Myers (11-6, 3.48)
Halsey (8-10, 4.39)
- Craig Counsell, 2B
- Royce Clayton, SS
- Luis Gonzalez, LF
- Troy Glaus, 3B
- Chad Tracy, RF
- Conor Jackson, 1B
- Luis Terrero, CF
- Kelly Stinnett, C
- Brad Halsey, P
Jackson, who did okay last time out, gets the start again at first today, with Terrero in center and no Shawn Green - which is a little odd, since Myers isn't a leftie. Maybe they just figured he needs a rest.
The Phillies come to town, hoping to reproduce the success of their NL East neighbours, the Mets. They're currently the front-runners for the NL Wild Card, but it's a tight race, so no shortage of motivation there.
No, the need for motivation is all on the D'backs front, both for the players and the fans. After the wretched performances of the past few games, it'll be interesting to see how many people come to BOB. The Mets - traditionally one of the bigger draws - pulled an average crowd of only 23,000: last year, the two teams played a four-game midweek series too, and drew more than 29,000 per game.
Currently, we're on pace for slightly below 2.1 million - 25,700 per game - which would be down about 17% on last year. However, the ten home games in August have been lower than that (averaging 25,100), and if the slide continues, and particularly if we fall out of contention for the division, it's possible we may not break two million this year.
An additional factor this series might be that neither today nor tomorrow's game is being televised - probably a blessing, after the way we played against the Mets. At the least, it'll likely prevent suicide rates in Maricopa County reaching an all-time high. Commenting is thus expected to be low for the next couple of days (I'll be at work myself), but all thoughts are, as ever, very welcome.