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DBacks Daily 9/2/07 - Offensive Outburst

By snakecharmer

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What was that we saw last night? Was that, dare I say it, offense? Let us hope it wasn't a figment of our imagination. Good game by the offense, good game even by the relievers, not so good game by Eveland. Let's see what this morning's news brings us.

AP recap discusses the offense and the run-scoring plays. There's a little about the pitching at the bottom. Interesting quote from Hurdle about Dessens: "... it's not like the guy didn't go out there and try." Um... they're major league ball players, they get paid pretty darn well, they better go out there and try. I've rarely seen a pitcher go out there and not try, and only recently did it look like BK Kim wasn't trying (and note that is look like, we can't know for sure). I know sometimes it happens, it was just curious to me that Hurdle would use it about Dessens...

The Republic recap talks more about pitching than AP, with some other curious quotes. One deserving discussion was about Eveland's pitch selection:

"I just screwed up today really bad by not pitching with my game," the left-hander said. "I didn't throw a single slider today, which is my second-best pitch."

Eveland wasn't blaming catcher Chris Snyder, instead saying he needed to dictate what pitches to throw during the game.

Another is regarding the 5th starter: "Manager Bob Melvin said Gonzalez could be a starting candidate, but that the club probably won't use its fifth starter again until Sept. 11." On a personal note: noooooooo no no no no. That's the game I'm going to! I'd like them to win a game I go to this year! ::sigh::

Very ambitious quote from Reynolds in the MLB.com recap:

"If felt good to get some runs on the board and feel at ease, instead of nail-biters every night. It was definitely a breakthrough for us offensively, and it's contagious, and hopefully it'll carry over this whole month."

Heee, Reynolds, you're so cute... and optimistic...

The Trubune's recap is very short and rather uninteresting. Nothing there that's not covered elsewhere. But their notes has a good bit about Valverde, Hoffman, and the closer's role. A second set of notes from the Trib focuses on the callups.

MLB.com notes also focuses on the call-ups, including Murphy, whom they report was unavailable last night having pitched 6 innings Thursday.

The Republic's notes has the usual - roster call-ups, injury update - but the first part focuses on Peña. Melvin said he doesn't think the bullpen is any more taxed than those of other teams.

"If you look at the number of games that they've pitched, I don't think it's out of sync with what other bullpens have done," Melvin said. "It's just that at this time of the year, with as many one-run games as we've played, guys who are used in those situations at this time of year aren't feeling like they are in April. I think that's just baseball, and that's part of it."

I'm not sure about that logic. I'd like to see the numbers on how many innings our bullpen has pitched compared to the others in contention, particularly the Padres and Dodgers, whom we'll face a lot this month. It's clear from last night that we can hit bad pitching, and maybe we just haven't run into any yet... let's hope our bullpen can cope when theirs falter.

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