on the cusp of the World Series, with Grady Little’s decision to leave Pedro in being the turning-point here. Though it has to be said, with hindsight, making a film about the Red Sox in 2003, is like deciding to stop filming President Kennedy just as he turned the corner at the Texas Book Depository.

What came over was the real passion of the fans for their team, which is something you don’t see that much for the D-backs, even here in Arizona. [They also had a great fan, Angry Bill, whose eternal, relentless pessimism reminded me of a certain occasional poster here. ] I mean, they visited a Boston Red Sox bar in California, f’heavens sake, where the atmosphere during games was intense and electric. I can’t even think of a place here in Phoenix where there’s any real excitement during our contests: if anyone knows of one, please let me know, as I’d like to go there.

There’s even a Steelers bar which opened up just down the road from us, and it’s far from the only out-of-town NFL venue in Phoenix. So why no Diamondbacks establishments? Maybe we’re just too new here: the Red Sox have over a century of history (if you include their time as the Boston Americans), and so people have born and grown-up with the team. If you have just reached legal drinking age now, you’d only have been 12 when the Arizona franchise began, so it’ll probably take a decade or two more for a “true” Diamondbacks venue to open up, as the generation of fans who have never known a time when there wasn’t a team, requires the ability to enjoy a cold beverage with their viewing.

Haha! Score one for the SnakePit. Mrs. SnakePit and I mock each other (in a gentle, loving fashion, of course) - she for the amount of time I spend blogging, me for the amount of time she spends on MySpace. However, last night, she got a very nasty infection from a malware video codec there, which locked her home-page at a site called asafetyproject.com [do NOT go there, folks], created fake security warnings which popped up every 30 seconds and blocked her access to sites which might help cure it. Took me 90 minutes to get things back to normal (I hope), and a very humbled Mrs. SnakePit promises to be a lot more careful in future. [In case anyone is Googling and finds this page, the instructions to delete it are here]

Not often an umpire gets more press than the players, but the one who’ll be involved in today’s game against the Cubs has certainly been getting her fair share of column inches. Yes, you read that right - and that explains the coverage. One member of the crew will be Ria Cortesio, the first female umpire in a major league exhibition game since 1989. She’s a regular Double-A umpire, and could be calling Triple-A games by the end of the season, since this will be her ninth year of work. Said Derrek Lee, “It’s awesome. I think it’s about time. Female eyes are as good as male eyes. Why can’t they be umpires? Good for her.”

You go, girl. All the best with that, and Lee is absolutely spot on. It might pose some interesting challenges though: I presume she gets a different locker-room from the other umpires for a start. And can you imagine someone like Lou Pinella getting up in her face in quite the same way? Screaming abuse at a male umpire, well, that’s just part of the sport, but somehow, doing so to one of the fairer sex just seems…wrong, somehow. Maybe it’s just my chivalric nature, but personally, I’d be reduced to politely enquiring: “Er, madam: I really don’t think that was strike three. Would you mind terribly implementing the zone, as described in the official rules? Thanks.”

No word on what Keith Hernandez thinks of this, given his comments that women “don’t belong in the dugout.” But he’s probably too busy hunting mammoths to have noticed. Speaking of Hernandez, I was actually interested in picking up the copy of the book currently advertised in our sidebar - until I saw the endorsement by him. Somehow, it doesn’t seem appealing any more: the words “Hernandez” and “watching baseball smarter”, go together about as well as “Jason Grimsley” and “Just Say No”. Hey, guess you take your endorsements where you can get them. Oh, look: it’s a kitten:

That’s a split-squad game, and very likely the other half will get much more of the attention because, a) it’s at Chase Field tonight, and b) Randy Johnson will be taking the mound. It’s the next step in his return to health, and will no doubt be viewed with a great deal of interest. The crowd for this game will certainly be much bigger than the few dozen who watched the B-game which was his last appearance. Admittedly, the attendees will largely be there because these Chase games are included in the season ticket packages. They were picked #82 and #83 in our draft - though we didn’t know at the time RJ would be starting!

Dustin Nippert stopped the run of sucky performances by potential #5 candidates. He pitched six scoreless innings and combined with three relievers on a seven-hitter, as we blanked the White Sox 8-0. Nippert gave up four singles and two walks in five innings, striking out one, bringing his spring ERA down to 2.30. However, in today’s Republic, Nick Piecoro says Nippert “still is considered a long shot for the fifth starter’s role.” If not he, then who? The acquisition of outfielder Jeff Salazar, off waivers from the Rockies, might play into the decision. I believe he occupies the final spot on the 40-man roster: Micah Owings is not on it, so if he were the pitcher, he’d need to be added - and someone else dropped. That seems to indicate he won’t be the #5, but if not him or Nippert, then who?

TIme to ask SnakePit readers, so we’ve got a a quick, temporary poll up, to see who we reckon should be the #5 for the 3-4 starts before Johnson is ready to come back. This one will only last until the “actual” choice is revealed by Bob Melvin. We’ll then revert to the “How Many Wins?” poll until the first pitch is thrown.

Elsewhere in yesterday’s game, Pena looked good, allowing just a triple to Thome over two innings; Slaten teetered, loading them up in the eighth, before Elliott pitched a perfect ninth. Offensively, Tony Clark was 2-for-2 with 3 RBI, and his replacement, Chris Carter also had a pair of hits. Chris Young batted leadoff, and had a hit and a walk, which was good to see. We had nine free passes overall, thanks mostly to Sox starter Danks, giving us six in 4.2 innings.

Worth mentioning more about Salazar, released by the Rockies (who prefer Steve Finley. Snicker), picked up by AZ and optioned down to Tucson. The consensus appears to be this is a defense in case Dave Krynzel gets sniped when he goes through waivers - which will likely be necessary when Jeff DaVanon comes back. Salazar batted .265 with 9 homers in 85 games for the Colorado Triple-A team (.790 OPS), and a little better in nineteen late games for the big-league club (.274/.371/.448 = .819 OPS). I’m not sure what the point is of us apparently stock-piling outfielders - see also Alex Romero - but maybe we’ll see what we need, then trade the excess for pitching?

Last, but certainly not least, to borrow a line from another great film: there’s movement all over the place! Yes, there’s a veritable torrent of activity on the D-backs blog front, with the arrival of The Listening, Quintero’s entry. He says he’s only going to update it a couple of times a week, but I’ll take that. Please check him out, and also Zephon’s ramblings: it’s interesting to see the different personalities the new sites have. It’s almost like the glorious days of July 2004 when Random Fandom’s Stefan could write a piece comparing D-backs bloggers to Scooby-Doo characters.

That’s right.  I was interviewed for several minutes on the AZSportsHub.com podcast.  I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a great interview.  I don’t have a lot of experience in it.  The good thing is that I love talking about the Suns!  Take a listen and check out AZ Sports Hub for more […]