Record: 63-59. Pace: 84-78. Change on last season: -6.

Top 6th: Arizona: Chris Snyder homered to deep left, Clark scored
Top 7th: Arizona: Chris Young homered to deep left
Top 8th: Arizona: Chris Burke homered to deep left, Clark and Reynolds scored

Yes, it was not a bad day to be an Arizona hitter called Chris with ties to the city of Houston, native sons Snyder and Young, plus former Astro Burke, all going deep. That helped the Diamondbacks snapped the Astros hitting streak at eight, in no uncertain fashion: they put runs on the board in seven of the nine innings, on their way to a highly-emphatic victory, Brandon Webb backed it up with eight solid inning of two-run ball, on his way to the eighteenth victory of the season. That ties his career high from last year, and with another eight starts likely, he seems all but a lock to win twenty games, something nobody in the National League did in either of 2006 or 2007.

However, let's start with the hitting, which featured particularly sterling contributions from the bottom of the lineup. Numbers six through eight, in the shape of Tony Clark, Chris Burke and Chris Snyder, combined to go 7-for-12 with three walks, two homers and eight runs driven in. Clark reached base safely five times, on three hits and two walks - the lat time Tony did that was back in his glory days, during the 2005 season. Snyder has his first four-RBI game of the year, and Chris Burke, having waited eleven months between homers, took barely 24 hours to go deep once again. It'd be nice if he stepped up to replace Hudson down the stretch, as Ojeda did last season.

That wasn't the extent of the offense, with every starter bar Webb reaching base at least twice: Drew had two hits and a walk, while Reynolds had a hit and two walks. That extended Drew's hitting streak to seventeen games: the best this year in the NL is only two longer than that [by the Pirates' McLouth and Dodgers' Kemp, both having reached nineteen]. They were helped enormously by the opposing starter's extreme wildness. Rodriguez gave up six walks in just 2.1 innings, including four in the first. Two of these came with the bases loaded and helped Arizona out to a three-run lead: when you're on the road, it's always good to get your pitcher to the plate before he takes the mound.

Speaking of Webb, he allowed four hits and one walk in eight innings. In what has become an economical pattern of late, it took him only 85 pitches to get through those frames, facing 28 batters. As we get towards the end of the season, he still seems to have a lot left in his tank: after 26 games, Webb has thrown a total of 2,576 pitches, averaging less than a hundred per start, which should be comfortable territory. It's 123 pitches and 7.2 innings less than at the same stage last year, He could, no doubt, have gone out there for the ninth had it been needed, but there was absolutely no point, and I was pleased to see Melvin send out Juan Cruz for some work instead.

It was the fourth game since Dunn joined us, and even if he is only 4-for-16, without a homer, he seems to be having a positive effect on the rest of the offense. He also has four walks, giving him an OBP of .400, and in every one of those post-Dunn games, we've reached double-figures in hits. Now, obviously three of those were in Coors, but with that caveat [and the inevitable one about small sample sizes], we've hit .318 in that time - and particularly worthy of note, our K:BB ratio is a very healthy 33:22. If we keep getting good at-bats, they will become men in scoring position, which lead to runs - and, we trust, victories.

[Click to enlarge, in new window]
Master of his domain: Chris Snyder, +16.1%
Honorable mentions: Webb, +15.0%; Clark, +11.3%
God-emperor of suck: Chris Burke, -7.4%

Sorry, Chris - Burke, that is. Even a three-run homer and a multi-hit game, which raised your average to a season-high .204, wasn't sufficient to save you from God-Emperor of Suck status tonight. Leaving five men on base in your first two at-bats did significantly more damage. All told, however, players named Chris combined to add almost 10% to our Win Probability - or more than 20%, if you include the contribution of one Tony Christopher Clark... :-)

I think it may be that SB Nation v2.1 is a little bit more effiicient. The Gameday Thread cruised past 700 comments, without slowing down notably, so they may have tweaked the engine in some way. A very enjoyable game, with comments from ZonaBacks10, snakecharmer [who inspired the title of this recap - so blame her!], Wimb, J Up, DbacksSkins, AJforAZ, emilylovesthedbacks, kishi, Diamondhacks, Scrbl, soco, 4 Corners Fan, TwinnerA, hotclaws, foulpole, SongBird, dahlian, Bcawz, AZWILDCATS, njjohn, Zephon, Muu, Azreous and srdmad. The Dodgers are currently 5-3 up in the bottom of the eighth, so it looks like nothing will be much different when we play tomorrow. Here's to some more of these early Chris-mas presents!