Well, that was fast. One at-bat, one hit, and one day later, Chad Tracy has been scheduled for surgery on Thursday. Tracy, obviously, is very frustrated and the Diamondbacks will sorely miss his bat, even if only as a pinch hitter. Now this means we have three spots we could fill with non-40-man guys, but I don't know that they'll call up anybody who hasn't been here for 3 weeks already unless he was really ready.
Frustrating loss last night, really disheartening. The articles today don't make it feel any better. The AP recap is pretty straightforward with game action (and lack thereof from our side). The Republic talks about not only Peña but all the missed opportunities. Interesting numbers for Drew (in the article and sidebar) - he's batting .208 since the All-Star break and .172 in the leadoff spot. I know numbers can lie, but those are not good numbers, and his performance of late backs them up. How about Ojeda and Bonifacio for the infield? That gets my vote. The MLB.com recap talks about last night's pitching, both Peña and Webb.
Notes today are rather blasé. Nothing extraordinary. Orlando back in the dugout, the rotating rotation, and Byrnes for MVP?
And today brings a few features. Paola Boivin: The Little Engine That Might and Scott Bordow: Lost Oppotunities. There was also one I missed yesterday, from MLB.com about the NL West contenders.
There's also a Yahoo Sports video by Tony Gwynn entitled "Arizona will not make the playoffs, says Y! Sports' Tony Gwynn" which I'm not going to even bother to watch. First of all, I'm not wild about Tony Gwynn. Second of all, it seems mass media (online as well as tv, like Fox and ESPN) fluctuates on this issue all the time. One day: "The Diamondbacks have a terrific young team, they've got spark, they battle through every game." The next: "The Diamondbacks are a young team, their batting average is low, their rotation is questionable." (I have Steve Phillips' voice in my head as I write those, by the way.) Well can't we be both?! Why does the pendulum have to swing so drastically? Why do people have to write us off right now? We're one up with a week and a half of the season left. That's a lot better than we were supposed to do this year, and we were supposed to have Johnson and Tracy all year. Yes our offense and pitching are questionable, but they have been all year. They both seem to come and go as they please. Now, that won't cut it in the post-season (as I've been saying since June) because you've only got 3 or 4 games to make your mark. And yes, right now we're reverting to our previous Days of Sucktitude. But there's nothing to say this team won't get hot and stay hot and make a push for the post-season down this stretch. Can they? Certainly. Will they? ... I don't know. But I'm not jumping ship until the math is no longer on our side.