Record: 3-2. Pace: 97-65. Change on last season: 0

They may be storing the balls in raspberry Jello or whatever at Coors these days, but a trip there still appears to be the perfect prescription to cure ailing bats: we have had at least one man reach base every inning so far. Arizona had more hits yesterday, than in the entire series against the Reds, and the two games thus far have raised the team's batting average from .154 to .241. Fifteen hits yesterday, with five of our eight starting position players having multi-hit games, and Conor Jackson and Justin Upton getting three hits apiece.

The former was both surprising and no shock: Jackson was still suffering from the lingering after-effects of a respiratory ailment, which was very obvious in the post-game interview. On the other hand, Jackson has owned Jeff Francis almost his entire career, and so seeing him back in the lineup was no surprise: that 3-for-4 off him yesterday improves CoJack's career average vs. Francis to .370 [10-for-27]. The good news for Arizona is, he also has excellent numbers against the aces of our other main rivals. He's batted .364 [8-for-22] against Jake Peavy, and .474 [9-for-19] against Brad Penny. Small sample sizes, obviously, but it's not difficult to see that Jackson will be crucial to the D-backs this season.

Chris Young also had a good day, making a statement early on by homering in his first at-bat, to lead off the game, and then adding another, with the score 3-2, to provide us with some much needed breathing space [we'd already blown two leads at that point, and keeping it a one-run game was asking for trouble, especially in Coors]. Interesting paragraph by Nick Piecoro, describing what happened in that at-bat by Young:

With a runner on in the sixth and ahead 3-1 in the count, Young thought back to his previous two at-bats. Both times Francis threw him change-ups. Both times, he grounded out. "If he's getting me out on it," Young thought, "why would he change it?" Francis threw another change-up, and Young hit it out for his sixth career multi-home run game... "Last year," Young said, "I might have been looking dead red the entire time, no matter what the count is, no matter what the situation is. That's the type of hitter I was. This year, I'm making an effort to make some adjustments."

Best of all, the second blast actually came with a runner on base - after nine consecutive solo homers from the team, I was beginning to wonder if Bud had passed some kind of rule forbidding the Diamondbacks from hitting the ball out of the park with anyone aboard. Young is tied with, perhaps surprisingly, Justin Upton, for the team lead, each having three homers.

Brandon Webb was masterful, continuing the form he showed against the Rockies in his last regular-season start of 2007, with just one earned run over seven innings, on five hits and a walk. Again, he made good use of his change-up, particularly against Taveras: "I kind of made some adjustments and hopefully I can continue that. I think I mixed it up maybe a hair more than I had been. I felt like I threw a lot of offspeed pitches, first-pitch curveballs and that kind of kept them off-balance and threw some changeups for strikeouts." He didn't even get flustered when Reynolds made errors on back-to-back balls hit to him in the second, which led to Colorado tying the score for the second time.

A couple of notes on defense. Reynolds' errors were bad; on the first, he couldn't get the ball out of his glove, forcing him to hurry a throw to second, which went wild. The second was perhaps even more embarrassing; he had plenty of time, and simply air-mailed his throw to first. However, he did redeem himself somewhat with a couple of good plays later on, notably with the bases-loaded in the eighth. Hudson also made a great dive to throw out the runner from his knees, saving a run; Young had a fine read on a deep drive to the track in center; and Drew took a hit and RBI away from Troyboy, diving to his right in the ninth, to leave Tulowitzki 0-for-5 on the day. My, how we laughed...

The Rockies certainly had their chances, but went 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position, their runs coming on a solo homer and a groundout. The most startling failures came against our bullpen, Tony Peña and Brandon Lyon putting Colorado men at third with no outs, in the eighth and ninth inning respectively. But both were stranded there: Peña's performance was particularly impressive, as he had loaded the bases, meaning the tying run was in the on-deck circle. But he struck out Atkins and Ianetta, then got Spilborghs to ground out to Reynolds. [Memo to Tony: please bear in mind, we got rid of Valverde for making things 'interesting'...] Medders, meanwhile, was saved by Drew's beautiful catch, previously mentioned.

A few words of comfort for the Rockies' fans, however. Despite scoring only eight runs in your first five games, your team is not actually that bad. There is no conceivable way they will continue to be so un-clutch: thus far, you are hitting just .095 [4-for-42] with runners in scoring position, and your hitters are below the Uecker line overall, at .198. This will not last, any more than the Padres batting .299, or the Braves hitting .370 with RISP. However, if you wouldn't mind continuing to suck for one more day, that'd be okay with us. I also note that the D-backs have been un-clutchy thus far too, just a .190 BA, but are still scoring a very respectable 5.2 runs per game. That's entirely because of their MLB-leading ten homers.

Master of his domain: Chris Young, +22.7%
Honorary mention: Brandon Webb, +20.1%
God-Emperor of suck: Chris Snyder, -13.7%

Most voluminous GT since Opening Day. It ended up past 600, and I didn't notice much slowdown, even towards the end. Present were: kishi, soco, seton hall snake pit, Russ, DbacksSkins, peachy rex, hotclaws, LucaMaz3, foulpole, Wimb, The Main Man, Captain D Bag, DiamondbacksWIn, frienetic, AZDarkKnight, snakecharmer, azshadowwalker, 4 Corners Fan, Craig from Az, singaporedbacksfan, TwinnerA, Silverblood, njjohn, dstorm and unnamedDBacksfan, so thanks to them for their input.

Got an email with an interesting fantasy twist from Jack Collins. He's running a fantasy league where your roster is all the players on a particular team. He's looking for someone to run the Diamondbacks, using the Diamondbacks roster - though, obviously, the opportunity for you to actually manage will be limited. If anyone is interested, drop me a line. First come, first served.

Gameday Thread to follow quite soon, I think, since it's a noon start.

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.