Phoenix.BloggersPub

Record: 31-25. Pace: 90-72. Change on last season: -2

One hour, fifty-two minutes. That was the first sub-two hour game in over a year [April 22, 2007, a 2-1 loss against the Giants, took 1:56], the shortest Diamondbacks contest since August 25, 2004, when Josh Fogg beat Randy Johnson 2-1 in Pittsburgh, in a game which took a phenomenally crisp 1:47, and was also the shortest ever in Chase Field history. It kinda renders the early, 5:10 pm start somewhat redundant, when the game itself is over in less time than the average Michael Bay movie.

But, what it lacked in duration, it more than made up for in a great pitching performance by Brandon Webb, who threw his second complete game of the year and his first shutout since the 42-game inning streak last season. 113 pitches; six hits, all singles; no walks; eight strikeouts - only three Nationals got past first base, and two of those had to steal second to get there. After a very wobbly outing last time out, this was the Brandon Webb we wanted…no, make that needed to see, and he became the first major-league pitcher to hit double-figures in wins. The five-game losing streak was ended, and if May will remain eminently forgettable, at least we ended it on a high note, bringing our lead over the Dodgers back to 3.5 games.

The offense was…well, I guess you can’t complain about hitting four homers in a game, but they were all solo shots, and from what I see, we didn’t get anyone past first-base either. Can’t be many times that a team scores four runs, and doesn’t get a single at-bat with runners in scoring position! Instead, we relied on the long-ball: Mark Reynolds had two of those solo homers, both monsters in one dimension or another. The first, which broke a scoreless tie in the second, was over by the Fatburger sign in deep left, and estimated at 450 feet. We’ll wait for the more accurate assessment out of HitTracker.com, but it didn’t feel very much shorter than his April 7th blast to the same area, which was measured at 463 feet. His second only reached the front row of the bleachers in left, but felt like it went 450 feet straight up. They both counted exactly the same though.

That one was immediately preceded by Justin Upton launching his eighth of the year, and Chris Young, not be outdone, re-took the team lead in homers [Reynolds had matched him on eleven] during the eighth, homering onto the porch in left-center for his twelfth of the season. Outside of the long-ball, there wasn’t much to offer: singles from Drew, Hudson and Webb, and no walks, though as we only had 30 plate-appearances, chances were somewhat limited. Bergmann posed questions which proved tricky to handle for most of our line-up, outside of those homers. Helped by the pitcher-friendly Angel Hernandez behind the plate [”If it didn’t bounce on its way here, it’s a strike”], the two hurlers combined for 16 K’s and no walks, which also contributed to the swift page.

Couple of other points to note. Bob Melvin called a closed-door clubhouse meeting before the game. Hard to say if it had much effect, as we scored four or less for the seventh game in a row. [Still well short of the franchise record of 15, which we did most recently last May] Stephen Drew batted leadoff, for the first time this season - I’d kinda forgotten, but he was actually our regular in that spot at the start of last season. Jackson And, I have to say, Mark Reynolds’ diving sprawl to take a bloop hit away from Dmitri ‘The Meathook’ Young, leading off the ninth, was an almost certain nominee for play of the year. Of course, the infield needed to be on their feet the entire game: only three outs were recorded by Webb on fly-balls, with sixteen groundballs and the eight K’s, No problems on that front today, I’m pleased to report.

[Click to enlarge, in new window]
Master of his domain: Brandon Webb, +53.3%
Honorary mention: Mark Reynolds, +15.5%
God-emperor of suck: Chris Young, -9.4%

A thoroughly-enjoyable Gameday Thread, helped both by Webb’s great performance, and this month’s selection from the Beers of the Month Club, a birthday present for which I have to thank Mrs. SnakePit. [She was out this afternoon, because her mother demanded a picture of St. Jude, patron saint of hopeless causes, so she could sent it to the Globe, because they ran a cover story about Patrick Swayze being on his death-bed. These things are not apparently easy to find.] A fairly light turnout, but I had a lot of fun, so thanks to those who turned out: soco, Muu, unnamedDBacksfan, DbacksSkins, UofAZGrad, TwinnerA, hotclaws, luckycc, Wimb, Ridster09, RAMJB, UptonMVP and Zephon.

Looks like we will be without Conor Jackson for a couple of days. He strained his quadriceps trying to avoid a pitch during Friday’s game; it’s apparently something he has had problems with earlier in the season, and was aggravated as a result of this game. He had an MRI, but hopefully, it won’t be enough to take him out for long: According to Melvin, “He’s been playing with it, but it was hurting him significantly enough where he needed to come out. We were thinking last night and earlier today that maybe [he’ll be out] a couple days, but we’ll see what the MRI has to say. Our feeling still is that this will just be something that will keep him out for a couple of days.” At least with Tracy, we have coverage there, and Chad made a couple of very nice plays at first today.

Not much more to add, for the moment. I have to do a review of the month, but I don’t know if that will be tonight (unlikely), tomorrow morning (marginal), or tomorrow evening (probably most likely). In the meantime, here’s the poll for Diamondbacks’ Player of the Month for May.

Jay Bergmann RHP, 1-1, 4.50

Brandon Webb RHP, 9-2, 3.01

Baseball-Reference.com preview [opens in new window]

I was going to boycott this game today, because of the sorry excuse for an offense that we’ve been sending out there of late: “Show me why you deserve my support,” was going to be the thrust of today’s commentary, as I vowed not to witness another pitch of Diamondbacks baseball until they won. But then, I realized that today was a Brandon Webb start, which are always worth watching, and we already have our tickets for Sunday’s game - which kinda makes the concept of a boycott this weekend rather silly. “I wish I knew how to quit you,” to quote a certain film which, I want to stress, I haven’t actually seen. But maintaining the cinematic theme, here is today’s text, from the Book of Finch, Chapter 77:

I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad! You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do.

For I’ve had it, up to here, with men stranded on third, and double-plays, and three-run homers by the weakest slap-hitter on the opposing team. I have had enough pop-ups on the infield, and more than enough swinging wildly at pitches that are a greater threat to aircraft taking off from Sky Harbor, than the strike-zone. I want no booted grounders, wild pickoff throws or mis-played balls to the outfield. This team is better than that, as they showed throughout the entire month of April. It’s the last chance to make a statement in May: let that statement be, “Enough, already. With or without Eric Byrnes and his torn hamsters, we are the division champions and, dammit, we will be again.”

I will be occupying the living-room, with a large selection of beer, enough chilli-lime pork rinds to securely pack a TV set for transport, and intend to get thoroughly drunk during this one. The comments which result from this end, will thus likely get steadily less incisive, but probably more politically incorrect as the game wears on. Tonight’s Gameday Thread is thus rated R for potentially strong language, ferocious alcohol consumption and extreme violence against, we hope, Nationals pitching. Let’s go, D-backs!

The Diamondbacks scouting department are in full swing preparing for this year’s draft, which takes place on Thursday. It’s just like the week before Christmas! Ok, it’s probably a little harder to get excited about the upcoming draft this season, what with the Diamondbacks having the 26th pick in the first round. It’s our lowest pick since 2002, when we went 27th, and ended up with…er, Sergio Santos. If that’s the kind of player we can look forward to, it’s understandable that Arizona fans are not quite rampaging through the streets in wild anticipation.

That said, it’s still always of interest, and there are players selected outside the first round, who can still make an impact. You need look no further than second-base for the Diamondbacks; Orlando Hudson was selected with the 1,280th pick of the 1997 draft, by the Toronto Blue Jays in their 43rd-round choice. And, of course, Brandon Webb went to us in the eighth-round of the 2000 draft, behind such stellar prospects as…oh, what the heck, here are the results of the opening cycles for Arizona that year, together with where they are now.

1. No pick
2. #69 Michael Schultz [Hiroshima Carp]
3. #99 Bill White [Texas AAA]
4. #129 Josh Kroeger [Cubs AAA]
5. #159 Brad Cresse [no longer playing]
6. #189 Robert Barber [no longer playing]
7. #219 Tim Olson [no longer playing]
8. #249 Brandon Webb [’nuff said]

Of the six players chosen ahead of him, four did make it to the show, but none are currently active on a major-league roster, had 100 at-bats or even pitched ten innings in the big leagues. So, you can over-focus on the first round, even though we won’t know for several years which, if any, of the lower picks will pan out. But that’s where the money and the glamor can be found. The consensus has the #1 pick this year being either Tim Beckham, a high-school shortstop out of Georgia, or Pedro Alvarez, a 3rd-baseman who plays for Vanderbilt. Both men will, of course, be long gone before the count winds its way down to Arizona.

Over at Baseball America, Jim Callis predicted the first round a couple of weeks back. He had us selecting Gerrit Cole, describing the pitcher as “a high school version of Max Scherzer.” Both are fireballing arms advised by the Scott Boras, though the risk involved in choosing such a pick has significantly reduced since the days of, say, Stephem Drew and his last-minute contract. Now, if you fail to sign your first-round pick, you’ll get an almost-identical compensation pick the following year. I amn’t sure if there are rules against teams deliberately punting their pick in a weak year, in hopes of landing a better player the following season.

John Sickel’s mock draft at Minor-League Ball had us picking SS Anthony Hewitt, though Callis recently described him as the most-overhyped prospect, maybe worth a supplemental pick at best. Actually. Arizona does have one of those as well, getting a bonus choice between the first and second rounds, at #43, as compensation for the Twins signing Hernandez 2.0 as a free-agent. He was a Type B free-agent; you get more for players ranked as Type A, and if we lose Hudson and Brandon Lyon after this year, I am hopeful that both will be so regarded, leading to a real bonanza for Arizona in the 2009 draft. We could possibly have five picks in the top fifty, depending on how things shake out.

It’s always nice to have these bonus babies, though our track record in the supplemental round has been less than stellar to date. We got Mr. Jenny Finch, Casey Daigle, with the #31 pick back in 1999, and that’s the only Diamondbacks’ player you’ve ever heard of, who came from those slots. In 2005 and 2006, we got Matt Torra and Brooks Brown,  who are both now pitching in Double-A Mobile, with ERAs of 2.45 and 3.77 respective. Last year, we had two: Wes Roemer and Ed Easley. Roemer has a 5.12 ERA at High-A Visalia, while Easley works behind the plate there, and has a .267 average.

It’ll be interesting to see whether the Diamondbacks go for more position players this year. Maybe someone like David Cooper, whom the Major League Jerk mock draft has us taking, calling him “One of the better pure power hitters in the class.” On the other hand, the past couple of seasons we have concentrated heavily on pitchers. 2007 saw five of our first seven choices being hurlers, and it was even more arm-heavy in 2006, where they went for six of the first seven, and eleven of thirteen. J-Up was the last time we used a first-round pick on a position player, back in 2005. However, Dana Eveland, Greg Smith and Brett Anderson, all part of the Haren trade, cleared out the ranks of southpaw pitching significantly, and it may be that the bias towards pitching will continue.

Greg Pappas thinks so, predicting us to choose Kyle Lobstein, a left-handed pitcher and an Arizona kid, out of Coconino High in Flagstaff. Keith Law over on ESPN Insider concurs, albeit with a different pitcher: Tim Melville That seems unlikely to me, simply because high-school pitchers are basically the baseball equivalent of Schrodinger’s Cat: until you open up the box and look inside, you’ve no idea what you are going to get. That’s probably true of the draft in general, but when you look at the current Diamondbacks roster, the importance of the event becomes clear. Between our starting lineup and the rotation, the majority (five position players and two starting pitchers) are a direct product of selections in the draft by Arizona.

All thoughts on the draft are welcome over the days to come, and details of our draft picks will follow on Thursday.

Another finals without the Suns and it looks like our shot at that glory has passed us by. The Suns will surely enter next season as a second tier team fighting for scraps place behind the resurgent Lakers and the upstart Hornets and Jazz. Consolation can be found in the Spurs riding the slide with us back to mediocrity .

Of course, hope can also be found in the two teams left standing. Both ended last season with dim prospects and both hit the NBA trade machine lottery to instantly propel them back to this match-up made in Stern’s dreams.

Maybe Kerr can work out a deal that sends Diaw to the Knicks in return for their spot in the Eastern Conference.

As for the two finalists, it should be a great battle. Kobe and Phil against KG and Pierce.

Certainly it’s understandable why the Lakers are the favorite with the greatest player on the planet and the Celtics haven’t exactly impressed with their ability to score the ball consistently. Ray Allen’s performance has cut the Big Three down by a third.

Despite that, I think the C’s match-up well with Pierce giving Kobe some trouble on both ends and KG able to man up Gasol.

Where this one gets most interesting is the Odom/Perkins duel. The Celtics with KP followed by Powe and Davis are huge up front and the Lakers don’t have an answer. If Doc can take advantage of that size on the glass and in the low post while still preventing the Lakers from running too much they have a shot.

Jax knows this of course, and is going to use what he learned from Mike D’Antoni and run the crap out of the ball and use his smaller, faster lineups to turn this into a track meet.

The only chance Boston has is if they can get 25 ppg out of the Perkins/Powe/Davis combo and keep Odom in foul trouble and absolutely dominate on the boards. If Doc Rivers is able to force DJ Mbenga on to the floor then things are looking up for the Bean Towner’s.

Lakers in 6 to cap off a very painful season for Suns fans.

Record: 30-25. Pace: 89-73. Change on last season: -2

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:  That one hurt. In the first two games, we were never really in them, so the defeat was more inevitable than anything too disturbing or shocking. This one, however, was looking pretty good into the seventh inning, as we kept the game even, and Micah Owings continued to make his case for being the best number three starter in the continental U.S.  (take that Shaun Marcum – USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!).  But then it got worse…

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if the front six innings were stellar baseball.  But I was honestly beginning to geek myself up with the hope that my first ever Snakepit recap would be about the Diamondbacks finally snapping their four-game losing streak.  The defense may have been a bit shaky:  in the second inning Chris Young misplayed a shallow pop-up into a single that turned into one of two runs and four innings later Orlando Hudson joined him by botching two ground balls that allowed Christan Guzman to score on a sac fly.  The offense may have underwhelmed us: in the fifth inning they managed to load the bases with one out and score only one run – over all they managed two solo home runs, four singles, five walks and only four runs.  But by god, this game had promise.

The offense and defense were only supposed to be footnotes in this recap, because for six innings Micah was outstanding.  Owings started off the game allowing only five hits (three of which should have been outs), no walks, six strikeouts and one hit batsmen.  He announced his presence with authority as he attacked the strike zone throwing only 66 pitches through the first six innings.  With the bat in his hand he finally broke his out of his 0-11 slide as he drew a walk and contributed a rally-extending single.  The stars looked to be aligning themselves to give this team an emotional victory off of a dominant starting pitching performance and just enough offense.  Then the seventh inning came and the wheels fell off for Owings…

After inducing a fly-out, Owings hit his second batter of the game.  Another single put runners on and first and second returned doubt to the newly tied game.  Then, in a feat of game-altering improbability not seen since July 24, 2005, Wee Willie Harris hit a three-run home run to blow the game open and assure all the Diamondbacks fans watching the game that no, this would not be the night the streak comes to an end.  Ladies and gentleman that is not a typo.  Willie Harris, he with the career OPS+ of 68, he with the .169/.300/.305 batting line coming into tonight’s game, and he with all of eight home runs in 1302 career at bats took Micah Owings long with a three run homer that put the final dagger into this team’s heart.

If you continued watching the game after that point, I commend you, but I wouldn’t blame you if you turned the t.v. off.  Nevertheless, there were at least some positives.  Tracy got a couple hits and his first home run of the season, Hudson continues his offensive tear and Scherzer pitched a dominant inning and two-thirds before struggling some.  While the team was only down two runs in the bottom of the ninth, one could not help but get the feeling that Melvin was already conceding the game.  In that inning Max allowed a walk, a ground out, a single and another walk to load the bases.  37 pitches had been thrown, but there was nary a rustle to be heard from the left field bullpen.  While Scherzer managed to work out of the inning allowing only one run (his first run allowed as a reliever this season), the fight was gone as the team went down in order in the ninth.

The positives are becoming harder to find and I know that there are many that went to jump of the bus, but I just want to remind you that it could be worse.  Specifically, we could have last year’s offense.  This team’s  107 OPS+ is thirteen points higher than last year’s 93 OPS+.  Moreover, as hard as it may be to believe, this team has still been rather fortuitous hitting with runners in scoring position; the team’s OPS is 14 percent higher with RISP than with base empty.  Hard as it may be to believe at the moment, this team can and will score more runs. 

The true difference between this year and last is luck.  As Jim has noted, this team has yet to win a game scoring three runs or less.  In 2007, we won 16 such games.  That was with a worse pitching staff and a defense that was only marginally better.  I know it was cliché here last year to bag on the predictive powers of Pythagoras, but what we’re looking at here is good old-fashioned regression to the mean.  The 2007 Diamondbacks that “just knew how to win” were a fluke.  If we want to do the same this year we’ll have to it the old fashioned way – by hitting more and allowing fewer runs.  Hopefully, that comes sooner rather than later.

Of course, when you combine a lackluster game with a Friday night the net result is one of the shorter Gameday threads of the season.  I’ll leave it to Jim to fill out the names, but there wasn’t much of conversation of interest to be found.  Tomorrow sees us send Brandon Webb (9-2, 3.01) to the mound to face Jason Bergman (1-1 4.50).  Normally this would be seen as a dawn’s first ray of hope, but I have to admit that it’s even getting difficult for me to get all that enthused.  If you are going to the game (and why wouldn’t you?) remember that it’s a 5:10 start.  You’ll also be able to see the first use of the new Chase Field weekend roof management plan.  Apparently they plan to close the roof for the beginning of the game and open it three innings later once the sun has gone down.  It seems like a reasonable compromise to fight the hot, desert sun, but more importantly, who doesn’t enjoy watching the roof open and close?  At the very least, it will provide a nice distraction from the performance on the field.

I know we’ve touched on this one in various ways in various threads, but I wanted to consider it explicitly, in one place, all at once.

As we all know, the Suns were dispatched relatively easily by the Spurs in the first round. Then the Spurs were dispatched relatively easily by the Lakers in the conference finals.

Now, I know that some would dispute the “relatively easily” characterization in both cases. Many of the games in both series were very competitive. But a 4-1 series loss is a 4-1 series loss. To me, it looked like there was a decent-sized gap between the Lakers and the Spurs, and another decent-sized gap between the Spurs and the Suns. The Suns’ first-round out feels about right to me, given the competition in the Western Conference.

So, what about next year? No one in their right mind will pick the Suns to win the title. But I don’t think you can even call them contenders any more. Neither does Johnny Ludden. He thinks the Spurs might have another run or two left in them, but he looks to LA, Utah, Portland, and New Orleans as the future of the conference.

For the first time in years, Phoenix isn’t part of the conversation.

I don’t think they should be, either. If you ask me, the window is shut, and the Suns are no longer relevant when we start talking about prospective NBA champions.