Snakebytes, 9/11: Blanked by the bay edition

Recaps

[AZ Central] Diamondbacks offense goes silent as Giants pull away - Diamondbacks starters have a 2.72 ERA in nine games on this road trip, on which the team has a 2-7 record. In nine games against the Padres, Dodgers and Giants, the Diamondbacks are hitting just .195 (57 for 292) with one home run. "We've had a few opportunities to score runs and we've had trouble in those situations," Ender Inciarte said. "We have to make an adjustment, all of us, and try to figure out what's going on, so we can change that and hopefully get at least a couple more runs because the pitchers have been doing good lately."

[dbacks.com] Collmenter strong, but D-backs shut out - Following the game, the D-backs' pitchers had a meeting with Gibson and pitching coach Mike Harkey in the batting tunnel located behind the visitor's dugout. "Just to make sure that we take everything that we can this last month and use it as momentum to go into the offseason going into next Spring Training and stuff," Collmenter said in explaining what the meeting was about. "Obviously this season didn't accomplish a lot of the goals we set out before the year, but we can still take a lot from this, especially the young guys."

[Arizona Sports] D-backs shut out by Giants pitching as Collmenter again gets no support - The D-backs suffered their 12th shutout of the season Wednesday in San Francisco. In 2013, they were only shut out seven times. The franchise hasn't been shut out so frequently in a season since 2003 and not since their inaugural season, in 1998, were they shut out more than 12 times. D-backs 1-5 hitters combined to go 0-for-17 Wednesday at AT&T Park.

Team news

[SBNation] Diamondbacks mathematically eliminated from MLB playoffs - The Diamondbacks opened play at 59-85 on Wednesday, with a maximum possible of 77 wins. The Pirates (76-69) won, keeping their 1½-game second Wild Card lead over the Braves (75-71), who also won on Wednesday, with the Brewers (74-71) close behind. Because the Pirates still have four games remaining with the Brewers and three with the Braves, any scenario of these teams losing as many games as possible will produce a second Wild Card winner with at least 78 wins.

[AZ Central] Diamondbacks will talk to Thad Levine about general manager job - His addition brings the total number of candidates to 10. Levine, 42, has worked alongside Rangers General Manager Jon Daniels since October 2005. Prior to that, he worked six years in the Colorado Rockies front office. For years, Levine has been mentioned among the game's top general manager candidates. Though he considers himself more of a centrist in the scouting/statistics divide, Levine might be the most analytics-oriented of the Diamondbacks' GM candidates.

[FOX Sports] La Russa meets with Beinfest, lines up other GM candidates - Beinfest ran Miami's baseball operations from 2002-13, winning a World Series in 2003. He had the first interview for the vacant San Diego job after Josh Byrnes was fired in late June. The Padres hired J.D. Preller. Beinfest met with La Russa in Jacksonville, Fla., on Saturday after La Russa called to arrange a meeting Friday, the day Towers was removed as GM and offered another job within the front office. The Marlins and Cardinals share a spring training complex in Jupiter, Fla., and La Russa and Beinfest are passing acquaintances from their time there.

[Visalia Times-Delta] The Rawhide Turnaound - "Some soul-searching had to be done," Rawhide manager Robby Hammock said. "Guys had to look themselves in the mirror and ask themselves what they needed to do if they were going to progress as players. The [Arizona Diamondbacks] organization made some moves; we added a couple of new players, and things just turned around. The camaraderie in the clubhouse changed, and it spilled over to the field. Our intensity changed, and the kids started to see a difference. They just fed off each other."

[Arizona Sports] D-backs manager Gibson: Organization is better off since Kevin Towers arrived - "The way the whole organization's run, the continuity that we have throughout the organization, the way Kevin has communicated throughout the organization. Our minor league systems are very, very good. They've been very successful. Our scouting and our drafting has been very good under Kevin Towers... You can believe it, you can drink the crappy Kool-Aid, but I don't think we're that far away, to be quite honest with you, and I have a positive outlook on the future of this organization."

[AZ Central] Gregorius working to break his slump - Entering Wednesday, he had just 15 hits in his past 102 at-bats, dropping his season average to .205 with a .625 OPS. "We've been working on him a lot," Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson said. "We've been trying to get him to keep his hands above the ball, Number 1. He tends to work under the ball sometimes. It's hard for him. He's got a lot coming at him. Not only offensively, but defensively. We're asking him to make a lot of adjustments, a lot of changes. It's pretty hard to do."

And, elsewhere...

[ESPN] Torre issues memo on collision rule -- Not so fast, umps - The memorandum specifically instructs umpires and replay officials not to find a "violation" of the rule by the catcher "unless the catcher's position hindered or impeded the runner from scoring prior to the tag." Torre goes on to remind umpires that even before the season, MLB's original instructions dictated that in situations where a runner was clearly out by a wide margin, "if the runner would have been called out notwithstanding the catcher's improper positioning in front of the plate, the out call will stand." [Guess that slipped the minds of the umpires when we played in Philadelphia]

[FanGraphs] Return of the Major League Palmball - John Holdzkom is a bit like the Pirates version of David Peralta. "This season began with Holdzkom asking the manager of an independent team in Amarillo for a job. In the final hours of August 31, the Pirates added Holdzkom to their 40-man roster to make sure he’d be postseason-eligible. In Holdzkom’s first-ever major league outing, he struck out the side. The next time out, he picked up a save." Oh, yeah. And he is "the only known pitcher throwing a palmball in the bigs."

[France 24] A brand new ball game - A tidy stadium with a single set of stands has become, at least for one long weekend in September, the capital of French baseball... Located 40 km south of Paris, the field sits on the edge of a nondescript business park and one could easily drive past it without noticing. The stadium is home to the Templiers of Sénart, France’s newly-crowned baseball champions, and the site of the first ever France International Baseball Tournament.