Record: 25-15. Pace: 101-61. Change on last season: +4

The good news is, yes, The Sets now has wi-fi. The bad news is, my PC never went past "Acquiring network address", so full connectivity proved elusive this evening. Still, I was able to watch some of the game, albeit on a TV with a dodgy cable connection. This was a different one from last week's frozen mosaic device: this one was old-school lines and static. Still, he are are my notes, pretty much written as the game unfolded. I arrived just in time to see Eric Byrnes' first at-bat of the evening, which can only be described as possessing all the hideous fascination of a car-accident. Even when he was 3-0 ahead, you knew it was going to end in another Flying Nun, and after swinging at ball four, that's exactly what happened as he struck out swinging. There were some poignant and painfully appropriate signs in the crowd: the one that sticks in my mind said "Eric: don't hit it here. Just hit it."

De La Rosa had a very nice curveball; makes you wonder if he'll eventually be another one of those pitchers we look back on and regret trading away [a.k.a. the Brad Penny Hall of Fame]. Turns out he passed through our organization not once, but twice: we signed him back in March 1998, then sold him to Monterrey in 2000, before his brief transit as part of both the Schilling and Sexson trades. He struck out Owings and Young with it in the third, despite the sign in the crowd saying "Our lineup has nine hitters. Does yours?" - the more cynical among you are probably muttering that this is being somewhat kind to certain members of said lineup. Interesting to see Snyder trying to drop down a bunt with Reynolds on first. Not many times you'll see the #8 hitter in an NL lineup doing that, with the pitcher on deck. Just another way that the presence of Pwnings changes the dynamics of the game.

Owings was pitching with admirable efficiency - well, from what I can tell anyway. The entire top of the fourth, bar the final fly-ball, happened in the time it took me to write the above paragraph [my laptop is out of sight of the television, so I keep having to scurry across the bar, watch some baseball, and then run back to our table.] We finally broke through in the bottom of the fourth; a Drew double, an infield single by Hudson, and a Jackson single, spectacularly misplayed into a double by Hawpe, which brought the first run home. The Rockies walked Upton to get to Byrnes, who promptly obliged by grounding into a double-play, albeit one that did score another run. He was just trying SO hard, it was...sad and painful and about a dozen other emotions, all in one. The volume was down on the TV - how was the crowd reaction?

Perhaps the biggest hit was Orlando Hudson's two-RBI knock in the bottom of the fifth, that doubled our lead and made the score 4-0. We had men on second and third with one outs, but Drew struck out and it looked as if De La Rosa was going to escape the inning unscathed. However, O-Dawg muscled a bloop into the outfield, and both base-runners advanced. A walk to Jackson ended the Colorado starter's evening with two outs in the fourth, but another free pass, to Upton, meant that Byrnes came up with the bases-loaded again. One headfirst slide later, the inning was over - ironically, just in time for the start of the comedy show, which basically suspended my ability to pay much attention to the game, except sneaking surreptitious glances out of the corner of my eye.

What I did see, in a squinty way, was Colorado gradually pulling closer after Owings left. In contrast to yesterday, while much the same bullpen was in operation, they didn't exactly look lights out - tonight, it was seven hits and three runs in three innings. Each of Qualls, Slaten and Peña were tagged for a run by the Rockies, which meant Lyon was faced with a one-run lead in the ninth. If one pitch can be said to have decided the outcome, it was a 3-1 pitch to Matt Holliday that he thought was ball four: the home-plate umpire disagreed and Holliday grounded out. That proved crucial as Lyon subsequently allowed a pair of two-out singles that put the tying run at third-base. However, he then got Hawpe to pop out to Reynolds, for his fifteenth straight shutout inning, eleventh save and Arizona's 25th victory.

Excellent outing by Owings, who gave us six scoreless innings, on five hits and two walks, with five K's. He got into and out of trouble in the first, loading the bases with one out, but got a crucial strikeout of Atkins and escaped without damage. The Rockies didn't get another runner past second base until the last batter Owings faced, to end the sixth inning. However, Owings did go ohfer, dropping his average down to "only" .370 - he might have been robbed by a call at first, however. Arizona was actually outhit quite significantly by the Rockies, 12-7, but they left the bases littered with wasted opportunities, stranding a dozen men. Drew and Hudson had two hits, the latter also surviving a nasty moment when he stumbled coming out of the batter's box, which led to the grounds crew drying up the area around home-plate.

[Click to enlarge in new window]
Master of his domain: Micah Owings, +31.5%
Honorary mention: Orlando Hudson, +16.0%
God-emperor of suck: Eric Byrnes, -8.8%

Solid turnout in the Gameday Thread - we might even have needed an overflow thread, if I'd been able to get connected. However, thanks to those who did not experience technical difficulties; soco, mrssoco, DbacksSkins, Wimb, unnamedDBacksfan, 4 Corners Fan, kishi (happy birthday!), foulpole, snakecharmer, hotclaws, TwinnerA, isoldout, dstorm, frienetic, dahlian, UptonMVP, batster, srdmad, seton hall snake pit, Zephon and singaporedbacksfan. With tomorrow night's marquee pitching match-up, however, I will be clearing the decks and should be in full effect.

Finally, here's one of those player comparison things:
Left-fielder A: .214/.275/.357     
Left-fielder B: .276/.343/.429
I think we all know who Player A is, so let's move on, shall we? Player B, however, might surprise you: Luis Gonzalez, in a less-than-full time role for the surprising (and NL East leading) Florida Marlins. Over on Major-League Jerk, Hef speculates on how Gonzo's career might have played out, had he decided to stay here. It's an interesting domino-esque effect, had Gonzo stayed as the fourth outfielder in 2006, backing up Quentin, Young and Byrnes. Who can say?

Record: 20-9. Pace: 112-50. Change on last season: +4

It certainly looks like the shine has gone off the start of the season for our offense. Over the past ten games, they have a collective line of .238/.311/.394. While they're still averaging an acceptable number of runs [4.7], they have an ugly K:BB ratio of almost 3:1 [94:32]. Of particular concern over this time are:
   Mark Reynolds: 4-for-36, 3 BB, 21 K
   Eric Byrnes: 5-for-32, 1 BB, 6 K
   Stephen Drew: 6-for-32, 4 BB. 4 K
I know that Reynolds was incredibly streaky last year, but he was one K away from having ten consecutive games with multiple strikeouts. The seven in a row he did manage, was a franchise record, and hasn't been surpassed in the majors since Cory Snyder's eight, from Sep. 27-Oct 5, 1986. Ten would have been the longest since Baseball-Reference.com records began, in 1956.

Last night was a poor performance on just about every level - when our hitting, pitching fielding and managing all sucked, to one degree or another, it seems almost petty to start pointing out specifics. Still, that's what I'm here for. :-( To go through these in reverse order, first off, I'm with dahlian on this one: it was questionable to run Owings out there at all. He could have been given extra days off without having to pitch anyone on short rest; he was visibly limping when running the bases on Wednesday. Using Webb tonight and Haren tomorrow would also have given us the pitching edge in two of the three games. 

Owings said afterwards: "I wasn't too sharp. I didn't go into the game feeling 100 percent, but I had to keep battling. You could tell I definitely didn't have all my stuff tonight out of the chute." Unfortunately, Melvin apparently couldn't - running Owings out there for the sixth inning was a particularly poor decision. I know our manager wanted to get him one more AB [he was up third in the bottom of the sixth], but after five, Owings' line was 9 H, 3 BB, 2 K, 5 ER. We should have been grateful still to be in the game, and turned things over to the bullpen at that point - if necessary, making a double switch to get a couple of innings out of Medders [who was instead used for six pitches to get one out] or Cruz [nine pitches]. But Owings instead allowed two more runs on a long-ball, effectively ending the game as a contest.

Defense. I must confess, after Hudson's howling blunder in the opening inning, letting what should have been a double-play ball through to the outfield, my first thought - when I'd calmed down - was, "What will foulpole say?" The answer is, apparently, very little [I do not see a Fanpost this morning, yelling "Headline News! O-Dawg sucks!", as Hairston received]. In Orlando's defense, the ball did apparently tip fractionally off Owings' glove, but it was hardly a missile: how it wasn't scored an error on someone, I have no idea. if we'd turned that, it would have been only a one-run lead for the Mets. Instead, by the time we finally escaped, they were 3-0 up, and we would never get nearer than those additional two runs. That wasn't the only miscue; it was, however, easily the most obvious and costly.

Hitting. We had our moments when we could have come back into the game. We had the tying run at the plate in the first, on-base in the second with only one man out, and at the plate, again with one out, in the fifth. We went 0-for-5 there, which coincidentally is Eric Byrnes line for the night. I don't know if his hamstrings are still bothering him, but he looked pretty bad, right from the first offering he saw, which he popped up to the second baseman. Five at-bats; fourteen pitches in total. That's only two more than Owings saw in a single plate-appearance. Reynolds went 0-for-4 with two K's, and we only managed one walk outside of the pitcher's spot. Though it has to be said, we did have a number of hard-hit balls that seemed to find Mets leather.

Pitching. This has largely been covered above; Owings refused to blame the ankle, saying, "Never going to point a finger. I decided I was going to go tonight, that's what we decided and it felt pretty good." He seemed to be missing his spots, however; according to Montero, "The beginning of the game, he was dragging his arm a little bit. In the beginning of the game, he was trying to do too much." That's back-to-back poor outing for Owings, who has now allowed 12 earned runs in the last 10.2 innings, on sixteen hits, six walks and three homers. On the plus side, the bullpen were again solid, mostly the B-corps giving us 3.1 scoreless innings. That takes our relievers' collective ERA down to 2.49 this year.

Orlando Hudson had to come out of the game after his double in the fifth, with what the report calls "a strained right hamstring," though his opinion on it somewhat less severe. "It's just tightness. It's not the first time I've been through it. I went through it a couple of times in Toronto, but you know, I've got the best strength coach and the best trainer, so it's going to be good. Probably, I'll be off, and hopefully back at it Sunday." Hope that's the case - he's one of the D-backs who has been hitting of late [113-for-39 in those last ten games] and given that, we can ill afford to be without him for any extended period.

Game Notes

• Sorry for the lack of pictures again. I think Mrs. SnakePit hates visual evidence, having erased the photos from the Dodgers game, and left the camera at the office last night.
• Micah Owings' at-bats were things of wonder. I've criticized his aggressiveness before, but this time he saw nineteen pitches and walked both times, including a fabulous twelve-pitch battle the second time. The last time any pitcher came up twice and got two walks was back in 2004, when Tom Glavine did it. Owings' OBP is now exactly .500.
  
• Compare and contrast Jackson running through the cycle in a blowout, giving a teammate an RBI opportunity, to Jose Reyes selfishly trying to get home in the ninth for an inside-the-parker to complete his cycle, and being easily thrown out. I know who is the better team player.
  
• I don't think we'll be eating the burros from Garcias again. Ick.
• Lot of Mets fans in attendance, or maybe it's just that the AZ fans were shut down by that horrible first inning.  They fall into two categories ["Welcome to Sweeping Generalizations with your host, Jim McLennan..."]: the loud and noxious, who appear to be rehearsing for walk-on parts in The Sopranos, and the almost-invisible, only detectable by the Mets caps.
• For 'Skins, Eric's entrance music is The Outfield's Your Love. You can listen to it here. Or not. But I promise, it isn't Rick Astley.
  
• Mrs. SnakePit was very amused by the "Car!" thing, once it was explained to her. That scratching sound you hear is dahlian crossing her off his Christmas card list... ;-)
• Yes, Amare Stoudemire was in the house, and got a warm reception from those who recognized him. Which initially excluded us - hey, he's just a large dude in a Suns jersey. But isn't there something odd about a sports superstar going round town wearing a shirt with his own name on it? D'you think Brandon Webb goes to Fry's with his #17 on?
• Enjoyed the fireworks afterwards; they seemed to have more variety. Ended with Beethoven's Ode to Joy, so that sharpened us up and made us ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence. Well, a Tivo'd ep of Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles, when we came home.
  

 
[Click to enlarge, in new window]
Master of his domain: Chris Young, +6.5%
God-emperor of suck: Micah Owings, -34.1%
Dishonorable mention: Mark Reynolds, -13.7%

Looks like I needn't have been worried about the need for an overflow thread, as we barely crawled past 400. Difficult to sustain much enthusiasm for the game...even when you were at it. Here, courtesy of 'charmer's awesome automated roll-call script, are the attendees: seton hall snake pit, soco, unnamedDBacksfan, kishi, Smoltz's Beard, Azreous, DbacksSkins, Muu, foulpole, hotclaws, DiamondbacksWIn, Turambar, singaporedbacksfan, dahlian, Elway4Prez, Wactivist, TwinnerA, dstorm, 4 Corners Fan, srdmad and snakecharmer. And with that, I'd better get this up, since first-pitch in today's afternoon game is barely an hour away now. So, expect that to follow very shortly...

Master of his domain: Micah Owings, +28.2%
Honorary mention: Brandon Lyon,. +16.8%
God-emperor of suck: Randy Johnson, -36.6%
[Click to enlarge, in new window]

Record: 20-8. Pace: 116-46. Change on last season: +4

Coming into this game, Micah's prowess as a hitter had largely not translated to games where he came off the bench. He had just one career pinch-hit - a single - in seven at-bats, with two walks. And this season, his aggressiveness at the plate had become something of a running sore: the majority of his appearances in 2008 had been decided in two pitches or less [7 of 19 on the very first ball he saw]. So, the combination of Owings as a pinch-hitter, and him swinging at the opening pitch, was surely a match made in hell?

Think again. Pwnings instead blasted the ball the opposite way, for a two-run homer that tied the game at seven and set the scene for an improbable victory. Our Win Probability was already reduced to 18.7%, by the time Randy Johnson got his second out of the game, and sank as low as 13.5%, immediately before Conor Jackson's third-inning homer, when the score was 6-2 to Houston. Last season's tean would probably have folded. This year's model chipped away, scoring a run here and a run there, then sent up one of their starting rotation, who promptly hit the first pinch-hit homer by a pitcher since April 22, 2004, when MBrooks Kieschnick  of Milwaukee did it...against Arizona [Matt Mantei, to be specific].

Obviously, small sample-size is the key here, but the homer results in one stunning statistic. Owings now has the fifth-highest all-time OPS among hitters with 75 or more plate-appearances:

After that, the Astros might as well have packed up and gone home. You can't stop the run from rising, the tide from coming in, or the 2008 Arizona Diamondbacks from winning. The Byrnes RBI single which followed was a mere formality, as were the zeroes posted to maintain the one-run lead, by Qualls, Peña and Lyon. It was, in some way, a mirror-image of last night's game, where the loss was largely over-shadowed by the debut of Max Scherzer. Here, the win largely overshadows a very disappointing outing by Randy Johnson, who dug his team-mates a 4-0 hole in the first inning, on three singles and a homer, and lasted only four innings, allowing six earned runs on nine hits. After a series of outings where he showed improvement almost each time, this was definitely a step backwards. I was not able to find any post-game quotes from the Big Unit...

Good to see the offense come through. Montero had three hits, with two each for Jackson and Young, as every starter bar Johnson reached base safely. There were six doubles from six different players, and as well as Micah's blast, Jackson added his fifth of the year. And today's trivia is about Shaun Chacon - Pwning's homer got him stuck with his sixth consecutive no-decision. Only a couple of pitchers have had longer streaks this millennium: Darrell May had eight NDs in a row for the 2003 Royals, and the 2005 Brewers saw seven straight by... Doug Davis. The Arizona record, incidentally, is six by Armando Reynoso, from June 22 to July 21, 1999.

Another very impressive Gameday Thread turnout, especially given it was a day game. An overflow thread was required down the stretch, and now contains almost 300 comments: present today were DbacksSkins, hotclaws, seton hall snake pit, TwinnerA, mrssoco, Wimb, dstorm, soco, kishi, Turambar, unnamedDBacksfan, dahlian, 4 Corners Fan, Stile4aly, Azreous, Captain D Bag, Elway4Prez [welcome!], TexSkins, Muu, peeklay, singaporedbacksfan, paqs and SongBird. Again, much credit to the visiting Astros fans, who were gracious in defeat and victory: you're welcome here, any time - and all the best for the remainder of the season [except when we come to Houston, naturally...]

We finish April with a brilliant 20-8 record, far beyond what I hoped for coming in. The next few games will be interesting, as we get to test our mettle against some fo the best that the NL East can offer, including a challenge on Sunday, when our hitters get to face Johan Santana, who will likely be among the Cy Young contenders at the end of the season. A new poll is up, asking you to choose the MVP for the team over the first month: there have been some really great performances for us to enjoy, and it proved something of a challenge to narrow the field down to just four individuals.

Max Scherzer will be starting on Monday against the Phillies, Bob Melvin announced. In related news, the sun is slated to rise in the East tomorrow morning - I think the news of Scherzer's promotion to the rotation definitely counts as among the "Well, duh!" pieces of information to come out of Chase Field recently. It appears he will be there until Doug Davis returns from his surgery - he just began his radiation treatment on Tuesday, and it's not known what effect that will have on his strength and stamina. This is likely the deciding factor on how long he remains out, and so how long Scherzer remains with the team. I have to say, a rotation of Webb, Haren, Johnson, Owings and Scherzer seems pretty fine to me.

Off-day tomorrow. I'll be closing the World Series contest in the morning, so it's your last chance to enter. Will then be going through the stories, to pick a winner: though I've a sneaking feeling I will probably bail out of that responsibility and let Mrs. SnakePit be the judge, since there are far too many good ones there for me to pick just two. I wish I had twenty box-sets so I could let everybody have one! But more on that tomorrow, along with Lolback of the Week, of course.

Record: 19-8. Pace: 114-48. Change on last season: +3

Tonight may be one of those games we look back on in twenty years and say, "Yes, I remember seeing Scherzer make his major-league debut." For our uber-prospect retired all 13 hitters faced, fanning seven, and sending everybody scurrying to the record books. We'll have to wait, however: Baseball-Reference.com's stats in this area only go back as far as 1956, and there has been no-one since who started their career with one outing of four perfect innings. We can speculate what might have happened if Scherzer had started the game: probably only his pitch-count would have stopped this from being truly monumental. Perhaps we might even have seen something like Juan Marichal's first appearance in 1960, a complete game one-hitter with one walk and twelve K's, that's possibly the finest debut of all-time.

Instead, we'll just look forward to seeing how far Scherzer can go. Contrary to what Steve Gilbert says, Max is not the only relief pitcher to have retired the first 13 batters seen in a career: Jeremy Fikac also did that for the Padres in 2001. Who? Exactly... Fikac was plagued by injuries, and his career was over in 2004 - let's hope better things await Scherzer down the road  But in case you're wondering, the best recent no-hit streak at the very start of a career belongs to the Giants' Jonathan Sanchez with 7.1 innings during 2006. The longest recent scoreless opening streak is Matt Smith's 18.2 innings, in 22 appearances, which took place the same year. Smith was even traded from the Yankees to the Phillies in the middle of the run; again, a fate we trust will not befall our rookie.

Lost in all the excitement is...well, the loss. Scherzer, Slaten and Medders combined to retire eighteen consecutive Astros before Erstad singled with two outs in the ninth. But the damage had already been done, Houston having scored six runs at that point. Edgar Gonzalez was flat, listless and got cuffed around; the batters he faced went 8-for-15 with two walks. It took him 72 pitches to get through 2.2 innings - Scherzer's 4.1 required only 47. While Edgar was the victim of some poor defense [the four-run fourth should have ended with a double-play that never got turned, and he wasn't helped by Salazar misplaying a ball down the line the same inning], I wouldn't be surprised if his and Scherzer's roles are flip-flopped next Monday.

I was a bit surprised to learn we only left five men on base: somehow, it seemed a lot more than that. However, the bases were cleared through the front four, thanks to a double-play by Salazar, and Jackson's two run homer.  Drew left two on in the fifth, but a CoJack twin-killing ended the sixth. Our best chance to come back was likely the seventh, where we had the tying run aboard, thanks to an RBI single from Montero, with only one out. However, Young flied out and Drew popped out, to leave us stranded. In the ninth, we got to face old friend Jose Valverde, now the Astros closer. Much like Lyon, a rocky start has since been corrected, and Papa Grande was firing on all cylinders, his fastball touching 99 mph, and he struck out Upton, Burke and Byrnes round Salazar's double.

[Click on image, to enlarge in new window]
Master of his domain: Max Scherzer, +11.5%
Honorary mention: Miguel Montero, +11.1%
God-emperor of suck: Edgar Gonzalez, -44.1%
Dishonorable mention: Stephen Drew, -14.9%

Plenty of activity and once again, good to see some friendly visitors from Houston, in the shape of TexSkins and lnewcomer. They contributed to the final tally of 888, at time of writing, assisted by: foulpole, snakecharmer, Turambar, DbacksSkins, kishi, britdback, soco, hotclaws, dahlian, singaporedbacksfan, dstorm, unnamedDBacksfan, Philip from LA, LucaMaz3, 4 Corners Fan, mrssoco, srdmad, seton hall snake pit, isoldout, Augie's Army, Captain D Bag, Craig from Az and kkenney.

Elsewhere in the NL West, the Dodgers pipped the Marlins by a single run, the Padres lost in Philadelphia and the Rockies beat the Giants 3-2. The last contained some irony - the day after Colorado manager Clint Hurdle was ejected for arguing a balk call, his team scored the go-ahead run in the seventh, on a balk call. This time, Giants manager, Bruce Bochy, took the early shower. Our lead in the division is cut to 5.5 games.

The good news is that Micah Owings has been cleared to make his scheduled next start, versus the Mets on Friday. He pitched a bullpen session today, with some tape wrapped round the ankle he rolled during his last appearance, and experienced no problems. He still has three days left, so while the tape did make things somewhat unusual today, he may not even need it by the time Friday comes around. We're looking forward to that, as we'll be at Chase for the game. I will, however, be keeping Mrs. SnakePit well away from the camera, after she erased all the photographs taken at Dodger Stadium on Friday, to make room for pics from the Fangoria show... :-(

As 4 Corners Fan reminded me us, it's a day-game tomorrow. That will likely mean a Gameday Thread a little closer to game-time than usual, as I'll be trying to use my morning break to post that, then schedule my lunch for the first couple of innings, so I can see how Randy does. Ah, such are the perils of wage-slavery: can't we just win the Powerball and get it over with?

Record: 14-5. Pace 119-43. Change on last season: +4

When I wrote, "Should be around for most of this one, though not sure if it'll be radio, TV or online," I forgot one important alternative possibility. Mrs. SnakePit picked me up after work, handed me the phone and said, "You'd better speak to shoewizard." Guess who had an extra ticket for the game and had been trying to get in touch with me all afternoon? Thank heavens that Chris is better at keeping her phone a) charged and b) on than I am - so I got to enjoy the game with shoe, Mrs. shoe and shoe jr. Many thanks to them for the unexpected treat.

This was hardly the unstoppable tsunami of offensive destruction we have come to expect from our Diamondbacks. Yes, the streak of 4-run games now hits sixteen in a row. Yes, we smacked three homers out of the park. However, two of those homers [accounting for all but one of our runs] were what shoe referred to, with affectionate contempt, as "Chase cheapies" - shots down the left-field line that just managed to crawl into the bleachers, with the aid of frantic puffing from 20,000 fans. Which, tonight, would be just about everyone in attendance. Lowest attendance of the year so far - nobody wants to see the Bonds-less 2008 Giants.

I haven't checked the Fangraph yet, but the God-Emperor of his domain was, undoubtedly, Micah Owings. He pitches! [6.1 innings, two runs] He hits! [2-for-2 and scored the tying run in the fifth] He fields! [Diving to cover first, in a somewhat risky play that could, conceivably, have brought a swift end to his career.] He looked a bit wobbly to start with, giving up some hard-hit balls; we discussed whether the Giants, who had faced him only last Wednesday, now had his number. However, after the solo homer to Lewis, leading off the third, Owings retired eleven Giants in a row, in sharp contrast to what happened last season, where he got significantly worse the second and third time through the order.

He eventually tired in the seventh, plunking Burriss with a pitch - making the Giant one of an elite club of batters in whose major-league careers, they got hit before getting a hit. Okay, I'm not sure how elite it actually is, but it includes fellow Giant Kevin Frandsen, who got hit in his second career plate-appearance, against the D-backs, on April 28, 2006. He also got hit by Arizona in his second game. And then, again by Arizona, in his third. Luis Terrero appears to be the only Diamondbacks to have managed this somewhat-painful feat. Anyway, after a further walk, Micah's night was over, but the Equallizer came in, threw one pitch, got a double-play and hit the showers. He's the fourth D-back to do that, the first since Mike Fetters ended a 6-2 loss against Atlanta in similar fashion, on August 8th, 2004.

As noted, the offense was almost entirely long-ball shaped this evening. Owings and Upton each had a couple of hits, while Hudson and Snyder each reached safely twice, on a hit and a walk. O-Dawg's hit was particularly important, as it let us add an insurance run in the seventh, on his solo shot - which would have been a two-run shot, save for Byrnes getting caught stealing immediately beforehand. That gives Eric two failures in five attempts. That's startling, since it's more than he was caught in the entire second half of 2007, going 33-1 after the All-Star break.

The run looked particularly helpful after Velez doubled to deep center, leading off the eighth. However, he tried to stretch it to three and was thrown out on a fine relay throw - replays suggest we might have caught a break there. Peña thus managed, technically, a 1-2-3 inning and, at least, managed to avoid walking anyone. In the ninth, Lyon came in and promptly allowed a very deep out to the first hitter he faced and, after getting the next two, then surrendered a two-out single to bring the tying run to the plate. However, he froze pinch-hitter Aurilia with a beautiful breaking ball in the corner, to notch his fourth save and extend our division lead to five games.

Game notes

Saw and said hello to Derrick Hall, who was coming to check on a fan that opted to block a foul ball with her face. Fortunately, no damage was done, and she was seen leaving the game later - clutching said ball.

In the sixth, after Snyder walked, to put two on with two out for Micah - who was 2-for-2 off Correia at that point - there was a conference on the mound. We speculated on how wonderful it would be, if they pulled the starter and brought in a reliever, purely to deal with Pwnings. "Sorry, Kevin: I know he's the pitcher and all, but you've not retired him yet. So we're going with someone who might."

Home-plate umpire Alfonso Marquez called a low strike all night, for which shoe was giving him some stick - nothing too offensive, of course, calling him a bum was about as bad as it got. Still, as I went to the restroom before the seventh, a woman in the next section asked I could ask shoe to be a bit careful, as sitting right there were Marquez's children...  "That's definitely a first," said shoe, apologetically.

While it was nice to have seats that included in-seat service, someone needs to explain to the servers that they should not stand idly in the middle of the aisles, while play is in progress. And if they have to, they really should not give attitude to paying guests who, very politely, ask them to move.

In answer to the Gameday queries: yes, both the roof and the panels were open tonight [and very pleasant it was at Chase]. And yes, it was Iron Man playing as Mark Reynolds' entrance music. Did we come up with that as a possible name for him in a Gameday Thread?

[Click to enlarge, in new window]
Master of his domain: Chad "one pitch" Qualls, +17.0%!
Honorary mention: Eric Byrnes, +16.8%
God-Emperor of suck: Conor Jackson, -20.2%

According to charmer, "You don't have to read the thread tonight, it gets quite a bit..er.. off-topic. Well 'skins was moderating, what do you expect? ;) Put it this way, soco said: "Jim's definitely going to cry tonight." Hehe... so you've been warned!" I did try, but I think I had to be ushered gently away from the keyboard by Mrs. SnakePit after I started banging my head on the table at all the watch puns. Those responsible for Project Mayhem, a.k.a. the comments, were: Philip from LA, DbacksSkins, batster, soco, kishi, dstorm, foulpole, jsk6788, dahlian, singaporedbacksfan, Stile4aly, hotclaws, peachy rex, isoldout, seton hall snake pit, oldjacket, 4 Corners Fan, unnamedDBacksfan, snakecharmer, frienetic, Muu, Augie's Army, Wactivist and mikeb, so....thanks to them. :-)

And with that, to bed, safe in the knowledge that we have already guaranteed ourselves a split of the series, and still have our ace to play tomorrow. Elsewhere in baseball, the Rockies lost [Troyboy was 0-for-5] and Nippert got torched by the Red Sox, allowing nine hits, four walks and eight earned runs in 2.1 innings. Between him and Valverde leaving, while Qualls [10.1 IP, 0 ER] and Haren [25 IP, 1.80 ERA] arrive, our off-season pitching moves are looking pretty fine thus far...

Record: 7-2. Pace: 126-36. Change on last season: 0

The Arizona Diamondbacks: inhabiting Joe Torre's nightmares since 2001. He may have moved from one coast to the other, but he can't escape the torment caused by the Diamondbacks. We completed the sweep over the Dodgers, racking up our sixth win in a row - and, in sharp contrast to the offensive blowouts of the first two games, this was an old-school nailbiter, where there was never more than one run separating the two teams from the first pitch to the last. Kept homerless for the first time all year, this was much more like the 2007 version of the team, scratching out hits and grinding out a one-run win, as they did 32 times last year.

Micah Owings was just good enough: three runs on seven hits and a walk, but the key was that he pitched seven innings, thereby giving the besieged bullpen a much-needed breather. "There were times when he might not have the command that he did in Colorado, but boy, to give seven innings there when our bullpen was not full up down there, those guys know it," said Melvin after the game. Owings also made an opening statement, plunking Rafael Furcal to lead off the first inning - I have to think that was retaliation for the hit-fest inflicted on Arizona the night before.

Not that it stopped the Dodgers, with Conor Jackson forced to leave the game in the top of the sixth with a bruised left hand after being hit again, this time by Kuroda - CoJack's third HBP in two games. Fortunately, X-rays proved negative, and hopefully he'll be back in the lineup for the weekend series against the Rockies, after tomorrow's off-day. Chris Burke came in as a replacement, and went 1-for-2, though could be the recipient of some blame for Furcal's double down the line, on the first batter after he entered the game. Still, you take your impromptu corner infielders where you can get them, I suppose.

This was back and forth all game. The Dodgers took the lead in the second on a double by Pierre. The Diamondbacks returned, taking advantage of an error by Loney to score twice, on a groundout by Mark Reynolds and a Justin Upton single, in the fourth. The Dodgers tied it up again in the fifth, and a Loney homer made it 3-2 to them in the sixth. However, a crafty bunt single from Augie Ojeda, a more normal hit by Robby Hammock and a very-disciplined base on balls worked by Micah Owings, loaded the bases with one out. However, to much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, our newest multi-millionaire popped out [Young is 1-for-11 with 6 K's since signing the contract!].

But Eric Byrnes delivered his most important contribution of the season so far, with a two-run single that gave us the lead, this time for good. Byrnes enjoyed his first three-hit game since September 11, and was joined there by Augie Ojeda. The Littlest Ballplayer was making his first start of the year, playing shortstop in place of Drew [sitting this one out due to a sore right quad] and got his first three-hit game since August 28. Er, that's August 2004. Upton added two, his fourth multi-hit contest of the season, while Hammock, starting in place of Snyder after last night's lengthy contest, reached base twice on a hit and a walk.

After Owings completed the seventh inning, it was over to what was left of the bullpen. I can imagine them all looking nervously at each other when the phone rang, and going "Well, it's clearly not for me..." Juan Cruz was the lucky recipient of another outing and got around a one-out walk with the aid of a double-play. Then it was Lyon time, and though he gave up a deep fly to the first batter he faced, got the next man to ground out and then finished with a flourish, sending Andruw Jones down swinging, to notch his second save and seal the season sweep. Despite some qualms, the bullpen has been getting it done, posting a 2.36 ERA thus far, with seven earned runs in 26.2 innings.

Master of his domain: Eric Byrnes, +27.3%
Honorary mention: Brandon Lyon, +16.8%
God-Emperor of suck: Chris Young, -12.6%

Props over the past 24 hours to Azreous, for writing a kickass report after Tuesday's game - I'm hoping to get him doing regular recaps - and for watching over things in today's Gameday Thread, starting an overspill when the molasses crept in to the first one, around the 500 post mark.  We have a double-dose of 'Charmer roll-call goodness, starting with yesterday, where present in the comments w peachy rex, AZDarkKnight, dstorm, soco, foulpole, 4 Corners Fan, snakecharmer, Azreous, DbacksSkins, singaporedbacksfan, Wimb, TwinnerA, Turambar, jsk6788, kishi, hotclaws, Captain D Bag, DisplacedAZfan, Mr. Philosophical, Frank Squishy, peeklay, DiamondbacksWIn, seton hall snake pit, oklahomasooners and calltyriu.

Today was even more of a monster: 935 comments in total, which is not just a regular season best, it surpasses the all-time record of 932 in Game 2 of the NLDS last October. And this was for a weekday afternoon game, without much contribution from me. I think four figures is definitely within reach. jsk6788, 4 Corners Fan, hotclaws, AZDarkKnight, DbacksSkins, snakecharmer, soco, dstorm, seton hall snake pit, foulpole, jweech, TwinnerA, smartsnake [welcome!], Azreous, bcloirao, AZSEAfan, kishi, Craig from Az, Wimb, leemellon, batster, Captain D Bag, frienetic, Huxtable Reunion, TuLoRocks2008 [welcome, though you might get comments about your username!] and peachy rex were present this afternoon.

Another sweep against a divisional rival, and I find myself in the unusual position of cheering for the Giants, as they're battling the Padres to a 0-0 tie in the bottom of the eighth at the moment. Be nice if they came out on top, as that'd give us a 2.5 game cushion on top of the the division, as we welcome Colorado into the Shire, ready to administer some further strict discipline to those naughty Orckies. Actually, the imagery that sentence conjures up in my mind, is probably something I could have done without.

Randy Johnson made his second - and probably final - rehab start down in Tucson. This one seemed to go a good deal better than his first, as the Big Unit struck out seven in six innings, allowing three hits and a walk and throwing a total of 85 pitches. According to Nick Piecoro, "Working off a fastball that sat in the 89-92 mph range, Johnson also was effective with a slider, splitter and change-up," and all being well, should be ready to slot into fellow left-hander Doug Davis's spot in the rotation, when it comes up next on Monday, in San Franciso. Worth repeating at some length Randy's comments after the game:

It's a lot easier to say, 'You know what? I can pitch a major-league start and feel comfortable because I had a game like today. I'll wait and see what they (coaches) say. But I do feel a lot more positive about this start... I was pitching ahead in the count, and that makes all the difference. All three (off-speed) pitches were working. I was pitching both sides of the plate. Now, if you take those pitches and equate them to what would happen if a major-league batter is up? I don't know. But I would take my chances, because I was pitching where I want to pitch.

With the signing of Young, that appears to end the contract discussions for the foreseeable future. The question of Hudson remains lurking on the horizon, and the Tribune thinks O-Dawg is not going be cheap: "Hudson, a three-time Gold Glove winner who will become a free agent after this season, is said to be seeking a yearly salary similar to the $15 million Philadelphia’s Chase Utley will receive." Regrettably, I think this means that we will be playing Where in the World is Orlando Hudson? this off-season. I just do not see the Diamondbacks being prepared to commit to a long-term deal at those rates, especially as he turns 31 before the end of the year. 

Finally, an interesting tidbit at Fangraphs.com who point out that Mark Reynolds has "cut down on swinging at pitches outside the strike zone by 6%." Whatever he's doing, it's clearly having the right effect. And, hooray, the Giants prevailed over the Padres, 1-0, with a ninth-inning run. Surprisingly, Trevor Hoffman was not involved in that loss. But it leaves us with the hoped-for comfortable lead, and a very satisfactory off-day tomorrow. Lolback and random stuff to follow, no doubt.

Record: 2-2. Pace: 81-81. Change on last season: 0

i don't know what the team did on the flight from Cincinnati to Colorado, but whatever it was, clearly worked. Barely 24 hours after being one-hit, Micah Owings, Chad Qualls and Juan Cruz delivered almost the perfect answer, restricting the Colorado Rockies to just two hits. Meanwhile, the bats woke up too, pounding out 13 hits to inflict what I think is the worst defeat the Rockies have ever endured in the 16-year history of Opening Day at Coors Field. If the pre-game NLCS celebrations were designed to get under the skin of the Diamondbacks, then I look forward to them continuing for the rest of the weekend.

Owings was a revelation, particularly in the light of a poor Spring Training campaign, where he allowed 22 hits and 13 walks in only 15.2 innings, for an ERA of 11.32. Really, who would have him then coming to Coors Field, facing a lineup basically unchanged from the one which led the league in BA last year, and restricting them to two hits and one run in 6.2 innings? Oh, and struck out a career-high nine batters, including three from last year's MVP runner-up, Matt Holliday [Cruz also K'd him in the ninth]. Pwnings retired 17 straight batters at one point, and said afterwards, "I felt good today about my command and felt good all around. I felt good about my guys behind me and the offense put up that 3-spot behind me and that helped a lot."

"That 3-spot" would be the first inning, where we sprung out to an early lead, with Chris Snyder giving us an RBI single, and Mark Reynolds adding a two-run double, as we sent eight to the plate, almost getting Owings a chance to bat before he pitched. That set the tone for the afternoon, as we scored runs in six different innings. Reynolds added a solo homer in the fifth, giving him three RBI on two hits for the day, as well as a walk. Orlando Hudson had two hits, and Justin Upton had a homer among his three hits in one game, the latter for the first time since his home debut last August 7, when he was a single short of the cycle.

Of particular note, Chris Young reached safely three times on two walks and a hit. It's the walks that are impressive: he has five so far, which is the same number he had on May 4 last year, not April 4. [In 2007, he had five BB in his first 106 PA's - this year, it's taken him just nineteen] He may only be hitting .214, but we'll happily take an OBP of .421 out of the leadoff spot, so good work there, Chris. This performance was also without the presence of Conor Jackson, missing once again with what is now officially "flu", rather than "flu-like" - Chris Burke again took over at first. Jackson was apparently available as a pinch-hitter today, though was hardly needed, and I imagine he'll be back in the lineup tomorrow, since he's 7-for-23 with four homers against Rockies starter, Jeff Francis.

About the only one to miss out on the fun was Stephen Drew, 0-for-5 with two K's; he batted eighth. Even Eric Byrnes - booed lustily before the game, by Rockies' fans who haven't forgotten his "I also don't think the Rockies have outplayed us, because they haven't" comments during the NLCS - got a double, though that still leaves his average thus far languishing alongside Drew at .125. Still, beats the Rockies [and it certainly did today!], who now have six regulars hitting below the Uecker line after the first four games, led by Holliday's 1-for-14. Of course, early-season stats are a funny thing: Upton is on pace to lead the team in homers. With 81.

Still, quote of the day goes to visiting fan, Silverblood. "Can you guys pleas stop this?? Please??! We are sorry we beat you in the NLCS! This isn't even fair, it's like you're playing the.... Casper Ghosts, we suck so badly right now. Can you just please get yourselves out and end this abortion of a game faster?!! Dear god. This is AWFUL. You are kicking us up, down, and sideways, we are so terrible right now." Oh, things aren't so bad: it's only four games, and you are exactly one behind us. Still, thus far, the Rockies seem like a pale shadow of the 20-in-21 team, and have been outscored thus far by a margin of 20-6. And you're facing Brandon Webb tomorrow. Have fun with that. :-)

[Click to enlarge, in new window]
Master of his domain: Micah Pwnings, +26.0
Honorary mention: Mark Reynolds, +18.8%
God-emperor of suck: Stephen Drew, -6.3%

Thanks to Devin [aka kishi] for starting the Gameday Thread off for me, as I'd blown off the alleged start time provided by the system here as fictitious - no way we'd play two day games in a row, surely! Er, oh yes, there is... Devin, you've now been granted "authorship" privileges, so if it happens again, you can now post stories on to the front page here! Present down the line were Craig from Az, kishi, seton hall snake pit, dstorm, hotclaws, jweech [welcome!], Russ, bcloirao, TwinnerA, peachy rex, Captain D Bag, singaporedbacksfan, 4 Corners Fan, DiamondbacksWIn, Wactivist, Mr. Philosophical, Silverblood, Azreous and soco. I see the Republic are posting a "live game chat" too. Final tally of comments there: 15. Maybe i should go invite people here?

Forgot to mention Randy Johnson's first rehab start down in Tucson, pitching in the Sidewinder's opener. The results weren't much to write home about, as the Big Unit allowed eight hits, two walks and five runs, in four innings, with the only strikeout that of the opposing pitcher. On the plus side, he had a two-run single in the first, and then was walked on four pitches in his next at-bat, so perhaps he's been taking lessons from Micah. Afterwards, Johnson was blunt: "I didn't feel obviously too good about the performance, the amount of effort that it took to get through four innings... I'd like to think things will improve a little bit from a pitching perspective and I get my amount of work in that I need to get in spread over six innings or five innings." Next, and hopefully final, rehab start for Johnson is on the 8th.

i look forward to actually, perhaps, seeing some of tomorrow's game: thus far, it's been very hard to do so. The only one I've been able to watch thus far was Opening Day, and I had to take off work in order to do that! This may explain why the stories so far have felt, at least to me, more like recaps of the boxscore than an eyewitness report. Should prove a little easier tomorrow and Sunday, so see you there.

Arizona completed their spring training with a 9-4 victory over the Monterrey Sultanes last night at Chase. The visitors took the lead in the top of the first, but after Arizona scored three times in the second, they largely rolled from there on. These stats don't count overall, but Upton and Young each had two hits, including a homer; Reynolds added a three-run shot, a monster bomb which cannoned off the facade of the second deck in left.; Hudson two hits and a walk; and Chris Snyder two walks. The roof at Chase was closed during the seventh inning, in observance of "Earth Hour, but on a worrying note, Jackson was sent home after batting practice, with the dreaded 'flu-like symptoms'.

Perhaps the most encouraging thing, was Micah Owings pitching five innings without allowing a walk and throwing 52 strikes in 71 pitches. He did allow nine hits and three earned runs, but it still looks like his best performance of the pre-season. "Now the real stuff is about to begin. I'm going to key in on this and take it as a positive going forward," he said afterwards. i certainly hope so: with the anticipated loss of Davis, Owings would be our #4 starter, rather than the #5, while we wait for DD and Johnson to return. His Cactus League outings have not been what we wanted to see.

It has certainly been a better month for our hitters than our pitchers. Obviously, it's hard to compare stats with the Grapefruit League, which is generally less hitter-friendly, but we led all National League franchises with a .297 batting average this spring, and had an overall line of .297/.372/.476. On the other hand, our team ERA ended up at 6.15, ahead of only the Giants and Astros, and allowed more homers than anyone else. One bright point there, however, is that we also struck-out more opposing hitters than anyone, save the Mets.

Think it turned out to be less predictable a month than we expected. Going in to spring training, about the only questions were whether Tracy and Johnson would be ready for Opening Day. But, while the Opening Day lineup looks to be exactly as anticipated, we end up with four men on the Opening Day roster whom I didn't expect to be there: Robby Hammock, Brandon Medders, Yusmeiro Petit and Alex Romero. Let's take a look at each of them, and see how they got there.

Robby Hammock Though it was known that Miguel Montero had broken his right index finger playing winter ball in Venezuela, as late as the end of February, Melvin was saying "I couldn’t say I would rule out ‘Miggy’ right now." However, the healing was much slower than anticipated, and he will now go in to extended spring training before heading to Tucson on rehab. The current estimate is he "might rejoin the D-backs before May 1." As a result, Hammock, who turns 31 six weeks, will start his fifth season in the majors, though he has yet to reach 200 at-bats in any of them - and probably won't get there in 2008. Melvin said Hammock will play once a week, to give Snyder a day off, but having hit .208/.283/.292 in spring, isn't likely to see much more action.

Brandon Medders Out of options and dispatched to Triple-A in the middle of last season, Medders looked likely to be waived or traded before Opening Day. However, the Vegas hotel-like implosion of Dustin Nippert opened the door, and Medders had a quietly effective Cactus campaign, allowing 13 hits in 12 innings, with four walks and nine strikeouts. Here's hoping he returns to the form shown in 2006, when he had a 3.64 ERA in 71.2 innings - he did okay after returning from Tucson late last season, allowing two runs in seven innings, on seven hits. Let's have no more first-pitch grand-slams, please.

Yusmeiro Petit He gets his chance because of the promotion of Edgar Gonzalez to the rotation, as replacement for Johnson and Davis - the Petit Unit will take over EdGon's role as long relief, and may end up with a spot-start or two, it there's a need for any additional arm in the rotation. He had an excellent spring, with a sub-three ERA in 12.1 innings, and an outstanding K:BB ratio of 17:3. Still on 23, he will be continuing to develop, and produced a very credible ERA+ of 103 last season, making ten starts. To quote one scout, "He doesn't have a power arm but has a plan and the ability to execute." He has to be good. We sponsor his Baseball-Reference.com page. :-)

Alex Romero Battling for the left-handed bench spot were Romero and Trot Nixon - the latter an 11-year veteran, the former without a major-league at-bat to his name. But it's the rookie who won out, after hitting .345 in spring, and even the fact he can't play first-base couldn't stop him. Don't expect power from Romero; in 202 career games at Triple-A, he has just five homers, but good contact skills, with a K:BB ratio of 75:52 over that time. He's still only 24, so as a waiver-wire pickup, claimed by us in January 2007, he's proving quite acceptable. Loved his reaction on hearing the news he was on the roster: "I have to go buy a phone card right now."

Time for the final recap of Heroes and Villains from Spring Training. As always, the sample size here makes this almost as meaningless as the games themselves - that said, isn't it better to have a good pre-season than a bad one? Our hitters were generally very productive, with six of our starting eight batting .300 or better [Stephen Drew got there right at the end!]. For some reason, those named "Chris" appeared to do particularly well...

• Chris Snyder: .395/.490/.884, 5 HR
• Chris Burke: .371/.437/.710
• Chris Young: .333/.429/.636
• -------------------------------------
• Eric Byrnes: .246/.306/.404
• Trot Nixon: .214/.297/.411
• Robby Hammock: .208/.283/.292

• Jailen Peguero: 11 IP, 9 H, 3 ER, 13 K
• Yusmeiro Petit: 12.1 IP, 13 H, 4 ER, 17 K
• Chad Qualls: 9 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 5 K
• -----------------------------------
• Micah Owings: 15.2 IP, 22 H, 17 ER, 12 K
• Brandon Lyon: 8.2 IP, 19 H, 13 ER, 3 K
• Dustin Nippert: 10 IP, 24 H, 16 ER, 8 K

With that, we end the dress-rehearsals. There's now less than 24 hours to go before the curtain goes up on our first pitch of the 2008 major-league season. I can almost taste it now, though the weather forecast for Cincinnati is questionable, with a 40% chance of rain tomorrow. I really hope they get the game in, not least because I have taken the day off work for the occasion. [Actually, I'd maxed out the hours in my vacation bank, and if I didn't take time out, would have stopped accruing them. Opening Day seemed like as good a time as any to do it!]

I hope you're all enjoying SnakePit v2.0. I want to thank Trei and his team for making it such a smooth changeover, and for answering all our questions and my bug reports - whether they were for actual bugs or not! There are some really kick-ass features here, such as the new Gameday Threads which automatically refresh and alert you of new posts. I'm in awe of the work that's gone into this. It is still a project in progress, but it promises to be quite phenomenal.

Couple of things to point out; the 'rec' button you see can be used to recommend good posts - if enough people do so for, say, a FanPost, it will eventually be boosted to a special section. If you read something you like, feel free to use it, as a virtual round of applause for the creator. If you find a quick link, video, etc. of interest and want to post that here, without writing up a full story, you can now do that using the FanShots area - Azreous has already done a couple of them.

Today's talking point. Over at Bleed Cubbie Blue, Al has published his 2008 predictions, picking us to finish fourth in the division. Do you think he's still bitter about the whuppin' we inflicted on the Cubs in the playoffs? ;-) But the real question is: what do you think the order of finish will be in the 2008 NL West.

I'll see you all tomorrow morning, for the first game of the year. The winter is over; the spring has gone; it's time for the boys of summer to take over once again. How sweet a thought that is. I think I'll watch The Natural this afternoon.

Play ball!