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Gird the loins. The next 16 games are going to be a trial by fire of Arizona's aspirations as a legitimate contender, because in thirteen of those, we faced teams who are currently above .500. Such opponents have not gone well for us to date, with just a 2-11 record against them. That will need to change radically, if we are going to remain on top of our division.
We do start with our ace on the mound, but Duchscherer is not exactly a rabbit: in his past four starts and 27.2 innings, he has allowed only five earned runs. And that's in the AL, don't forget, where they have the designated hitter. The way our offense was hitting against the Royals, I have serious qualms about how this opener - and, indeed, the series as a whole, is likely to go.
Doesn't look like we'll get any help from Eric this series, as he is still apparently "five to 10 days" from returning. So the hitters we've got will just have to play a good bit better. Be interesting in this series to see some familiar names, whom we traded to Oakland for Dan Haren. It's a little like how, after the Sexaon trade, the Brewers became the D-backs Midwest: maybe we should call our opponents the Oakland D's? :-) I'm at IZW tonight, so I believe we have Azreous on the recap for this one. We have the laptop though, so commenting is quite possible.