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Dustin Pedroia has been absolutely on fire this weekend, and is even being talked about as a possible MVP candidate.

Coming into Sunday, he had reached safely in his last 10 plate appearances, including two straight 4-for-4 performances. Pedroia is …

Derek Lowe RHP, 10-11, 3.81

Brandon Webb RHP, 19-5, 2.96

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This series hasn’t exactly gone as expected, has it? Doug Davis beat Kuroda in the opener, while Dan Haren was, by all accounts, pretty mediocre in last night’s encounter, and we went down without much fight. The result leaves the series in balance, and today becomes a game we would certainly love to win, as the difference between a 4.5 game lead, and one of only 2.5 games, is very significant, especially with only 26 games left for the Diamondbacks.

Still, no-one better suited than Webb to take the mound, as no-one has more wins in their career against the Dodgers - his ten beating Johnson (8) and Schilling (7). All told, he is 10-3 with a 2.54 ERA and, as noted previously, he hasn’t lost to them in almost four years and since the end of 2004, he is 8-0 with a 1.19 ERA. His two starts against them this season were almost identical, each lasted eight innings and resulted in six hits and just one run. I think we’d happily settle for that again tonight, in front of a national TV audience, and definitely not the evil, pod Brandon who showed up in San Diego and blew chunks.

Of course, Ramirez vs. Webb will be interesting - they’ve never faced each other before, but Mandy has completely destroyed Arizona pitching since coming to Los Angeles. In five games for the Dodgers against the Diamondbacks, he is batting .727. No: that’s not a mis-print. He is 16-for-22 with four home-runs, nine runs scored and seven RBI.  Much as I hate the man [”Barry who?”], I have to confess a grudging respect for him: it’s an interesting contrast to the 2-for-11 with no extra-base hits, walks or RBI he went against us when playing for Boston.

I’ll be at The Sets, as we have a lucha show tonight: at time of posting, I am probably going to be at the airport, picking up our star guest luchador, Hijo de Psychedelico. However, I expect to be back in time for the game and will be posting copiously, in order to make up for my absence yesterday - I take the heavy burden of responsibility for the defeat on my shoulders there. I feel confident normal service will be resumed, and we will come away with the required victory, that will put us in good shape for September.

Off the AP Wire:

The Arizona Diamondbacks announced today that they have acquired infielder David Eckstein in a trade with the Toronto Blue Jays in exchange for right-handed pitcher Chad Beck (Visalia).

Eckstein, 33, is batting .277 (72-for-260) in 76 games this season for the Blue Jays with 27 runs scored, 18 doubles, a home run and 22 RBI. After today’s game at Yankee Stadium, he is batting .357 (15-for-42) over his last 12 games, including Aug. 13 at Detroit when he reached base safely four times, matching his season-high with three hits (also on April 26 at Kansas City).  Eckstein has a career batting average of .285 (1151-for-4032) in 1041 games for the Angels, Cardinals and Blue Jays. He has scored 583 runs, hit 179 doubles, 18 triples, 31 home runs, 307 RBI and 112 RBI over parts of eight Major League seasons.

Eckstein has been a part of two World Series Championship teams with both the 2002 Anaheim Angels and the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals, earning Series MVP honors for the Cardinals. In the 2006 series, he hit .364 (8-for-22) with four RBI and three runs scored against the Tigers, going 4-for-5 with three doubles in Game 4. The Sanford, Fla., native was selected to the 2005 and 2006 National League All-Star teams.

Beck, 23, started the season in South Bend, going 2-0 with a 2.04 ERA (4 ER in 17.2 IP) over seven games, holding opponents to a .186 average (13-for-70) with three walks and 19 strikeouts. Promoted to Visalia on May 2, appearing in his first 10 games as a reliever, going 1-0 with a save and a 1.37 ERA (4 ER in 16.1 IP). As a starter for the Oaks, he went 4-5 with a 4.46 ERA (39 ER in 78.2 IP) with 14 walks and 65 strikeouts over 13 games.

Obviously, the aim is to upgrade at second over the Ojeda/Burke platoon, and I think it’ll do that, though Eckstein is the classic Scrappy White Guy and possesses next to no power. The trade took place on the last possible day to make Eckstein eligible for a spot on the post-season roster, and I presume it also ends the speculation about Reynolds moving from third over to second.

Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal is reporting today that Blue Jays’ infielder David Eckstein is almost certain to be traded before tonight’s midnight (9:00 Arizona time) deadline, and that the Arizona Diamondbacks are likely to land his services for the remainder of the season.
Eckstein would likely be plugged in to the starting 2nd baseman position in […]

About the 2008 Team…That we need to solidify who is the #2 quarterback behind Rudy Carpenter. Sullivan had the second worst backup QB performance on the day next to Cal’s Nate Longshore (who’s approval rating at Berkeley is about 2 points lower than…

I’m not going to lie. I may have dozed off during the 4th quarter of tonight’s game. OK, not really. But still…whatever you’re going to take from tonight, take it from the first three quarters.There was enough, regardless, to like and dislike (more t…

The Skinny: Most teams’ pitchers have a really hard time getting Manny Ramirez out. For pitchers of the Arizona Diamondbacks, it is nearly an impossible task. Ramirez went 4 for 5 with 2 home runs and 2 runs batted in as the Los Angeles Dodgers broke their 8-game losing streak with a […]

Record: 69-66. Pace: 83-79. Change on last season: -6
Magic number: 24. Playoff odds: TBA.

Remember yesterday, when the offense poured from the mountaintops like spring water and quality defense paved the golden streets that paved their way through Diamondbacktown?

…Or something?

Nothing like that in today’s affair. A subpar outing from Dan Haren, a couple iffy defensive plays, and the offense reverted back to previous form. In other words, it was like a microcosm of all of the team’s shortcomings in August, combined in a handy (but infuriating) one-game package.

This game was close through the first three innings, but that was about it. Mandy had a solo shot in the top of the third, and the Diamondbacks answered back with a run of their own in the bottom half — Young had an RBI triple that scored Dan Haren, who continued to be a solid performer at the plate (if not so much on the mound). After that, it was a general malaise of Dodgers offense and Arizona outmaking.

The middle innings were particularly unpleasant. Drew’s error in the fourth allowed an extra run to score on a Berroa ground ball. Kemp had a two-run homer in the fifth, scoring ManRammer.

The only other serious chance to get back in the game came in the eighth inning. Gameday is still baffled by this inning (Billingsley made two outs by grounding out in our half, for example). Drew and Young had consecutive doubles to put a second run across, but that was the extent of the threat. Three quick outs later, any remote chance was gone.

Haren never looked particularly sharp, particularly after legging it out on the bases to score on Young’s triple. He gave up five runs on a whopping 10 hits, although he did avoid walking anyone, continuing the solid K:BB ratio he’s had all season. The hits are a more disturbing trend, however: in each of his last eight starts, dating back to July 25th, Haren has given up at least seven hits in all of them, and double digits three times. Just to perpetuate the second half slump idea, here are his numbers in that span:
5-2, 53.1 IP, 71 H, 29 ER, 6 BB, 57 K, 4.89 ERA

What aren’t we going to talk about? Ramirez’s two home runs, for one thing. Or the fact that Angel Berroa (.224) and Chad Billingsley (.093) were hit by pitches, and he was not. Or the Dodgers closing the gap back to 3.5 games and snapping their eight-game losing streak.

Master of his Domain: Chris Young, +17.7%
God-Emperor of Suck: Dan Haren, -25.4%
Dishonorable Mention: Mark Reynolds, -12.2%; Chad Tracy, -10.5%

Chris Young is not only the Master of his Domain, he’s the sole member of said domain. Besides CY, only Pena and Lyon managed to be in the positive for win expectancy, and their contributions (a scoreless inning apiece in what was essentially a mop-up job) were worth a whopping 0.4%. Evvvvvvverybody else was in the negative. Young had three hits, Ojeda and Drew a couple apiece, and Dunn drew two walks. That’s about it. The Fangraph accurately reflects what a downward spiral this game was.

Joining me in a disappointment-filled Gameday Thread were: DbacksSkins, GaryTheGaucho, emilylovesthedbacks, 4 Corners Fan, njjohn, TwinnerA, srdmad, foulpole, unnamedDBacksfan, Scrbl, kishi, rockiesfan4ever, LucaMaz3 and KLM. Nearly 600 comments, although I’d wager almost half of them came in the first three innings. Things seem to quiet down from that point on for some reason…

So enough about that, and enough about the negatives. We’re still where we were two days ago, which means we’re two days closer to maybe winning this division or something. It’s the sinkerballers on the mound tomorrow, with Webb once again trying for win #20, while Lowe attempts to get his record to .500 (despite pretty solid numbers on the year). Maybe the offense will show up. Maybe they won’t. Who knows.

Just a reminder: SB Nation will supposedly be down tonight. By all indications, it shouldn’t be down for long.

Chad Billingsley RHP, 12-10, 3.15

Dan Haren RHP, 14-6, 3.10

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Well, that was a fascinating game last night, wasn’t it? Some players got some hits, while others didn’t. There was solid defense played at times, but it was occasionally not-so-good, and the pitching was a mixed bag as well. But someone did cross home-plate.

Er, it’s kinda hard to write a Gameday Thread before the previous day’s game has even started, but it’s a necessity, since Saturday will see me locked away in the bowels of Chandler Cinema for about 16 straight hours - and I don’t think they have wi-fi. We’ll pretty much be heading out the door as soon as we rise, and I don’t want to stay up and later than necessary Friday night; the recap there will prove more than adequate as a workload.

Hence, this extremnely generic Gameday Thread template. Go [insert name of team]! And in particular, go [insert name of star player]! Azreous is on the recap, so that usually results in something interesting happening - though not necessarily something good…  I’ll see you all on Sunday. once I’ve emerged, blinking, from the darkness.

[Edited by snakecharmer] Just a note, SBN is having another scheduled downtime at 11PM Pacific tonight. An early start shouldn’t affect the gameday thread, but it might affect Azreous’s recap.

The Cardinals made their cuts.  Most of the cuts went the way I expected with a few exceptions.  Here is a complete list of the players cut:
Steve Baylark, Chris Vincent, Kelly Butler, Carlton Medder, Peter Clifford, Jasper Harvey, Jamaica Rector, Alex Shor, Brent Miller, Anthony Morelli, Michael Adams, DeMario Minter, Dennis Keyes, Travarous Bain, Jason […]