Phoenix.BloggersPub

Brandon Webb, RHP (1-1, 3.60)

Randy Wolf, LHP (3-2, 4.20)

The Dodgers finally squeaked past the Padres in the final game of their series, but it took them seventeen innings to do it, so their bullpen will be seriously depleted tonight. The LA starter, Wolf, has been remarkably consistent, throwing exactly six innings in each of his previous starts, but the Dodgers may want him to go deeper than that. It’s up to our hitters to stop that. This time, LA also get to face the front end of our rotation, rather than EdGon and an injured Pwnings, as when they swept us at Chase.

We’ll be hoping to reverse that trend, in the same way we did to the Giants, and got to feel optimistic about our chances tonight, Webb taking the mound and beginning to settle into solid mid-season form. A win tonight will take us atop the division; unlike yesterday, our fate is entirely in our own hands. If you’re interested seeing ourselves as other see us, good discussion over at Dodger Thoughts, in the comments section, where people talk about whether AZ is the “real deal”. The answer? Maybe…

Cornerback Michael Adams (5-8, 178) from Louisiana-Lafayette collected 40 tackles (24 solos), one interception, one sack and three passes defensed in 10 games last season while also returning nine punts for a 7.4 yard average. He appeared in 43 games during college for the Ragin’ Cajuns and collected 140 tackles (95 solos) and four interceptions. […]

Yesterday marked the end of the second home stand of the 2007 season for the Arizona Diamondbacks. As I previously promised I will try to provide a synopsis of each home stand. This will act as my own personal barometer of how the stadium, team, and season are going. Before we begin let me again reiterate the standard warning/disclaimer that the views expressed in this blog are my own personal views and do not represent the views of any factual person living or dead. Based on normal driving conditions your mileage may vary. Any rebroadcast of these thoughts and views without the express written consent of Major League Baseball and the Arizona Diamondbacks is ok because if you read this paragraph carefully you would have seen that these views don’t represent anyone’s thoughts but my own. See I knew you guys were not paying attention! Without further delay let me present the State of the Fan address for the home stand ending April 29.

Christmas is over and now it’s time to talk about what we got. The Cardinals ended up making only 5 draft selections in the 2007 draft. Here is what I gave the Arizona Cardinals for a draft grade and why I gave them this grade.
Draft Grade: B
First Round: OT Levi Brown, I’ve already gone over […]

Record: 15-11. Change on last season: +2. Pace: 93-79

Quote of the day: “I just wanted to make sure. I was trying to be the first person ever to get about five outs.” — Troy Tulowitski of the Rockies, on throwing to first after he completed the 13th unassisted triple-play in major-league history.

Yawn. Another day, another come-from-behind, one-run victory in which our closer left the tying run on base - third with one out here - in the bottom of the ninth. I’m beginning to get used to those now: I just hope the cardiac arrest holds off until the acclimatization has completed. Remember those 7-1 blowouts in the Washington series? Seems like they happened to another team - or in another season, at least. Since then, we’ve won eleven games: the biggest margin of victory is only three runs - and one of those still took twelve innings.

I suppose the big news was Randy Johnson’s second start being a great deal better than his first: Game Score of 52, compared to 34 last time. His control was significantly better, it seemed, with only one walk and no hit batters (four and two, respectively), and he pitched six innings, scattering seven hits and striking out five. Still not quite vintage Johnson, but as with all our starting pitchers, he kept us in the game. According to his “personal catcher”, Robby Hammock, there was a game-plan change, with fewer sliders and more splitters, but he was still spent after 95 pitches by the end of the sixth.

Meanwhile the offense had struggled to take advantage of a woeful Matt Morris, who had been hanging breaking balls throughout the first three innings. However, the D-backs charitably helped him out, by having one man thrown out at home and another caught stealing third. The point of taking such risks escapes me, when the opposing starting pitcher is having such a miserable time. And Morris fought through it until the seventh, when the Giants bullpen was slow getting up, and five straight D-backs reached with one out. Hudson’s ground-ball down the left-field line plated two, the key blow in the game.

The bullpen keep such a two-run lead? I don’t think so. Tony Peña brought San Franciso one run closer in the eighth, and with Valverde unavailable after pitching in three straight games, we turned to Brandon Lyon to get the close. A walk to the pinch-hitting Bazza, and two singles loaded the bases with one out, but he got Vizquel and Aurilia to pop-up, to escape in a truly Houdini-like fashion. As noted yesterday, Lyon has a habit of that: it’s now 18 base-runners in 11.1 innings, and only a single earned-run.

A whole bunch of multi-hit games to report: two each for Slots 1-4 in the order [Young, Drew, Hudson and Tracy], as well as Quentin in the seven-hole. It’s good to see some of these averages reaching decent levels: Young is above the Uecker line for only the second day this year, Drew is up to .264 (though he did make a pair of errors), and Tracy is now a very healthy .293, with an OPS of .874. Byrnes got the day off, as anticipated, and hopefully that’ll allow him to recharge his batteries.

And so, we sweep the Giants here, as they swept us there, and go one “better”; while their total margin of victory was four, all three of our win were by a single-run. Present in the thread were suitsmetoATnT, DBACKS KICK ARSE, unnamedDBacksfan, leemellon, VIII, Muu, singaporedbacksfan, peeklay, Goose, seton hall snake pit and Ben.

Gameday Graph

[Click graph to enlarge, in new window]
Master of his domain: Brandon Lyon, +16.9% [via -29% after he loaded the bases!]
God-emperor of suck: Robby Hammock, -16.3%

Five in a row, to match the five-game losing streak. We’re right back where we were after the first game in San Diego: four games above .500, and in second place, half a game behind the Dodgers. We may be without Jackson for a couple of days: he cut his index finger, getting spiked on a headlong slide into home plate in the second inning. X-rays were taken, but proved negative, though two stitches in the finger were required.

I really like the new Discovery channel show Man vs. Wild. The host is a former British SAS operator turned outdoor-crazy-survival-guy. And his name is Bear, so he has to be tough. The show is pretty amazing and his limey accent gives the program an unmistakable air of credibility. Plus he writes a blogspot blog, so he is definitely cool.

(AFP/Getty Images/Jed Jacobsohn)
I’m the superstitious sort of fan.  I think all of us are a little bit (hey, at least I’m not as superstitious as Vash!!).  So let’s not go and declare this series against the Lakers over yet.  Remember that the Suns were down 3-1 against the Lakers last year and somehow pulled out […]

Back cover of The Nightcap Serenade
I caught the tail end of Colorstore’s set the other night, and it reminded me to go MySpace digging to see what’s up with some of the better local bands. Robin Vining is always a busy man, taking part in both Colorstore and Sweet Bleeders. Turns out, he recently tackled […]

Tonight’s game was just… absolutely… and… well… wow. Speechlessness is really the only appropriate way to describe exactly how ridiculous Nash and Amare played tonight. Two players with absolutely insane nights, on the same night.
For those of you who didn’t catch the game, I suggest contemplating suicide if you don’t have the means to watch […]

I haven’t had any luck with Cusano cigars lately.