Fan Confidence: Dooooooooooooomed

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, without calculating the numbers and plugging into the mainframe, that the Fan Confidence number is going to be fairly low for this week.  Never mind that the numbers are seemingly still in our favor (assuming you don't believe Baseball Prospectus).  Never mind that of the last six losses, four of them were either remarkably well pitched, or close enough that the D-backs should have still been in it.

Right now the sky is falling because offense isn't producing.  Part of this has been the constant presence of Sean Burroughs, Cody Ransom, Collin Cowgill, and Willie Bloomquist over the past six games.  But it's also been that virtually no one has been producing over the past week besides Lyle Overbay, Paul Goldschmidt, and MIguel Montero.  Suddenly the Diamondbacks look like the Giants: pitchers are afraid to give up a run because they know the offense won't be enough to get more than that.  I guess that's schadenfreude.

Justin Upton might be an easy target for some people, and make no mistake that he hasn't been doing so well the past week at the plate.  But he's been carrying this team all season.  Is it too much to ask for some other guys to step up?  Take Ryan Roberts.  He had some great defense plays yesterday, but the truth is that he's not hitting worth a damn over the past week.  He's had a Sean Burroughs-esque 2 hits out of 18 PA, and a whopping 7 strikeouts.  Gerardo Parra hasn't faired much better, getting 2 hits out of 16 PA.  

For the full story on how bad the offense has been this past week, check out Jim's post a couple days ago.

And then there's Chris Young.  He's managed 1 hit in the last week, off 19 PA and another 7 strikeouts.  But let's not think he's only in a minor slump, here.  In the 2nd half of the season he's garnered this stat line: .143/.271/.196 with 32 strikeouts and only 1 home run.  Can he only produce every other year or so?  I know his thumb has been injured in recent weeks, but he wasn't exactly lighting things up in the first half, either.  At least he still had some power, then.

All of this adds up to some depressing times for the Diamondbacks and their fans.  The funny thing is we're still in first.  We still have a game up on the Giants, and even if we do lose that edge, we're still close enough within the next week that the team could very easily turn it around and fight to the end. 

The truth isn't that the Diamondbacks aren't legitimate contenders for the NL West crown.  The fans aren't panicking because they feel this is some kind of convoluted torture.  They're panicking because nearly every Diamondbacks fan doesn't believe the team is a legitimate contender for the NL West.  We've been waiting every week for the shoe to drop, for the clock to strike midnight, and for the team to turn back into pumpkins.  We've rode the hot streaks of players we weren't sure were legit, like Willie Bloomquist or Joe Saunders, and then immediately tore them down the second they fell back even slightly.

Just a week ago we were riding the high of a 7 game winning streak.  Now we've dropped 6 in a row.  Both have been the longest respective streaks for the Diamondbacks this year.  Well, it's been a streaky team all year.  We panicked when the team dropped back to back games (one in San Francisco, the next one at home against the Astros), and then rode the wave as the team started winning.  We were willing to not look at the flaws, or Kirk Gibson's odd lineups.  Now things are rough, and everything is doomed. 

Well, tomorrow is another day.  It might not bring happiness.  In fact, this is baseball.  It's very likely it won't bring happiness.  But it will bring baseball.