Phoenix.BloggersPub

David Bush RHP, 4-7, 4.94

Doug Davis LHP, 2-3, 3.68

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

There’s no place like home… After a 2-7 roadtrip, the Diamondbacks might be glad to get back to Chase, even though their record there of late has been close to the .500 mark. Still, we hardly have seen the home field at all in June: this will be only the eighth game of the month here. At least our players will get familiar again with Phoenix: after the home-stand comes the All-Star break, and we start the second half of the season at Chase too, so nobody - except perhaps Webb and Haren, who may be occupied in New York during the break - needs to go too far.

We dodge something of a bullet in this series, playing four games against the Brewers, but not having to face Ben Sheets. Overall, I think we have the pitching edge in the first and last game, while the visitors do in the middle two: it’s therefore very important Davis performs well tonight, and sets the tone for the series. Could be a bit of a pitcher’s duel: over the past three starts, Bush has allowed five runs in 21 innings, and Davis four in 20.

The offenses will be key, and in particular, which will be less sucky: Milwaukee and Arizona have both struggled on their recent road-trips: the Brewers have scored 3.5 runs per game in the six games so far, while Arizona averaged only 2.4 per game on their swing from Minnesota through Boston to Florida. The visitors swept Arizona during the first series between the teams in early June, taking all three games by a total of 21-5, so the Diamondbacks need to play an awful lot better to stay in this series.

Will probably be late to this one, since we’ve got to get replacement tyres put on the Snakepitmobile on the way home from work. Not sure how long that’ll take, but I’ll be home as soon as we get out of there, and will hopefully find us with a nice lead. Hey, optimism is a good thing, right?

There has been a certain predestined feeling that Brandon Webb will be the Arizona Diamondbacks’ representative at the All-Star game next month in New York. He’s the staff ace, and has more wins than anyone in the majors. But what about Dan Haren? Is he, perhaps, more deserving of being Arizona’s representative? Let’s take a look at the stats posted by the two pitchers this season.

Looking at their statistics side-by-side, it’s apparent there’s a strong case to be made that Haren, over the course of the season, has pitched better than Webb. That’s been especially true in the month of June, where Haren has an ERA of 1.32, compared to Webb’s 4.76. Now, it’s certainly true that Webb won his first nine starts, posting an excellent ERA of 2.56 over that time. But the 9-0 record was as much due to our ferocious early offense: we scored an average of 6.2 runs per game in support of Webb over that streak.

In contrast, Dan Haren has received more than five runs of support from the hitters only four times over his seventeen starts - meanwhile, in his four losses, Arizona scored a grand total of seven runs. Not that Webb has fared much better, getting eight runs behind him, over his four defeats. But it’s in the no-decisions where Haren has been hurt. Even though they’ve pitched almost the same number of innings [Brandon has recorded four more outs] Webb only has one ND; Haren has five, all of them quality starts, with an ERA during those games of 2.81. With a little more help from the bullpen and/or the offense, he could easily be 12-4 as well.

It’s certainly great to have both of them on board for the Diamondbacks, and if - somehow - we make it into the playoffs, I don’t think any team will look forward to facing Webb and Haren in the post-season. How far we get, will likely depend on their performances in October. However, it looks likely that we will have only one representative at Yankee Stadium next month - I can’t see it being any of the hitters. So, who should it be? Webb or Haren?

Record: 41-41. Pace: 81-81. Change on last season: -5

This was a game which we would have won, if only… That sentence can be completed in a number of ways. If only Mark Reynolds hadn’t made a hash of a ground-ball from Willingham, turning it into a double. if only home-plate umpire Brian Runge had been able to count - Orlando Hudson was denied a walk to lead off the fourth, despite getting ball four. If only Brandon Lyon hadn’t allowed his first run in a save situation since April 6. If only Hermida’s subsequent double had been six inches to the left, and so foul.

However, if wishes were horses, the Diamondbacks would be spending most of their time mucking out their locker-room, and the post-game buffet would consist largely of sugar-lumps. To no great surprise, the team failed to score enough runs to put the opposition away, and the bullpen coughed up three runs in 1.1 innings, allowing the Marlins to escape from a Win Probability of only 11.8%, after Lyon retired the first hitter in the bottom of the ninth. That was his only success; Ramirez homered to tie the game up, then Hermida doubled, advanced on a wild-pitch, and a single punched through the drawn-in infield, gave the Marlins victory.

Poor Dan Haren. He was, once again, incredibly solid, going seven innings with the only run allowed was an unearned one in the sixth, after Reynolds’ fourteenth error of the season. Haren allowed five hits, two walks and seven K’s, and left the game with a 3-1 lead, in line for the victory. Our bullpen took care of that, however; Peña gave up a walk, two hits and a run in the eighth, and then Lyon blew the save and took the loss in the ninth. I suppose we know Lyon’s streak of saves was bound to end eventually: just a shame that it robbed such a deserving start by Haren of the win. I think there’s no doubt Haren was player of the month for Arizona in June: he went six-for-six in quality starts during the month of June, with a minuscule ERA of 1.32, and certainly deserves more than three victories.

Oh, look: Arizona scored three runs or less, for the twelfth time in the past fifteen games. Two came on a homer by Drew in the third, after Haren had doubled [it’s worth noting he has driven in more runs than Owings this year, and has the same number of RBI as Miguel Montero]; the other came courtesy of Chris Burke, who just got a hit to drop in front of the charging left-fielder, scoring Jackson from third with two outs. Jackson was lucky to be there: he should have nailed trying to turn a single into a double, but the throw from left bobbled past the infielder. Candiotti - whom I usually enjoy listening to - praised the “aggressive base-running,” but I put it in the category of “psychotic” rather than “aggressive”. See also our stolen-base percentage, now sitting at an inefficient 66%, compared to 82% last season. Jackson had two hits, Drew and Montero a hit and a walk.

The remarkable failure of Runge to give Hudson a walk after the fourth ball does deserve some more attention. It looked like Hudson thought it was ball four, but no-one in the Diamondbacks dugout seemed to back him up: was nobody over there keeping count? I know someone is supposed to be charting the pitches, often the next day’s starter. Did Doug Davis not pick this up? I can understand the other umpires staying quiet - a cardinal rule is not to offer an opinion on another umpire’s decision, unless asked for it. But someone from Arizona should have been willing to ask Runge to double-check. It’s also worth noting, something Sutton brought up: the official record of the game on MLB Gameday was quickly censored to remove ball four. That’s just wrong. I certainly hope someone speaks to Runge, as he had a horrible game, with a strike-zone that was more of a strike-shiftingamorphousblob.

Here’s a startling section from the AP recap. “The Diamondbacks took fielding practice before the game after committing two errors the night before. Arizona has only taken fielding practice two or three times this season, Melvin said.” Am i missing something obvious here? Do players stop practicing on their weaknesses once they reach the majors or something? Our defense has been a constant, obvious issue in the first three months, Arizona has allowed the most unearned runs in the NL - and our players have “only taken fielding practice two or three times” in the entire first-half? What, pray tell, have they been doing before the other 78 games? Taking care of all the ponies, it would appear.

The good news is, Byrnes, who didn’t play today, “probably” won’t be hitting lead-off on his return. The bad news is, the candidates Melvin keeps talking about rolling out there are Drew and Young, who both have on-base percentages almost at .300. It won’t be O-Dawg, much though that idea has its appeal - not least, because it’d help stop him from hitting into so many double-plays, for which he is on course for another franchise record, smashing the one which he set last season. Melvin described him as, “Our most consistent guy. If you move him up to solve a problem, you might open up another problem.” At this point, I think anything is worth a shot.

[Click to enlarge, in new window]
Master of his domain: Dan Haren, +32.1%
Honorable mention: Stephen Drew, +18.7%
God-emperor of suck: Brandon Lyon, -79.1%

Present in the GameDay Thread were; DbacksSkins, soco, mrssoco, unnamedDBacksfan, Zephon, luckycc, kishi, emilylovesthedbacks, hotclaws, TwinnerA, Wimb, srdmad, 4 Corners Fan, seton hall snake pit, dahlian, peeklay and garyho, so thanks to them for their participation. The road-trip ends on a downer: Arizona lost all three series, went 2-7 on the trip, and go back home with their lead cut to 2.5 games. Fortunately, the Dodgers were on the receiving end of a 1-0 game this afternoon, or things would likely be worse. However, we face another team over ..500, in the shape of the Milwaukee Brewers, who are in town for four games. I think taking two of those would be something of an achievement, based on the woeful output of our bats on this trip.

Paul Coro in the AZ Republic has a great recap and update on the Dragic pick.

Here’s the key plot points:

Dragic cannot be bought out of his contract with Spanish club Tau Ceramica until July 2009. The buyout is $1,550,000, with the Suns able to pay $500,000.

In 2010 he would be free, but he likely will be with the Suns by next summer. Hopes of arranging an exit this summer range from promising to guarded.

Unless the dollar rebounds quickly against the Euro, it looks likes its going to take a hefty sum to buy out Goran’s contract. I have no idea at this point what he stands to make playing in Europe this season but it’s kind of difficult to see how the Suns could pay him enough to cover both the buy out (if Tau agreed to one) and also make it worth his while to play here.

Second round rookies don’t get signed to long term NBA contracts and the one’s they get are sub $1m. We will have to continue to monitor this situation and hope the Suns can figure something out.

and as for the Suns plans for him…

The goal is for Dragic to play a low-pressure role as the Suns’ third point guard this season behind a veteran free-agent pickup such as Tyronn Lue, Anthony Johnson or Chris Duhon.

This is quite the interesting little tidbit as well. Note the lack of Barbosa’s name there? Hmmmm. I also wonder if the Sun’s don’t think he’s ready to be the #2 PG if they aren’t better off letting him play in Europe this year and develop more.

And finally, here’s a great  video from inside the Suns draft war room courtesy of Suns.com. Note that the Suns were prepared to pay $750k plus an ‘09 pick and ended up paying $500k. Clearly, the Suns want this kid bad.