Phoenix.BloggersPub

        In a hot and humid day in San Diego, two teams following two separate paths met on a common axis: the Cy Young award winning pitching of Brandon Webb and Jake Peavy.  A quick glance of the box score would suggest a classic pitcher’s duel resulting in a 2-1 Arizona win, but a closer look reveals two excellent pitchers struggling with location but ultimately proving their worth in key moments.

        The Diamondbacks were the first to strike, taking advantage of Peavy’s nibbling of the strike zone and resulting walk in the top of the 2nd.  This was not wildly different from the 1st, when Chris Young got on base for the only time of the afternoon with a walk, but in 2nd it was Chris Snyder making the Friars pay by slamming a ball into deep center.

        Control continued to be a problem for both pitchers, but caught up to Webb in the bottom of the 4th after a walk and an error by the normally sure Orlando Hudson with no outs.  San Diego was able to capitalize on these mistakes with a sacrifice fly by Jim Edmonds, but this would be the end of scoring for both teams.

        The Padres knocked on the door twice, the first being in the 5th with a double by Peavy, attempting to help his own cause, and a Brian Giles walk.  They were advanced by a Paul McAnaulty grounder, and a walk by Adrian Gonzalez filled the bases.  Webb regained composure and struck out the next batter, Keven Kousmanoff, ending the threat.

        The very next offensive opportunity for the Padres was remarkably similar, with back to back singles by Khalil Greene and Tadahito Iguchi, and then a walk by Josh Bard, all with one out.  Webb, clearly gassed, gave his all and struck out Peavy before forcing a groundout from Giles.

        That was largely the end of the offensive displays from the two sides.  Arizona managed two on in the 7th with one out that was quickly wasted with a pop out by Snyder and a strike out by the pinch hitting Miguel Montero. 

    The offense wouldn’t be needed, though, with solid relief pitching by both sides.  Cruz came in and was lights out, followed by Pena who walked Greene, and then Lyon who closed the game for his seventh save of the season.

        Though there were scattered base runners at times, both pitchers made the plays when it counted, minus the two mistakes that resulted in runs for both sides.  Ultimately this match up could be considered a preview for this year’s Cy Young race, and both performed admirably given the circumstances.  Peavy, after battling through the early control issues, struck out nine Diamondbacks with three walks, and decreased his ERA to 2.09.  Webb might not have been as impressive in strikeouts, with five, and the control in the later innings was scary, walking four, but his ERA dropped to 1.98 after the outing.

        The FanGraph hasn’t updated yet, or maybe I can’t find the link to post the picture, but here’s a link to the site.

        At the end of the day, the Diamondbacks find themselves 18-7and 6 games up on the second place Dodgers, and ends the long line of 22 straight divisional games.  As Sutton and Grace have been known to preach the past month, you can’t win a division in April but you can certainly lose it.  The Diamondbacks have made a strong case as the favorite, and though we should preach patience and understanding for the inevitable slumps that the summer will bring, the boys in Sedona Red make it hard to be objective.

        The 6 game lead that Arizona isn’t just good enough to lead the NL West, but as large or nearly as large as what the other divisional leaders have with the bottom of their respective divisions.  The 148 runs scored are best in the majors, and the 93 allowed are second best, behind only Oakland.  This a team not only showcasing it’s dominating pitching, as was expected before the season began, but won with power (33 home runs, third in the majors), smart at bats for the most part (105 free base runners) and a resilient defense to back up the pitching.

        A quick game doesn’t facilitate a long gamethread, but it was long enough for an overflow a little over 100 comments strong.  Making appearances today were: soco, seton hall snake pit, mrssoco, snakecharmer, kishi, hotclaws, unnamedDBacksfan, DbacksSkins, SongBird, foulpole, azshadowwalker, dahlian, LucaMaz3, 4 Corners Fan, DiamondbacksWIn, Augie’s Army, paqs, Wimb, Stile4aly, singaporedbacksfan. 

        Tomorrow your Arizona Diamondbacks come home to take on the Houston Astros, who may or may not be the age listed in the media guide.  Jim should be back by then, so normal programming can continue, scab-free.

Good afternoon-evening, Snake Pitters! I hope everyone’s had a nice week, that the coming of spring is treating everyone and their allergies well. Personally, I was in snow last Sunday and today it’s pushing 85. Go figure.

The Diamondbacks followed a familiar pattern this week, starting Sunday against the Padres. Sunday’s loss was Round 1 of Randy vs Randy, with the former beating the latter . (Err.. yeah.) Randy Johnson gave up 6 runs and also struck out six, but the bullpen couldn’t keep the game close enough to stoke a comeback. The Dbacks had beaten the Padres pretty soundly on Friday and Saturday and, much like the weekend before, our opponents seem to get revenge on the third game of a series.

Monday and Tuesday were hard-fought wins against San Francisco in a quick two-game series. All of Arizona’s 4 runs on Monday came on the long ball, while the Giants managed to scratch only two across. Tuesday was a rematch of Very Good vs Very Poor (albeit rich), but this time Webb did not have his usual command and battle through 6 innings of work. He did, however, have two more two-out RBIs against Zito! Webb came around to score what would be the winning run in a 5-4 contest. Webb improved to 5-0, a career best start, and Zito fell to 0-5, a career worst start.

Arizona then traveled to the City of Dodgers to face the boys in blue. The Diamondbacks dropped the first game of the series and a struggling Dan Haren took his first loss of the season 8-3 . The Mad Scientist tweaked the lineup on Thursday, starting Salazar (for Byrnes’ leg problems) and Montero. Jeff rewarded his manager by mashing his first career non-pinch-hit home run off of a Billingsley hanging curve ball. The best part of the game, though, (aside from the 6-4 final score) was watching Jeff Kent get tossed out for arguing with the umpire over a play in the field that the umpire was totally right on.

Friday was Round 2 of Randy vs Randy, this time with the right Randy winning the matchup! (And tying their season series.) Randy Johnson looked like the Randy of Old, rather than Old Randy. His fastballs were in the mid 90s and his sliders were wicked, and he was even good in the field. The Diamondbacks scored 5 runs in the 3rd inning for a 5-1 win.

Let’s see, win win loss, win win loss, win win… loss. Yes, Saturday’s “nationally broadcast” game vs the Padres ended up in a loss. After falling behind 4-0 early, it could have been much worse, but Micah Owings (3 for 3) and the offense came back to go 7-7 into extra innings. Unfortunately, the Padres walked off on a home run in the 13th. Micah and Justin Upton both left the game due to minor injuries and are listed as day-to-day.

And guess what? Since I didn’t get this written until after the game today, I am happy to report that after the loss yesterday came a WIN today! (Following that pattern again?) Webb and Peavy both looked spectacular, with Peavy really only making one mistake on the home run to Chris Snyder, but Webb’s changeup and sinker were totally working today and got him out of several bases-loaded jams. Webb allowed one unearned run to Peavy’s two earned, and Webb goes to 6-0!

Notes

The biggest news of today is top prospect Max Scherzer’s promotion. As noted in Nick Piecoro’s blog, he is up to go into the bullpen, though there are worries about his development as a starter. Josh Byrnes is calling the situation “fluid”, which isn’t exactly reassuring to me. Further discussion here in this fanpost.

A couple of people on Friday noted Miguel Montero (recently called up with Alex Romero going back to Tucson) catching Randy Johnson as opposed to Robby Hammock. Bob Melvin says to expect it to happen more often, as he feels Miggy can learn from it. I appreciate BoMel putting his players into positions in which he feels they can excel, I like his vision for that.

• Pitching trio feeds off of each other - Discusses Webb, Haren and Owings pushing each other to do so well
• Another trio of Diamondbacks are battling the flu, other nicks and bruises
• Justin Upton read the Diamondbacks starting lineup for FOX on Saturday. This is worth a good chuckle or two. (Sadly, no video.)
• Justin Upton has been getting a lot of positive attention lately. Article by Nick Piecoro and from Yahoo’s Tim Brown

I’m sure there are things I missed, so post a fan shot (those are helpful to help me catch up ) or comment here! Until next week…

Dbacks 2, Padres 1, bottom of the 8th.

Keep it up, SnakePitters!! Let’s get Webby to 6-0!!