Snake Bytes, 4/21: Pause for reflection

Early season reviews

[dbacks.com] D-backs pleased with success early in season - "Just the fact that we're playing well and competitive in a lot of games helps," said Josh Collmenter, who tossed a four-hit shutout Friday night. "Every team has a different feel, a different characterization to it. We're starting to put that together. It's exciting. Everybody is playing loose, playing relaxed and that's the vibe you want to have in the clubhouse. It lends itself to fostering a good aura of winning as opposed to last year when we got so down and could never turn it around."

[FOX Sports] D-backs' first road trip a good sign - "I think last year was a good blueprint of what not to do," Mark Trumbo said two days before the start of the season. "It's going to be extremely important (to start well), and I think everyone knows that. I think we are as ready as we can be." The D-backs won only one series against the Dodgers and Giants last year, going 4-15 against the Dodgers and 6-13 against the Giants. Two weeks into the season, they have a series victory against each.

[Arizona Sports] The first 13: Diamondbacks finish first set of home, away series - After making room on the roster for nine new players, many of whom are noticeably younger than the former set, the energy of the Diamondbacks after just 13 games is tangible -- and tangibly different. More importantly, there have been promising signs for a strong foundation upon which the team can continue to build this season.

Team news

[Arizona Sports] Report: Diamondbacks expected to make roster move, call up Dorn from Reno - No word yet on a corresponding move, but one imagines this involves transferring Laird to the 60-day DL to open up a 40-man roster spot for Dorn. Tomas back down to Reno would be the obvious move, but I've also heard some rumblings about a possible Cliff Pennington to DL switch. Pennington has only played in one game since April 12, and that was needed when the contest in SF went into extra-innings.

[FOX Sports] D-backs taking more aggressive approach to defensive shifts - [Andy[ Green has not forgotten his introduction to the subtleties of count-shifting. "In one sense, it is the intuitive nature of Craig Counsell," Green said. "I would be sitting right here in Petco and see him behind second base, and he would take a hit away from somebody up the middle, two-oh (count)... It was intuitive then, and if you really stop and thought the game like a guy like Craig Counsell did, you were able to grasp those principles. Now all those things are backed up and substantiated by charts and graphs and tendencies."

[AZ Central] Hale: Big-league experience good for Yasmany Tomas Tomas is "on a certain program" that the team thinks will help his development. "(What) he's doing offensively with our hitting coaches and the strength coach, "they're really working hard to get him to where we think he needs to be to be an everyday player. I think just working with Dave McKay in the outfield, learning different things, just seeing what it's like up here getting a feel for it and then working with our hitting coaches. There's nothing like every day at-bats, I'm not discounting that one bit. But, for a while, the value of learning under these guys and seeing what it's like up here is going to be valuable for him."

[FOX Sports] D-backs' early season ratings at 10-year high - This season's 4.6 average rating is 42 percent higher than the D-backs rating through the same number of games last season on FOX Sports Arizona. The just completed D-backs vs. Giants series on FOX Sports Arizona was the highest-rated D-backs series on FOX Sports Arizona since 2011. It averaged a 5.5 rating / 98,692 households. The last series with a higher average rating was a 6.1 versus the Colorado Rockies from Aug. 28-30, 2011.

[AZ Central] Diamondbacks hitters would rather break a hand than their concentration - For those who have been hit, some peace of mind can be found by wearing a specially fitted batting glove that has a pad to soften the blow of any wild pitch. Goldschmidt wears one, as does Hill. Instances of getting hit on the hand are so rare, though, neither has really had the opportunity to test their efficacy. "I've never got hit on the pad," Hill said. "I wait til after I get hit to put a pad on, and now I'll never get hit again on it."

[dbacks.com] What's in a number? How some D-backs got their jerseys - "I knew 44 wasn't going to be on the table, so I started thinking about what else might be a good one," Trumbo said. "Growing up I was a big Tim Salmon fan, so No. 15 was special to me, and also knowing that Dan Haren wore 15 with the Diamondbacks. I asked him if he was OK if I took his old number and he said, 'Sure, go ahead.'"

And, elsewhere...

Former Diamondbacks pitching coach Brian Price was not happy. No kidding, going on what was described as "a five-minute, 34-second expletive-filled tirade. The final tally was 77 uses of the "F" word or a variant and 11 uses of a vulgar term for feces (two bovine, one equine)." He subsequently apologized. Kinda...  "In my pre-game conversation with reporters yesterday, I used wholly inappropriate language to describe the media coverage of our team. While I stand by the content of my message, I am sorry for the choice of words."

[Denver Post] How baseball-mad Cuba develops top-tier talent - While major league teams have academies where they groom their own prospects in other talent-rich Latin American countries like the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, players in Cuba are hand-picked by the government in elementary school and developed to feed its national team and dozens of national and regional leagues. "I started when I was 6," said Yasmany Tomas.

[CBS Sacramento] A Royal Misunderstanding Of Baseball’s Unwritten Rules - I'm just happy to see someone other than the Diamondbacks get pilloried for this kind of thing.

[Deadspin] Baseball's Version Of The Dress: What Does "Batting Around" Mean? - Hey, remember when we collectively freaked out because half of us saw one objective reality and half saw another? Let’s do that again! So, does batting around mean nine or ten hitters come to the plate?

[MLB.com] Statcast primer - If you've ever wondered how fast the ball comes off of Bryce Harper's bat, or just how much ground Jason Heyward can cover in the outfield, your chance to get definitive answers is finally here. I think we will be hearing more about this a bit later, if the editorial queue does not deceive me...