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The World Champion and NL East leading Phillies come to town, and should present a tougher proposition for the Diamondbacks than the Pirates from whom we took three out of four. I certainly wouldn't expect that shutout streak to continue, for Philadelphia have scored thirty-one more runs than any other team in the league, and have a team OPS that's also thirty better than anyone else. It's this that has driven the team - their pitching is okay (ERA+ 97), but when you get a lot of run support, that's why agelesswonder Moyer has a winning record despite an ERA nearer six than five. See his start on July 9th, when he allowed six runs in five innings and still got the W.
Jon Garland makes his first start since calling out his team-mates for not wanting it, so be interesting to see what, if any, kind of reaction this has. Frustration is understandable - five consecutive quality starts and one W in that time - yet I don't recall his taking full responsibility for the games where he sucked, so it's hard to hear him putting the blame on others. Go out there, do your best and don't worry about anyone else's performance but your own - if the entire team did that, we'd probably be happier.
Couple of tidbits from Tyler at KTAR: yesterday, Max threw the highest percentage of strikes (78%) of any pitcher with 109-plus pitches in a game since 2006 - the last Diamondback to do it was Curt Schilling in 2002 (94 of 114 for 82%). And Chris Snyder is scheduled to catch all nine innings for Reno tonight - he could be activated this series if all goes well, though my guess would still probably be Friday as we head off to the East coast. Oh, and the man in the D-backs dugout with most AB against Moyer tonight is... manager AJ Hinch, 3-for-11 with a home-run. Here's Hinch talking about Moyer, and also Yusmeiro Petit's scheduled Wednesday start.
Audio courtesy of KTAR 620
Line-up
- Stephen Drew SS
- Ryan Roberts 2B
- Justin Upton RF
- Mark Reynolds 3B
- Miguel Montero C
- Chris Young CF
- Gerardo Parra LF
- Josh Whitesell 1B
- Jon Garland P
The trip to Chili's and their two for $20 dinners, originally scheduled for Saturday, has been arranged for tonight instead. Timing of that is uncertain as I write, but I should hopefully be back not too long after first pitch. I think we aim to be there sooner rather than later. Play nice till I get back, folks - and let's hope we can get the series off on a good foot, then turn things over to Haren tomorrow FTW.