Record 21-20. Change on last season: -2. Pace: 83-79
Quote of the day: "Me and my roommates played Xbox all night until it was time to go to the airport. I slept maybe an hour on the plane ride and that was it. I just didn't want to miss my flight or do something stupid." -- Mark Reynolds
Well, Arizona did get a clutch performance last night. The bad news is, it wasn't from the Diamondbacks. Nor was it even from the Suns, who couldn't hold on in the fourth quarter and went down at US Airways Center. No: the best performance by anyone representing the state last night came from Jordin Sparks on American Idol.
Mark Reynolds, however, was a very close second. Worrying about missing his flight is a fine excuse for an all-night Xbox session - yeah, I've done that too! But sleep is clearly vastly over-rated: when he arrived in the big leagues, he promptly became the first player in franchise history to have a multi-hit, multi-RBI game on his debut - Snyder and Travis Lee had multi-hit games, while Quentin and Alex Cabrera had two RBI appearances. Maybe a mandatory team all-night Dead Or Alive III marathon is what we need.
Reynolds almost smacked a homer his first at-bat, flying out to the warning track in center. Second time up, Cark and Hairston were on second and third, and Reynolds repeated the medicine, this time getting it over Taveras's head to drive in both men, and tie the game at two. He followed up with a line-drive to left in the seventh, then walked in the ninth to bring the tying run to the plate. And his defense at third was definitely not the butchery we had been led to believe. Good job, Mark. Here's to seeing this kind of performance for a long time.
The rest of the Diamondbacks...not so hot. 3-for-28 with no walks - in twelve games since May 2, we have only 25 free passes in 449 plate-appearances. Eric Byrnes had two hits, and the only other knock was by Scott Hairston, who had to leave the game in the seventh after being hit by a pitch. He was scheduled to have an X-ray after the game, but I haven't heard the results ot that. Hopefully it's okay, as we're already struggling through injuries and absences, with Tracy now officially on the DL - much to his disgust.
It didn't help that Brandon Webb was victimized something rotten by Brad Hawpe, who smacked two homers and drove in four runs. The key at-bat was probably Webb walking the .121 Mabry on five pitches, just before Hawpe swatted his second long-ball. It wasn't a bad pitch that Hawpe sent out - but there's really no such thing as a "good" three-run homer. Webb allowed five runs, four earned, on six hits and two walks. He doesn't like the Rockies this year: in 18 innings, he's allowed 22 hits, nine walks, and has an ERA of 7.00 - against everyone else, his ERA is 2.20. And now the bad news: he's scheduled to face Colorado again next Monday.
After he left, Brandon Medders came in and wobbled - the only outs he recorded were on a bunt double-play, where the runner on first tried to reach third, seeing that base was unoccupied (Reynolds having come in for the bunt). However, a smart, heads-up play by Montero, who covered the bag, and Hudson, who timed his throw perfectly, erased that runner too. Medders still needed to be bailed out by Slaten, who came in to retire Todd Helton. Cruz pitched a 1-2-3 ninth, striking out two, including a 97 mph fastball to finish off Chris Iannetta.
Despite the disappointing performances - fourteen games in a row now at four runs or less - a decent turnout in the Gameday Thread. Though the overspill comments into the Suns game certainly boosted the final total. ;-) dahlian (no idea about the Padres' cap thing, sorry!), AZDarkKnight, VIII, johngordonma, azdbacks51, Muu (Webb's last multi-HR game was August 26 last year), DiamondbacksWIn, seton hall snake pit and singaporedbacksfan.
Gameday Graph
[Click graph to enlarge, in new window]
Master of his domain: Mark Reynolds, +26.3%
God-emperor of suck: Tony Clark, -27.7%
It's ironic that Reynolds' performance, leaping from Double-A to the Majors, came on the same day that the last D-back prospect to make the leap was designated for assignment. Casey Daigle, owner of a not-so-hot 6.46 ERA in twenty games for the Diamondbacks was dumped - to the cheers of most fans, who will likely miss his wife more than Mr. Jenny Finch. Who can forget Casey's stunning debut in 2004, when he allowed five home-runs in 2.2 innings? [Today's trivia: before Daigle, who was the last player to allow 10+ hits in his first game in less than three innings?]
That move was necessary because we needed space on the roster for infielder Jason Smith, whom we picked up off waivers from Toronto. He'll likely be replacing Donnie Sadler on the roster, with Sadler returning to Tucson. Smith probably won't see much more playing time than Sadler [one plate-appearance and one inning in the field] but he probably does count as a bit of an upgrade. We also shifted Jeff DaVanon over from the 15-day DL to the 60-day DL, since he's not expected to be back before the end of the month.
Finally, the "Ewwwww!" headline of the year:
Royals To Get A Taste Of Angels' Colon
[Today's trivia answer. The last player before Casey Daigle to allow 10+ hits in less than three innings on his debut was... Doug Davis, on August 9th, 1999. He and Daigle are the only two to perform the "feat" since at least 1957.]