Phoenix.BloggersPub

Tim Hudson (31, RHP, 10-5, 3.24)

Livan Hernandez (32, RHP, 6-6, 4.59)

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Not going to be around much for the next couple of days. As it’s Mrs. SnakePit’s birthday, we’re off to Las Vegas for a couple of days: though I’m taking the laptop, opportunities to blog may be somewhat limited, shall we say! There’s no game tomorrow, so that won’t be an issue, and I should be back in time to post Tuesday night’s Gameday Thread. Not sure if I’ll have the chance to post a Fantasy Baseball report this week, but I’m sure you will cope, somehow…

We’ll try to run our winning streak to nine today, though Hudson is a tough pitcher to face. He’s only allowed four earned runs over his past three starts, covering 22.2 innings. But I can’t say more, as Mrs. SnakePit is making tremulous, “we’re gonna be late”, airport-related sounds in the background, so I guess I’d better go and pack my suitcase. I leave the winning streak in your capable hands, and look forward to seeing it intact when I arrive in Vegas!

Record: 58-48. Change on last season: +4. Pace: 89-73
Playoff odds: 29.9%. Playoff Magic Number: 58

Quote of the day: “Asked if Jackson’s hit gives him membership in the “Walk-off Club,” Young, who has two walk-off homers this year, shook his head. “If anybody else would have done it…” he said. “But just ’cause it’s Conor, I don’t think we’re going to let him in. That doesn’t count yet.” — Ar izona Republic

Just another win on the final at-bat of the game. That’s eight this year, in only 53 home games: we’re already just one short of the franchise record of nine, set in 1999 [Including ones by the likes of Dante Powell, Hanley Frias and Andy Fox…] Mind you, I’m not sure my heart can stand much more of this: I think I preferred the comfortable blowouts seen early on in the Marlins series!

Doug Davis hit his mark again: he’s 5-for-5 in quality starts this month, with an ERA of 3.58, and opponents are only hitting .212 off him. walks are still a bit high, at 18 in 32.2 innings, but he has been better there lately too, with only five over the last 13.2 innings. Last night was Exhibit A in why this is a good thing: all three walks came in the fourth frame, when all three Atlanta runs scored - the first two having reached base on balls. Outside that frame, Davis was excellent, giving us seven innings on a day when our bullpen really needed it, and throwing 122 pitches, the most by a non-Livan Diamondbacks in more than a year [since Batista threw 125 on July 1st last season]

Arizona got off to a good start, Young homering to lead off the bottom of the first. While it seems kinda wasteful to have our best home-run hitter this year batting at the top of the order, you can’t argue with the results: as fjm235 pointed out in the GameDay thread, he’s batting .293 there, compared to .198 everywhere else. That was his 18th long-ball, tying Ryan Braun for the most in the majors by a rookie. He’s been incendiary this homestand too, going 10-for-24 with three homers.

Arizona tacked on two more in the third: our old friend, Mr. Sac. Fly, pushed the first across, courtesy of Eric Byrnes, while Conor Jackson thumped one to the outfield wall, for another RBI. CoJack is another one who seems to be finding his feet better, hitting .318 since the All-Star Break, with 9 RBI. However, that was it for the offense until the bottom of the tenth, when Jackson responded in the best possible way to the Braves intentionally-walking Byrnes ahead of him. He delivered the game-winning hit, that extended the winning streak to eight consecutive games.

At the risk of sounding like a scratched record [those under 30: ask your parents], the bullpen were again brilliant. Tony Peña struck out three in two scoreless innings, and has got his ERA down below two now. Opponents are now batting just .185 off him this season. And Juan Cruz pitched an immaculate tenth, striking out two, with the Braves only touching two of thirteen pitches - one foul, the other a groundout. That gave him his fifth win of the year, and I was pleased to see this one end after ten, as the other members of the pen got a much-needed rest.

The end result of this one was another mob pile-up at home-plate: while I can understand the enthusiasm, am I the only one to be a bit concerned by these? You don’t have to go far to find examples of the potential for disaster there. Just ask Bill Gramatica, kicker for the Cardinals, who nailed a field-goal [not even a playoff game, a game-winning score, or even a long attempt - a first-half, 42-yarder, to put his team 3-0 up], jumped up in the air to celebrate…and tore his ACL on landing, missing the rest of the season. To add insult to injury, the Cardinals lost, 17-13. Also in Phoenix, I believe that after Kevin Johnson of the Suns got a game-winning basket, an over-exuberant hug from Charles Barkley dislocated his shoulder and benched him for two weeks.

Typically, you have to turn to football - oh, alright, dammit: soccer - for the most impressive cases. In 1993, Arsenal captain Tony Adams tried to pick up team-mate Steve Morrow (now head coach of FC Dallas in the MLS), but dropped him, breaking his shoulder. And in December 2004, Swiss football player Paulo Diogo of Servette, while celebrating a goal scored by someone else, climbed a fence round the pitch, got his wedding-ring caught, and ripped his finger off. Indeed, Turkish doctors made a study, and concluded that a surprisingly high 6% of game-related injuries came about as the result of celebrations. Specifically:

Mark Grace, both Thursday and today, commented disapprovingly on the mosh-pit seen at home-plate. While I can’t condemn the obvious and genuine delight, especially during the winning-streak we’ve seen of late, I’d be happier if it didn’t take the form of an accident waiting to happen. It would really suck, having fought our way back into the playoff picture, for the season to be derailed by, say, Eric Byrnes wrenching an ankle as he hurtled down the dugoff steps to escape a mauling by his team-mates. Heck, if I was on the roster, I’d almost rather ground out harmlessly to the second-baseman than get a walk-off hit: less painful that way!

LucaMaz3, johngordonma, VIII, fjm235, hotclaws, Ridster, the newly paternal andrewinnewyork, seton hall snake pit, MFAN, oklahomasooners, DiamondbacksWIn, Muu, icecoldmo, AZDarkKnight and azdb7 were present in an exuberant Gameday Thread. It was a good result, especially since the game was televised nationally: beating a team with a winning record like Braves, in front of a wide audience, will probably lift the D-backs’ profice significantly. And the Dodgers and Padres both lost, giving us a 1.5 game lead in the wild-card, and tying us with LA for the division lead. With both teams losing key members of their pitching staff (Chris Young’s loss could be devastating for the Padres - I’m glad we won’t have to face him in the upcoming series), and Arizona playing the best baseball of anyone in the majors recently, the next week will be very interesting…

Gameday Graph

[Click graph to enlarge, in new window]
Master of his domain: Conor Jackson, +32.2%
God-emperor of suck: Stephen Drew, -12.3%
Honorary “Well done!”: Tony Peña, +25.3%

Summer, according to the Dictionary, is the season between spring and autumn, or in basketball terms, simply the off-season. Since the end of play last June we had the Draft, some free agents signings, the betting scandal (Did you really had to mention it on your first Suns column?) and as usual plenty of rumors, that - as […]

Well, that went about as well as could be expected, didn’t it? Last week, the Diamondbacks had struggled their way through Milwaukee, and had split the first two games in Wrigley Field. If you’d come up to me and offered a bet that Arizona would reel off seven straight after that, I would have wagered […]

Living Legends alum Murs put out one of my favorite records last year with his Murray’s Revenge. He’s since signed with Warner Bros. (weird, right?) and is preparing to release, just in time for the election season, Murs for President.
His management company has posted the first single, Dreadlocks, a track about, uh, yeah, dreadlocks. Like […]

All right sports fans, let’s see what you got. You love the Cards? You want to support this team? You want to show everyone else out there in the rest of the country that Cards fans are the best, and most loyal fans in the entire NFL? Well, here’s your chance!!
I […]

AZCentral.com has provided fans with a short list of the dos and don’ts for all of those making the trek up to Flagstaff to see the Arizona Cardinals in action, so here you go:
Players reported Friday and will be put through a conditioning test at 2 p.m. on Saturday. The first practice is from 1 […]

John Smoltz (40, RHP, 10-5, 2.78)

Doug Davis (31, LHP, 7-10, 4.13)

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Should be tough today, with Smoltz enjoying a good season. Davis will need to control his walks if we’re going to stay in this one. No time to write more, as it’s just about under way, but I should be around to comment, if you care to join me. Today’s poll is on the Hairston trade: good, bad or meh?

Record: 57-48. Change on last season: +3. Pace: 88-74
Playoff odds: 24.2%. Playoff Magic Number: 59

Quote of the day: “I’m just simply thankful that I was able to make a contribution tonight… To be that winning run is something that you enjoy.” — Tony Clark

To lose last night’s game would have been a disaster. We had it sewn up in the second, with a win-expectancy of almost 94%, and it got as high as 98.2%, after Brian McCann flew out to start the fifth. However, Arizona blew a 7-0 lead, and it seemed like we were doing anything in our power to throw this one away. Load the bases in the seventh with nobody out and fail to score? Check. Let the tying run take second base in the ninth, while Papa Grande adjusts his socks? Check. Floating, bloop single that couldn’t have split our fielders better if had been placed by hand? Check. We were clearly fated not to win this one. Drive a stake through the heart of that winning streak, ‘cos this one’s over.

Not so fast. Not with Tony Clark around. He did what he does best: come off the bench and deliver a clutch hit, in this case a walk-off, game winning homer with no outs in the bottom of the eleventh to extend that streak to seven victories in a row. I’ve been tough on Clark this year, but have to say, that one hit makes up for a lot of strikeouts with runners in scoring position. It was a stunning turnaround, as Arizona for the second day in a row, won a game they really didn’t deserve to win. Well, after the second inning, anyway.

We scored six times there, with Drew and Byrnes each smacking two-run homers, and Hudson adding a two-run double. And things looked even better by the end of the fourth, as Young hit his seventeenth homer of the year, to once again pass Byrnes for the team lead. With Petit pitching a no-hitter at this point, I felt this one was safe and turned my presence back to Mrs. SnakePit’s party. Even after Atlanta scored two runs in the fifth, we still had a comfortable lead. What could possibly go wrong?

However, the game once again had my full attention in the seventh. Beaver Las Vagas [sic - he’s a heel manager in IZW] tapped me on the shoulder with a grim expression: “It’s 7-6.” The Thing That Wouldn’t Die, a.k.a. Julio ‘Methuselah’ Franco, hit the killer blow, a two-run double off Jose Cruz, which tagged Famine for the first run he’d allowed since July 2nd. Still, we retained the lead, and loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom of the seventh: surely we must score at least one insurance run? Not according to Reynolds, Snyder and Drew, who grounded out, K’d and grounded out to keep it a one-run game.

Lyon made sure it stayed like that with two shutout innings, and then we turned it over to Valverde. Game over, surely, and he got the first two hitters to ground out to our middle-infield. But then, with the Braves down to their final out, he walked Escobar who took second on what can only be described as defensive incompetence. Valverde was pottering around the mound, when Escobar took off, and Hudson must have been polishing his Gold Glove or something, because he simply watched the runner advance. A bloop single then followed, landing like a dying quail just beyond the despairing dive of Drew, and Valverde has his fourth blown save of the year.

When DaVanon was caught stealing in the bottom of the ninth, to end the inning, it seemed only a matter of time before Atlanta completed their comeback. However, they were forgetting Clark, and a huge amount of credit must also go to Edgar Gonzalez. He got a rare chance to pitch in a high-leverage situation, and responded brilliantly retiring all six hitters he faced in the ten and eleventh. Another lengthy outing for the bullpen: 5.1 innings this time, to tack on to the six from last night. This one wasn’t as brilliant - two earned runs on three hits, a walk and a hit batter - but the end result was still the same. Good job this finished, as only Slaten was still left to pitch.

Beaver and I exchanged high-fives, after a brutal final six innings of intense watching of the game. That was mostly out of the side of our eyes, to give the illusion of paying attention to the comedic part of Chris’s party, or by time-sharing the at-bats, alternating pitches and providing a running commentary [”Ball two, outside”] to the non-watcher. Kinda weird, and I feel somewhat guilty about it - but have you ever tried not watching a baseball game when it’s on? Nearly did have a heart-attack in the top of the tenth, as I saw a runner round third and head for home, before realising that was the Giants/Marlins game, and I was sneaking a peek at the wrong TV set…

Top of the order did well for Arizona, the first third of Young, Hudson and Brynes [sic] were 6-for-12 with three walks and five RBI. A bit quiet elsewhere: Carlos Quentin, back in the fold after hitting .415 during his Tucson stint, didn’t exactly set the world on fire in his first game back, going 0-for-4 with a strikeout and a caught stealing. Petit was fine through the front four innings, but wobbled in the fifth, and should probably have been removed from the game at that point, rather than wheeled out there for the sixth.

Good to see the return in the GameDay thread of some fans who’d recently been among the missing - wondered where you’d gone! That’s hotclaws, npineda, azdb7 and VIII in particular, who were joined by (more or less) regulars, AZDarkKnight, seton hall snake pit, LucaMaz3, singaporedbacksfan, Ridster, suitsmetoATnT, Muu, MFAN and kylerkenney. It’s an afternoon game today, so I should be able to see most of it - that’s a nice surprise, as I was expecting to miss it tonight.

Gameday Graph

[Click graph to enlarge, in new window]
Master of his domain: Tony Clark, +35.0%
God-emperor of suck: Jose Valverde, -18.8%
Honorary “Well done!”: Edgar Gonzalez, +28.6%

“Free Scott Hairston” has taken on an entirely new meaning today since, as noted, Scott Hairston was traded to the Padres for a minor-league reliever with a busted hand. Which pretty much sums up how highly the organization thought of him. He had continued to underwhelm, even when getting regular playing time in April, and with the imminent arrival of Upton, he basically had no future in the organization. A little weird to trade him to a divisional rival for nothing much; we could have traded him outside the division and lessened the chance of blowback. Again, that we didn’t care enough to do so, says a lot about how low his stock had sunk.

No Johnson for Arizona the rest of the year, as he’s having surgery next Friday, to re-repair the herniated disc in his back. The hope is, this early operation means he’ll be able to come back in time for a full session of Spring Training in 2008, and be ready to pitch again on Opening Day. Get well soon, Randy. Still, that sound you hear is loud sniggering coming from the Eastern sea-board. However, it does seem that earlier talk of his retirement was vastly exaggerated, since he says:

Looks like we won’t be seeing the names in the Grimsley case any time soon, the judge saying, “Disclosure at this time may compromise the government’s ongoing investigative efforts in several ways… The ongoing nature of the investigation is what drives this court’s decision.” That’s a bit disappointing, as I guess we will simply have to continue relying on innuendo and uninformed speculation, in the main. However, no such issue with regard to Donnie Sadler. Our career minor-leaguer, who had one at-bat with the team earlier in the season, has been suspended for 50 games “for testing positive for a drug of abuse in violation of the Minor League Drug Prevention and Treatment Program.” Enjoy your new career in Wal-Mart, Donnie. Though looking at his stats, .214 in 52 games for Tucson, with 2 HR, I’d be contacting my supplier about a refund for those ‘performance-enhancing’ pharmaceuticals.

GameDay Thread to follow immediately, since it’s a 12:55 start.