Record: 23-15. Pace 98-64. Change on last season: +3

Maybe I should just run out yesterday's report again, and see if anyone notices the difference. Because, as there, a sterling effort from a starting pitcher is wasted by a dismal bullpen performance, who cough up the Diamondbacks' lead and allow the Cubs to walk away with a win in the late innings. This time, the unlucky loser for Arizona was Edgar Gonzalez: he was a late replacement for Randy Johnson, whom the D-backs opted not to start on a cold (48 degrees), windy (24 mph!) day in Chicago. Said manager Bob Melvin:

I think it's pretty obvious. With a guy that's had the problems he's had with his back, to send him out there in those conditions, not only with what certainly would be a wet field, but windy conditions which play on the back. There are a lot of reasons not to pitch him today.

Can't really argue with that, though Johnson seemed fairly unimpressed: "It was Bob Melvin's decision," he said. "What are you going to do? I was prepared to pitch, but with so much uncertainty, I think that's why... I'm not going to make a big deal about it. I'm not pitching, I'm going to go out and play some catch because I don't want to go this long without playing catch." There's an off-day tomorrow, so the plan is to push everyone back: Johnson will start on Tuesday at Chase Field against the Rockies, and will be followed in that series by Owings and Webb.

And, as we've seen a number of times before, when called upon to be a spot starter, Edgar Gonzalez delivered, even despite an hour-long rain-delay before the first pitch. He gave us five innings, allowing two runs on five hits and two walks, and it's a bit surprising that he was pulled for a pinch-hitter in the sixth, as Gonzalez had only thrown 87 pitches [He hadn't taken the mound since relieving Max Scherzer on May 5th, so was not on short rest, or anything like that]. I imagine Melvin had no problems about using his bullpen with a day off, though the events of yesterday forced him to diverge from the usual pattern.

And that's where thing got nasty. Cruz was perfectly fine in the sixth, but got into trouble in the seventh. After fanning the first hitter, he walked the next one, and then allowing Reed Johnson to hit his first homer of the season, Cruz supplying enough power to counter the strong wind blowing in at Wrigley. Combined with his outing yesterday, Cruz presents us with the following line against the Cubs this series:
    Juan Cruz: 2.1 IP, 3 H, 5 BB, 6 K, 2 HR, 3 ER
Like I said, there's rarely a dull moment when Famine takes the mound: he is a real "three true outcomes" pitcher. Of the 15 batters he faced this series, 13 walked, homered or struck out.

Tony Peña rescued him, and got the final two outs to keep the game tied at the end of the seventh. However, the eighth proved just as unpleasant, the Cubs scoring twice on a double to the wall in center-field, after an intentional walk had been issued to Soriano to load the bases. [Today was not a good one for the intentional walk: both teams used it, and it turned round and bit them in both cases] Our defense cost us in that inning too, as a half-decent throw from Montero would have nailed Ramirez as he stole second; instead, it sailed off-line, and Fukudome followed with a perfect bunt.

Again, the offense was quiet, with only five hits and AZ were 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position. The team had a great chance to bust the game open in the fifth, but couldn't take advantage. Bases-loaded walks to Jackson and Upton, after an RBI single by Ojeda tied the game, had given the Diamondbacks a two-run lead, and they still had the bases full with only one down. However, Drew popped out to the shortstop and Reynolds flied out - the failure to add on runs there proved costly down the stretch, especially as the Chicago bullpen faced the minimum 14 hitters over the last 4 2/3 innings, thanks to Burke getting picked off and Ojeda grounding into a double-play.

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Master of his domain: Conor Jackson, +18.2%
God-Emperor of suck: Juan Cruz, -29.0%

Slightly better Gameday Thread attendance today, though we were still well short of overflow level. Present were: TwinnerA, foulpole, hotclaws, unnamedDBacksfan, kishi, csktech, peachy rex, luckycc, seton hall snake pit, 4 Corners Fan, snakecharmer, IndyDBack, srdmad, OnlineHomeopath [welcome!], dahlian, Wimb, DbacksSkins, RAMJB, likeavirgin and TexSkins. Certainly a disappointing loss; I was hoping for better, especially once I heard we wouldn't be facing Zambrano. If our bullpen had held up, we could have come away from Chicago with two victories: it's therefore infuriating to get nothing at all.

On the plus side, getting swept by the Cubs is probably not as bad as getting swept by the Astros - and that's what happened to the Dodgers over the weekend, so our lead in the division stayed rock-solid, at 3.5 games. Makes me feel a lot better about taking two of three at home from the Astros. But thus far, the NL West is back to being the NL Worst, having a cumulative record of 16-20 against the East and 20-31 against the Central. [For completion, the Central is 28-32 facing the East]

Ours was not the only bullpen to suffer, LA's Jonathan Broxton coughing up six runs in 1/3 of an inning this afternoon. This not only got the loss, it also took Shawn Chacon off the hook, and gave him his eighth consecutive no-decision. It's not as if he has been pulled that early, throwing 51 innings in those eight starts, but he's just never been involved in the outcome. You have to go back to 1977 to find a longer streak of no-decisions; John D'Acquisto and Randy Lerch each went ten straight starts that season, though the former was a spot starter who only twice pitched past the third. Chacon's streak is more remarkable, in that having reached five innings every time, he would have qualified for the win.

Off-day tomorrow, as noted already. Glad it comes on a Monday, as I am usually scurrying around like a mad fool then anyway! Good to regroup and get ready to face the Rockies once more - I think we'll be happy to get back to taking our our divisional rivals after the last few games!

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: 13-4. Pace: 124-38. Change on last season: +3.

Today's game perhaps illustrated the greatest difference between this team and previous versions of the Diamondbacks. Last year, if the team was behind 3-1, and their only hit in the first five innings had been by their pitcher, it would probably have been time to plan for tomorrow. [In 2007, we were 10-50 when trailing after five innings] However, watching today's game, I felt little or no sense of despondency, more a calm certainty that our offense would come around. And lo, we scored a run in the sixth, added two more in the seventh to take the lead, and then blew it open by once again putting up a six-spot, Conor Jackson making both the first and the last out of the eighth inning.

I don't know if the Padres bullpen were still suffering a hangover from their 14 innings of work on Thursday. But Thatcher and Cameron, who'd thrown 24 and 27 pitches respectively in that marathon, proved pleasantly ineffective, combining for 1.2 innings, six hits, four walks and eight runs - though five were unearned, thanks to a complete miss of a grounder by Khalil Greene [I'm pretty sure the Gameday Thread resounded to the rafters after that one, though I have yet to check]. Thanks to the wildness [seven walks in total], we scored ten runs on only nine hits: Upton had a pair, though Byrnes reached safely twice on two walks and a hit.

Credit also to Jackson, who singled, then stole second and came home to score the tying run in the sixth on a single by Reynolds [Special K was thrown out on an ill-advised attempt to reach second, though the camera missed it entirely - all we got to see was Reynolds rolling in the infield dirt about ten feet past the base. Not quite sure what happened there] I know stealing off Josh Bard is like robbing the blind little match-girl, but he did so with such ease, I wouldn't be surprised to see him doing more. He seemed to enjoy showing off the new-found wheels: Jackson already has more triples this season (three) than in his 310 prior career games.

On the other hand, what was up with Orlando Hudson? I think someone needs to buy him a copy of the Official Rules. Last week, he tries to advance on an infield fly, then this afternoon, after our first two hitters get on, he tries to bunt them along, but gets called out for batter's interference, because his back foot was very obviously not in the box. Even if he'd done it right, it seems a strange decision - after the pitcher has walked the first two hitters, I'd be inclined to take a couple of pitches, and not give him an easy out, especially with the nuclear offense we are running out there these days. Did he do that on his own? Inquiring minds want to know: he has been scuffling lately, just 5-for-27 in the last seven games.

Solid enough outing by Edgar Gonzalez, who went six innings, allowing three earned runs on four hits and four walks - he battled control problems, but the only damage came on a pair of long balls. Some discussion in the thread about how what we should expect from EdGon. While I share Foulpole and Phil's concern about his HR rate, Jeff Sackmann took a look at this over at The Hardball Times, and found that the ERA of the average #5 pitcher in 2006 was a meaty 6.24. In his 32 starts, Gonzalez's ERA is now 5.69 - and that's pitching in a distinctly hitter-friendly home-park. I don't think even Edgar's mother would describe him as a potential Cy Young winner, but as a back of the rotation fill-in until Doug Davis returns, he's a lot better than most teams have available. [In another piece, Sackmann also found most teams use between ten and twelve starters per season, suggesting that depth is an important aspect of any rotation]

Elsewhere on the pitching side, is anyone else a little concerned about Juan Cruz? Sure, his ERA is a very nice 2.35, with only four hits in 7.2 innings. But after today, he has now walked eight hitters already - tied for most on the club, even including all the starters. Last season, he'd only walked eight hitters on June 7, though did have some time on the DL. His raw "stuff' seems as good as ever; I think I saw him hit 99 mph on the radar gun this afternoon. But a lot of the pitches that were missing the mark were not anywhere close to the plate. No damage today though; still, something to keep an eye on. Chad Qualls extended his scoreless streak with another zero, and Brandon Lyon, having warmed up, pitched a 1-2-3 ninth in what was a non-save situation, thanks to our six runs in the bottom of the eighth.

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Master of his domain: Chris Young, +23.4%
Honorary mention: Stephen Drew, +22.2%
God-emperor of suck: Orlando Hudson, +12.8%

I got to watch this one at my sister-in-law's, while enjoying some extremely tender ribs [not normally a fan; much like wings, they're often more trouble than they're worth, but these just fell off the bone], tiramisu and Stella Artois. The latter may have been partly responsible for my complete failure to understand Joe Garagiola Sr. when he started trying to burble about BABIP and what it meant. I love Joe, and think it's great he's trying to understand the new baseball math - even if the result is like watching your grandfather attempt to program the iPod he was given as an ill-advised Christmas present. However...a little more edumification on the basics, before attempting to discuss it on television, would help avoid him sound like the infamous "the Internet is a series of tubes" politician.

Anyway, present in the Gameday Thread here were: paqs, Captain D Bag, peachy rex, kishi, foulpole, DbacksSkins, soco, Philip from LA, seton hall snake pit, Snakebitten [welcome!], azshadowwalker, dahlian, Wimb, 4 Corners Fan, hotclaws [loved the macro!], Craig from Az, njjohn, singaporedbacksfan, Songbird and oklahomasooners. Though Skins appeared to spend more time over at GLB, posting pics of co-eds, in an apparently successful attempt to thaw relations with them. Perhaps this is something the State Department should look into: "Hey, Al Qaeda! Drop the jihad stuff and we'll give you all lifetime subscriptions to Maxim." It's insane, but...it...just...might...work...

Anyway, another series win in the back, and we continue to roll, with our fourth win in a row. The Rockies have matched us there, but the Padres (5.5 back) and Dodgers (six behind) are already beginning to find themselves looking up at a sizable gap. We've now scored exactly double the runs of our opponents in the 17 games so far, 112-56 - no other team in the majors has even reached three figures for runs. Long may that continue. And, finally, some good news on the Doug Davis front:

Nine days after undergoing surgery for thyroid cancer, Arizona LHP Doug Davis threw from 120 feet on Saturday afternoon. "I felt real good out there throwing the ball," Davis said. "I don’t feel any different right now than I did before surgery. A little sore in the neck area." Davis has targeted May 9 at the Chicago Cubs for his return to the rotation.

Get well soon, Doug, needless to say.

Record: 9-3. Pace: 122-40. Change on last season: +1

Can't win 'em all. And if you're going to lose, you might as well do so in a blowout fashion, with your starter going only three innings, the previously-reliable bullpen coughing up a ten-spot the rest of the way, and the top third of your order going 2-for-13. Add in base baserunning (Upton getting picked off, a move that probably stopped us from getting the tying run to third with one out in the sixth), questionable fielding (not least Upton again) and an inexplicable apparent ignorance of the infield-fly rule by Orlando Hudson: yes, this game contained enough suckitude to make up for the near-flawless play of the last week,

It is, therefore, not a contest upon which I want to dwell. This should be swept rapidly under the carpet, the team moving on to begin another winning streak, starting with Randy Johnson's return against the Giants tomorrow. But duty compels me to review the horrors which unfolded today, starting with Edgar Gonzalez, who felt compelled to pitch permanently from the stretch, allowing the Rockies' leadoff man to reach in every inning. He was gone after three innings in which he faced eighteen batters, yet escaped with allowing three earned runs,

The bullpen which followed were even more forgettable, with the honorable exception of Brandon Medders, who posted a scoreless sixth. All told, the combined line was six innings of work, ten hits, four walks, two hit batters [in addition to the two EdGon plunked, overall tying the franchise record of four, set against LA on July 3rd, 2006] and ten earned runs. Admittedly, it was mostly the B-pen, but Tony Pena was only saved from giving up a grand-slam in the ninth, by the wild-pitch he uncorked immediately beforehand. That was more runs for the relief corps than in the eleven previous games combined, single-handedly raising our bullpen ERA from 2.64 to 5.43, dropping us from first to thirteenth in the NL, over one afternoon.

In the face of such mediocrity, the offense would have been hard pushed to catch up. They did have their moments, getting the tying run on base in the fourth, and to the plate in the sixth, but the absence of Young in the leadoff spot was sorely felt. Eric Byrnes hit there instead, and went 1-for-5, seeing a total of just ten pitches in those five trips to the plate. Down the order, there was good work done by Stephen Drew and Chris Snyder, each having three-hit games and adding a walk and an RBI. Snyder's performance was particularly pleasing to see, since he came into the game with just three hits on the season. Jeff Salazar added two hits and three RBI; Hudson, Reynolds and Upton all reached safely twice, and we did manage 12 hits in total.

One good thing: attendance continues to impress. Obviously, the tenth-anniversary celebrations and some cool giveaways likely helped lure more people to the ballpark. But compared to the equivalent second home series in 2007 [which was also over the weekend against the Rockies], crowds were up more than 30%: 92,309 to 69,844. Now we've got the festivities out of the way, we'll see how things settle down, but it'd be nice to see average crowds around the 30,000 mark as we go through the first-half of the season, then ramp up as we head down the stretch towards the playoffs.

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Master of his domain: Jeff Salazar, +16.5%
God-emperor of suck: Edgar Gonzalez, -16.3%

TwinnerA, kishi, foulpole, soco, DbacksSkins, hotclaws, DbacksSkins, 4 Corners Fan, paqs [Welcome to the threads!], dstorm, Muu, unnamedDBacksfan, seton hall snake pit, singaporedbacksfan, LucaMaz3, Stile4aly, Turambar, Azreous and snakecharmer were the inhabitants in the Gameday Thread, bravely struggling on, even after the technical pixies stole the voices away from Mr. Sutton and Mr. Grace. Yes, all told, this will definitely be the kind of game that should be put behind us, as rapidly as possible. And what better way to do it, than by going to the consensus worst team in the division, with a five-time Cy Young winner on the mound?