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We reach the midpoint of a streak of 16 games without a day off, but I'll be riding the pine tonight, with Azreous taking over. It's probably for the best that we lost last night, as if we'd gone 6-for-6 with me behind the recap wheel, I would probably feel obliged to keep going. As is, no qualms about handing this off and enjoying an early night - 7:10pm starts, plus extra frames and/or pitching changes in the middle of an inning [we had four of the latter yesterday, in addition to the air traffic control delay], means I haven't get to bed much before the witching hour this series. Mrs. SnakePit will be pleased to see me, because by the time I made it last night, she was sawing logs.
As noted in my piece earlier today, Max Scherzer had a poor August, with the batters who weren't striking out against him getting a lot of hits, resulting in a freakishly high BABIP of .389 - Max's season figure is .332, and the NL average only .298. As a result, I wouldn't be surprised to see a rebound: starting tonight would be quite nice. We might need it, because the Diamondbacks haven't managed to score off Billingsley in the past couple of times we've seen him, covering 12.1 innings. Might Young (8-for-23 lifetime) and Drew (12-for-30) be looking forward to the contest?
Line-up
- Stephen Drew SS
- Gerardo Parra LF
- Justin Upton RF
- Mark Reynolds 3B
- Miguel Montero C
- Brandon Allen 1B
- Alex Romero CF
- Augie Ojeda 2B
- Max Scherzer P
Well, Drew, anyway. Despite a career line of .348/.444/.609 against Billingsley - that's a 1.053 OPS - Chris Young's stock has fallen so far that he is still sitting on the bench, Alex Romero taking his spot in center. The Diamondbacks also called up Bryan Augenstein, who'll be taking Garland's spot on the roster, though Billy Buckner will be replacing Garland in the rotation. I'll maybe pop my head round the door, but don't expect too much more input from me today.