Randy Johnson LHP, 10-9, 4.03

Cha Seung Baek RHP, 4-9, 5.08

Baseball-Reference.com preview [opens in new window]

Randy Johnson is on the mound this afternoon, not only to go for win #295 but to stop the bleeding of our starting pitchers. After a tough loss by Haren (and Rauch) and a disappointing start from Webb, Randy absolutely needs to be Good Randy to avoid the sweep. Because, seriously, a sweep by the Padres would not help our street cred, 'yo.

Luckily, we face a pitcher who has lost his last 3 starts by giving up 5, 2, and 5 runs. ... And that's all I know about him, unfortunately. Research on your own, everybody, sorry!

Early start today... let's hope the game and the Gameday Thread can lure some people away from work! On a more serious note, there was an incident last night of impersonation of another member. This behavior is not acceptable, and action will be taken if it happens again. Thanks for your cooperation.

About 20 minutes till we can say.... PLAY BALL!

Ricky Nolasco RHP, 12-7, 3.67

Doug Davis LHP, 5-7, 4.68

Baseball-Reference.com preview [opens in new window]

15 minutes to game time and there's not a gameday thread yet! Oh no, Jim must've been kidnapped!

Hang tight while I get a preview up for today.

[Sorry, went to breakfast and just got back; had to wait longer than we thought... Please continue...]

There. A slightly-tidier Gameday Thread. Thanks to 'charmer for getting one up in the meantime. We had a very relaxed morning: watched some Primeval, a little Penn and Teller, then headed out for breakfast, and didn't realize what time it was till we got back to the car! Sorry for the inconvenience...

DD goes today, and sure we'll be monitoring his back, to see how it feels, with a quick hook if necessary. Nolasco is another one in the Marlins' roster of good young pitchers, and we'll have to see how we do against him. Dodgers are playing later tonight: I'm not expecting to pick up another game today, but let's go one step at a time.

Record: 59-55. Pace: 84-78. Change on last season: -4

An hour later than intended, I thought I'd put this up as a placeholder for Jim and a thread for us to follow the Dodgers/Cardinals game tonight if anyone was so inclined. For the interested, it's 3-3 in the 4th.

For those who can't wait for Jim's recap, the main points of today's game are:

• Jeff Karstens' second start of the season was almost perfect, literally, retiring 23 batters before Chris Young laced a double down the left field line. He completed the game with a 2-hit shutout.
• Randy Johnson was similarly awesome for a majority of the game. He allowed a home run to Freddy Sanchez in the 4th and another run scored in the 8th. His 7th inning was particularly made of nice angry RJ strike-throwing goodness.

Now, Jim's un-condensed version. :-)

S'funny how things go. The first game of the series, we saw the worst pitching display at Chase in a very long time, with a procession of hurlers, apparently incapable of finding the strike-zone if the world's largest funnel had been placed between the mound and home-plate. But today, the unheralded Karstens, with ten career starts, comes within four batters of becoming the least experienced pitcher ever to throw a perfect game. Is it treacherous to admit that I was, to a certain extent, rooting for him over the final couple of frames?

It was not to be, however, with Chris Young ending the bid with two outs in the bottom of the eighth, delivering a clean double down the left-field line. He also walked Augie Ojeda to open the ninth, and allowed a two-out single there to Stephen Drew. Still, a two-hit, complete-game shutout is nothing to be sneezed at, especially when he got as many hits as the entire Arizona line-up. Since coming to Pittsburgh in the trade with the Yankees for Xavier Nady, Karstens has thrown nothing but zeroes, over fifteen consecutive innings, against the leaders of the NL Central and NL West. Not bad for someone who came into the year with a career ERA of 5.65. The rush to snap him up in your fantasy baseball league starts here. :-)

Despite getting tagged with the loss, Randy - the last man with a perfect game - didn't pitch badly, giving up two runs and pitching into the eighth inning: he probably wasn't helped by Melvin throwing him out once again, Johnson despite already being at a hundred pitches by the end of the seventh. That allowed Doug Mientkiewicz to win the day, driving in a run with a double: as you may recall, there was some argy-bargy earlier on between those two. There wasn't much carry-over today, much though some would have liked to see a fastball "accidentally" get away from the Big Unit.

The closest to a confrontation was Johnson pointedly stepping off the mound, when the Polish God of Scrabble was all ready to hit. Though the Pirates' hitter was full of praise for Johnson after the game this afternoon, saying: "That's the best stuff I think he's had in four or five years. His ball had some life to it. His slider was hidden very well. He was throwing it into me and away and when he does that, he's tough. There's a reason why he's won starts in a row. That's a totally different guy than what we saw [in Pittsburgh]." Certainly a radical change from his earlier comments of, "He's been out of the game for three years in my mind... That just shows me how mentally weak he is... He doesn't have intimidating stuff anymore."

The Big Unit scattered seven hits over 7.1 innings, with the only other damage a solo homer to Sanchez in the fourth, that broke a scoreless tie. He struck out seven and, for the third straight day, our starter didn't walk anyone, giving them a K:BB ratio of 19:0 for this series. Some concerns - shall we say - were expressed when Qualls came in with men on second and third and one out in the eighth, but he stopped both men from scoring, and Juan Cruz had a much more confident outing this time around, his second back off the DL. He pitched a perfect ninth, striking out two of the three hitters he faced.

The hitters, needless to say, had hardly any success, though a number of ball were hit hard and deep to the outfield. That included two of the first three batters, and you'd have got long odds at that point for the starter still being there in the eighth, never mind still throwing a perfect game. Our best - almost only - chance of breaking the shutout up came when Ojeda walked to lead off the ninth. However, Tony Clark promptly grounded straight into his fourth double-play in 33 at-bats [and that's discounting a couple of others which should have been turned by the opposition]. He only has four hits in that time, and since those 33 at-bats have resulted in 31 outs, I guess this means Clark has a "real" batting average of .061... Drew then got our second hit, before Hudson grounded out to end the game.

[Click to enlarge, in new window]
Master of his domain: Augie Ojeda, +9.4%
God-emperor of suck: Tony Clark, -17.5%
Dishonorable mentions: Hudson, -12.1%; Romero, -12.0%; Tracy, -10.4%

An active Gameday Thread, with a special shout-out to ZonaBacks10, who made his debut today, though it hardly turned out to be auspicious! If we get shut-out again tomorrow, the patented SnakePit IP Address Air-Strike Co-ordinator will be booted up... :-) Also present were snakecharmer, DbacksSkins, Zephon, kishi, Wimb, soco, AJforAZ, hotclaws, utahdbacksfan, unnamedDBacksfan, SongBird, luckycc, Muu, AZSEAfan, britdback, emilylovesthedbacks, bcloirao, NewJackCity, nihil67, srdmad, dahlian, frienetic, Red Reign, dstorm, AZWILDCATS and Scrbl. Just a reminder about the no F-bombs policy too, which some people seem...keen to test, shall we say. Use them, and your comment will be hidden. Get upset about that, and further action may result. Thank you for your attention. :-)

As 'Charmer noted above, the Dodgers are playing the Cardinals as I write, and it's looking pretty good for St. Louis, as I'm pleased to report an 8-3 lead for them in the fifth. That would keep our lead at 2.5 games, and overall, I'm satisfied with having taken two out of three here. The next four games against the Teixeira-less Braves will also be an interesting test: we are supposed to be going to tomorrow night's game, but Mrs. SnakePit is feeling mucousy and less than 100%, so we will be making a decision on that nearer the time. Looks like another early night for us!

I love the San Francisco Bay Area for a lot of reasons, but on Tuesday, I was really glad I live here. In case you haven't heard, every single Olympic athlete passes through the walkways of San Jose State University (my alma mater!) to pick up uniforms and passes and I don't know what else. (Sadly, I'm not involved with that.) Most of the time, they only stay one night, and you don't know even when which teams are coming by.

But on Saturday, I learned that the Olympic Team USA Baseball team was having an open practice and autograph session!! Not only that, but it turns out that our very own Mike Koplove is on the team!! :) So a friend and I went down to watch the batting practice and get autographs, but mainly, I wanted to say hi to Mike, because he was one of my original Favorite Diamondbacks when I became a fan and started getting autographs. He always stopped and said hi to me, and I was really bummed when he went back down to AAA. (He's now at AAA Las Vegas with the Dodgers.) Anyway, as people lined up for autographs and waited for the guys to end their practice, I was already down in the dugout, and I waited as Mike changed his shoes and then I called his name. He remembered me, and he came over! :) So we chatted for a little while! I'm such a doofus unless I have questions written down (then I'd be fine, I swear)... but basically, he just really wants to come back up to the bigs, with anybody. I told him we could use the help, hehe. He's looking forward to China, and his wife's coming out for a week with him.

They are all walking in the Opening Ceremony but they are coming home before the Closing Ceremony, coming back to their MLB teams as soon as they can. There are a lot of good players on the team, including Matt LaPorta (Indians) and Nate Schierholtz (Giants). During BP, some of these guys were hitting MONSTER shots over the outfield walls. They will definitely be fun to watch! :)

Below are some of the photos we took, and there's a link to the picasa album at the bottom. Enjoy!!!

Yeah, I made the sign, but I was given the ball and hat! ;)

Team USA Open Baseball Practice

I didn't see last week's Brandon Webb vs Derek Lowe Matchup 1.0, but I know from the result that we all probably liked tonight's Matchup 2.0 a lot better!! Wow. The billing for tonight's matchup was right on, two amazing sinkerballer pitchers working their stuff and matching each other toe-to-toe... who would blink first?

Outs were easy to come by tonight, and both offenses were stifled early on. The Diamondbacks had more scoring opportunities in the beginning, with Drew getting on to start the inning in the 1st and 6th, and Romero with a leadoff hit in the 3rd, followed by another hit by Drew, who ended the night 3-for-4. Sadly, all those runners were stranded. Juan Pierre notched the first hit for the Dodgers in the 4th and was promptly erased by a double -play. Both pitchers were just over 60 pitches after 5 innings and showed no sign of letting up.

The Dodgers played small ball in the 6th to score their first and only run. A leadoff single by Juan Pierre again allowed Matt Kemp to extend his hitting streak to 18 games on a perfect hit-and-run. A strange groundout to Orlando Hudson allowed Pierre to score from 3rd base, but a great catch by Tracy got Webb out of the inning with only the one run coming across. Webb had blinked, but it was Game On for the Diamondbacks.

I would like to point out that it was at this point that I said: We can manage to score two pretty soon... riiiight? And, what do you know... they did!! Conor Jackson started the 7th inning with a nice double to left, and by not getting picked off at second base (boy that was close), Chad Tracy moved him to 3rd and he scored on Mark Reynolds' double down into the right field corner! Chris Snyder put a gorgeous swing on a baseball to loop it into right-center field, allowing Reynolds to score. Just like that, the Diamondbacks were leading 2-1, and Lowe was very unhappily out after 87 pitches! Hong-Chih Kuo finished up the 7th and the 8th, taking care of the Diamondbacks fairly easily, needing only 20 pitches for his five outs.

Brandon Lyon may have come in to nail down the save in the 9th, but the real save of the game goes to the duo of Conor Jackson and Chris Snyder for their great defensive play in the bottom of the 8th. (Personally, I'm giving more props to Snydes.) With one out and runners on second and third, Matt Kemp lined a ball into left that Jackson had to come in and over to catch. He then fired the ball back into home, and though the throw was up the line and came behind Snyder, Snydes managed to reach back and tag Andre Ethier on the neck split-seconds before Ethier's hand touched the plate!! Seriously folks, you have to see this play, I know it'll be on Sports Center's Top 10 all night long. It was bang-bang, and home plate umpire Angel Hernandez was right on with the call and there was no argument from Ethier.

With that, the threat was over. The 9th inning was verrry quiet in the thread as we all held our breath and crossed our fingers, but we really had nothing to worry about. After all, the worst that could happen was the tying run on first with Andruw Jones at the plate, right?? Piece of cake!! Dodger fans were torn - they had to cheer for him, that is until he lined out to none other than Conor Jackson to end the game and the boo birds spread their wings and poured it down on Jones. Aaah, nothing like the smell of victory against the NL West rival Dodgers with Mr. Apathetic himself closing it out for us.

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Master of his domain: Brandon Webb, +43.0%
Honorable mention: Chris Snyder, +11.3% (he deserves so much more for his defense)
God-emperor of suck: Chris Young, -20.8%

Nice, lively Gameday Thread tonight... I guess it didn't slow down too badly for everyone, since it was very nearly up to 650! Heh, sorry, I think we all got wrapped up in waiting for that 9th inning! Present in tonight's thread were: snakecharmer, Wimb, Shums (you're bringing us luck...), utahdbacksfan, UofAZGrad, Zephon, Muu, foulpole, hotclaws, 4 Corners Fan, Captain D Bag, Scrbl, TwinnerA, Snakebitten, soco, DbacksSkins, luckycc, DodgerBlueBalls (thanks for stopping by!), unnamedDBacksfan, mrssoco, kishi, AJforAZ, the mystical one, srdmad, AF DBacks Fanatic, dahlian, emilylovesthedbacks, and singaporedbacksfan.

Tomorrow is a late start, 7:40pm, and pits Randy Johnson against Clayton Kershaw, who I believe I heard wasn't even 6 months old when the Big Unit made his major league debut. It should also feature the Dodger debut of Manny Ramirez, who was traded at the deadline today. Talk about an interesting game! Catch ya'll tomorrow, folks.

Hi all,

I am looking to beg / plead / bargain with anyone here who's going to the game tomorrow who might be so kind as to part with the free duffle bag giveaway... I would absolutely love one!!! What can I get you? Or pay you? Please? :) I know I haven't been around much recently - the games lately are a little painful, as is my arm - but you all know I'm a very loyal fan... who unfortunately lives 700 miles away from all the goodies.

Thanks for your consideration! ;)

[Yeah, so, this was supposed to be out a little earlier in the off-day (the, y'know, day part of it) but things came up and now it can be the... Off-Midnight Report? Anyway.]

I know nobody wants to relive the horror that was this weekend's series at Wrigley. Heck, all of May has been tough right now. We ended April with a win against Houston (taking 2 of 3) but things went awry as soon as May started. The Diamondbacks are 3-7 so far for the month, and are now 3-4 against the NL East and 3-6 against the NL Central.

I promise, we're not reliving the weekend! Because guess what, we are 17-5 against the NL West, and that is by far the best intra-divisional record in all of MLB (the Tampa Bay Rays are 15-11 vs the AL East, and Florida and New York have good records in the NL East). So how happy are we to be facing Colorado at home right about now? Pretty happy. For one, we are 5-1 against Colorado this season with a run differential of +20! And the one loss was by a score of 13-5 on what as a pretty bad day for entire pitching staff. The Rockies are only a slightly higher 4-6 so far for the month of May and they come in having just lost two in a row to San Diego, scoring only 3 runs in those two loses. 

The series looks to be shaping up like follows. Sorry if this is a bit stat-heavy. ;)

Tuesday: Jeff Francis (0-3, 5.27 ERA) vs Randy Johnson (2-1, 5.06 ERA)

Francis is winless in his first seven starts, and only three of those starts have been "quality starts". (We'll let Gracie and Sutton squabble over the value of this...) His one terrible start was his second, lasting only 5 innings against Arizona and giving up 7 earned runs. A repeat of that would be nice, right? All starts have seen him throw 98 pitches or more, so the Diamondbacks need to be patient to get him out of there quickly. Francis has also been the victim of poor offense, with his team scoring less than 3 runs per game in his starts. Randy Johnson, meanwhile, has been the beneficiary of good offense, with more than 5.5 runs of support. Unfortunately, he hasn't lasted very long in his starts and his ERA has been climbing since his first win in San Diego a few weeks ago. We know what the deal with Randy is - when he's on, he's awesome, but the Diamondbacks need to keep up (revive?) the good run support. (Oh if it were only that simple.) This game is such a toss up... but, based on history and the teams, I'd have to say Advantage: Johnson.

Wednesday: Jorge De La Rosa (1-1, 10.24 ERA) vs Micah Owings (4-1, 4.33 ERA)

It's really not fair to judge De La Rosa on his two starts so far this season. The first was horrid, 9 ER in 4 IP, and his second one was pretty good, only 2 ER in 5.2 IP (that outing nearly halved his ERA). He did not face Arizona as a full-time starter last season with Kansas City (maybe he can give a scouting report on the upcoming Tigers?) but in three relief appearances and one start in his career, he has given up 6 runs to the Diamondbacks (1 earned) in just fewer than 10 innings. That looks favorable! I can't find anything else interesting about him (what, you mean that wasn't interesting?), but the MLB.com series projection notes say he looked good last week against St. Louis. Micah Owings won his first four starts of the year, including his first of the year in Colorado (6.2 IP, 1 ER) and looked to be a real solid #4 ace (possibly even #3) early on. Since the ankle injury (and including that game), he has a loss (6 ER) and two no-decisions (5 ER, 3 ER). But we all know he was solid last week against Philly and deserved the win for that quality start. Let's hope he continues the trend onwards and upwards (and downwards for that ERA). Advantage: Owings.

Thursday: Aaron Cook (6-1, 2.26 ERA) vs Brandon Webb (8-0, 2.41 ERA)

Since this is the ace vs ace matchup of the week, let's do a little side-by-side comparison. Believe me, the similarities are a little eerie. Cook is 6-1 (Rockies 7-1 in his starts), Webb is 8-0 (Dbacks 8-0 in his starts). Cook has 55.2 innings pitched, Webb has 56. Cook has allowed 14 earned runs (17 total), Webb has allowed 15 (18 total). Cook has 107 ground ball outs, Webb has 109. Webb has about twice the strikeouts and a better WHIP, but seriously folks, this would almost be too close to call if not for the disparities between the bullpens and the offense. Advantage: Webb. To sum it up: DO NOT miss this game! (Ah crap, I'm gonna miss the game.)

Then this weekend we begin... dun dun dun.... inter-league play. Though it looks like it's just... a weekend of inter-league play, which makes no sense to me, but that's why there are more enlightened people writing much more about baseball. Since I know hardly anything about this year's Tigers (and don't have time to do justice to research :(), I will point you to the Tim Brown column  on the Indians and Tigers. Later this week Jim can lead us in a debate of the merits and pitfalls of inter-league play. 

With that... good night! See you tomorrow for Email the Booth Night!

Hopefully there will not be much excitement for the 9th... but I figured it'd be safe. Plus we can follow other game action around the league.

9th inning, let's nail this one down!!