Record: 21-11. Pace: 106-56. Change on last season: +5

For the first ever, I am writing the game recap while it's still taking place. This was pretty much an abomination on a whole number of levels. We came into it with such high expectations, but the reality check came hard and fast, as first-round pick Max Scherzer was cruelly exposed. By the end of three innings, Scherzer had allowed seven hits, a walk, a hit batter and thrown a wild pitch as, with the aid of some more sloppy defense, Arizona had dug themselves a 5-1 hole - one from which they never looked remotely like escaping. Instead, this turned into amomg the biggest drubbings of the season to date. Not quite what we were hoping for, then...

After his debut, certain posters disagreed with me (using various degrees of sarcasm)  for questioning whether Scherzer was quite ready, mentally, to face major-league hitting. It gives me no pleasure to say, "I told you so." He has a nice fastball, to be sure, touching 98 mph, but that isn't enough to get you past a lineup of major-league hitters who have a scouting report, particularly when you can't throw anything else for a strike. They just sit, wait for the fastball, and dispatch it as appropriate. In contrast, Jamie Moyer was nowhere near Scherzer's raw stuff - if he threw anything that touched 90 mph, I must have missed it - but hit his spots, mixed things up, and kept our batters off-balance for seven flummoxing innings. The difference was, Moyer pitched, while Scherzer just threw. 

A few words on our defense: hang on, let me just look up "inadequate" in my thesaurus. Drew made his fourth error, Reynolds his seventh - the latter is now on pace to make 35 this season. Now, I'm the first to say that errors are not a great measure by which to judge...well, anything much, but I think it can hardly be argued that he's been done a dis-service. Another four unearned runs were coughed up by the defense today, giving us 25 on the year to date, tied for the most in the majors. Someone who looked extremely uncomfortable out there today was Orlando Hudson. Despite claims to the contrary, he was very clearly not back to full health; his appearance yesterday was not misleading there. As Mark Grace said, would we rather have Augie Ojeda out there at 100%, or Orlando Hudson at 50%?

Because "50%" is an adequate description of O-Dawg's pace down the first-base line as he grounded into a double-play in the sixth. We'd got the first two on, after singles by Young and - hey! - Byrnes [it's a sad day when the most well-paid player on your roster going 1-for-4 is a pleasant surprise...], and with the score only 5-1 at that point, we had a chance to come back into the game. However, Hudson killed the rally, with extreme prejudice, and the Phillies poured on another four runs in the next half-inning.

Scherzer did get through the fourth without further issue, but had to be lifted, having reached his pitch count - he finished on 92. Ironically, it was Edgar Gonzalez who took over in long-relief, reversing the roles which the two played last week. EdGon posted zeros for two innings, but then gave up the aforementioned four-spot in the seventh, mostly because an ill-advised dive by Upton missed the ball entirely, turning it into a bases-clearing triple. What little was left of our Win Probability at that stage - and it was already down to 5.7% - made its excuses and bolted off to beat the traffic, as that made the score 9-1 to Philadelphia. Slaten and Medders completed the mop-up duty necessary.

We made the score fractionally more respectable by scoring two runs in the ninth, and somehow managed to get eleven hits. On the other hand, we went without a single walk, for the first time in 67 consecutive games (including the post-season), going back to August 29th last year. Young, Upton and Drew had two hits each, and Snyder swatted his second homer of the year. Our catcher is quietly getting back into the groove we expected: after hitting a startling .083 through the first ten games, Snyder put together a line of .326/.421/.587 before tonight's bomb, and has reached base safely, with a hit or a walk, in seventeen consecutive starts. [In three games, he came in as a late-inning replacement] It may be time to think about moving him back up the order, especially considering the struggles of some of our other hitters.

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Master of his domain: Stephen Drew, +11.0% [shurely shome mishtake?]
God-emperor of suck: Max Scherzer, -31.4%

Don't look now, but the Dodgers hammered the Mets and are only three games behind us. Somehow, we still have the best win percentage in the major-leagues, but can anyone honestly say it feels like that right now? Certainly, many more nights which combine bad starts, poor hitting and defensive mis-handling, and we won't even have the best record in the division... Fascinating thread over at DBBP, where Levski discusses the team problems., that I commend to all interested parties. It's not time to panic yet, but if Hudson, Byrnes and Owings continue to be run out there hurt, then the comfy cushion which we built up in April may soon be replaced, by the cold, hard plastic found in a doctor's waiting-room...

I'll confess, I bailed out of this one early, and wouldn't blame anyone else who did so too. We ended a little short of 500 on the night: thanks to foulpole, dahlian, soco, snakecharmer, RAMJB, hotclaws, DbacksSkins, 4 Corners Fan, Turambar, unnamedDBacksfan, pvlas [welcome], LucaMaz3, TwinnerA, Muu, kishi, srdmad, Azreous, mrssoco, TexSkins and likeavirgin [I'm confused...but welcome!]. soco gets the award for Commentor of the Game, with more posts than anyone else [thanks to 'charmer's roll-call script, I can now see these things!], but picked up the evening's only recommendation for his stalwart defense of the beautiful game. :-)

And off to bed. Here's to better things tomorrow, though with a Randy Johnson start, I think I can hear the bullpen wheezing...

Master of his domain: Micah Owings, +28.2%
Honorary mention: Brandon Lyon,. +16.8%
God-emperor of suck: Randy Johnson, -36.6%
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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.

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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: 19-7. Pace: 118-44. Change on last season: +4

Rarely have the ferocious powers of the baseball gods, when angered, been so swiftly demonstrated. #29 in Baseball's Unwritten Rules clearly states, "Never mention a no-hitter while it's in progress." Unfortunately, Turambar was not aware of this and at 7:39 PM precisely, after Dan Haren had mowed down the first four innings-worth of Houston batters, posted, "Well, time to keep the no-hitter rolling." The horror-struck reaction of those present had to be seen to be believed, and it was probably inevitable that, when the Astros fifth opened, it went:

• L. Berkman walked
• C. Lee doubled to deep left center, L. Berkman to third
• H. Pence grounded out to second, L. Berkman scored, C. Lee to third
• M. Loretta singled to right center, C. Lee scored
• J.R. Towles hit by pitch, M. Loretta to second
• C. Sampson reached on bunt single to third, M. Loretta to third, J.R. Towles to second

From retiring the first twelve hitters, on only 35 pitches, Haren suddenly found himself unable to get anyone out - not even the opposing pitcher, whose bunt attempt left everyone safe. As discussed in the Gameday Thread, a mob of angry D-backs fans waving torches was being gathered, ready to march on Turambar's home - from a 4-0 lead and a perfect game, we were now looking at the tying run on second-base, with only one man out. Fortunately, Haren saved our blaspheming friend, by getting Matsui to pop-up, then fanning Bourn to end the threat, and send the mob back to their homes, albeit still muttering under its breath...

Still, all's well that ends well: "all" in this case, being another win for Arizona, Haren bouncing back magnificently from his previous loss, to pitch into the eighth and vacuum up his fourth win of the season. All told, he threw 7.2 innings, retiring the opposition in order for six of them, and gave up three earned runs on five hits and a walk, fanning five. He even helped his own cause by driving in the go-ahead run in the third, with an RBI double, continuing a great season so far by our hurlers at the plate, who are now batting a collective .273 [15-for-55] this year. Only 1B, LF and RF have a higher average for AZ than our pitchers. To quote Kishi's immortal line, "I knew it was a good idea to let them get bitten by a radioactive Micah Owings in the off-season."

We added all the additional scoring we'd need in the fourth; Reynolds doubled home two runs, then came home himself on a single by Snyder. Jackson completed our scoring, droving in his 21st run of the year with a single in the fifth, and though the Astros made it a two-run game in the eighth, Qualls struck out Berkman to end that inning with a runner on second [14.2 innings without an earned run for the Equallizer, second-most in the majors behind Oakland's Andrew Brown, on 15] and Lyon came in to notch his eighth save with a perfect ninth. That reduced his 2008 ERA to 2.77, and gives him a line over the past ten outings of:
    Lyon: 10 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 7 K, 0 R, 0 ER, 0.00 ERA, .118 OBA
Those early-season struggles seem well behind him now.

Not a great deal of offense, but enough. Jackson had two hits and a walk, while Reynolds and Drew each reached safely twice, on a double and a free-pass. Can't help feeling we should have scored more, most notably in the eighth, where we loaded the bases with no-one out, thanks to a trio of walks. However, Drew struck out and Snyder hit in to an inning-ending double-play. Still, in the overall scheme of things, it turned out not to matter, and hopefully we will make better use of that opportunity, the next time it arises.

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Master of his domain: Dan Haren [pitching], +20.3%
Honorary mention: Mark Reynolds, +12.7%
God-emperor of suck: Chris Snyder, -6.1%

A brisk Gameday Thread, enlivened by some honored guests from Astros turf: thanks to lnewcomer and Stros Bro for their friendly contributions and tolerance of visiting fans on Crawfish Boxes - a very refreshing change from certain experiences of the past week. Thanks also to the other contributors: soco, snakecharmer, dstorm, dahlian, kishi, SongBird, foulpole, DbacksSkins, LucaMaz3, Stile4aly, Azreous, 4 Corners Fan, mrssoco, hotclaws, britdback and njjohn. Oh, alright - and Turambar as well, who will not be allowed to forget his transgression for quite some time, I suspect!

On a day with minimal NL activity [the Giants beat the Rockies in the only other West action], good to get a jump on the opposition and put a foot forward towards, hopefully, another series win. No sign of Scherzer in the bullpen, but it seems likely that they are waiting to see what happens in Micah Owings' bullpen session tomorrow - any issues there will lead to Scherzer being used as a replacement. Though with EdGon and Randy starting the remaining games in the series, we may well be looking for some long relief tomorrow or Wednesday.