Snake Bytes, 5/18: Wild wins? Here, hold my beer...

Recaps

[dbacks.com] Chris Herrmann was ready for game to end - It was the first career walk-off homer for the 29-year-old Herrmann, who savored every moment of it. "It's awesome," he said. "Honestly, playing extra innings, me being a catcher I'm pretty happy that I was the one to do it because you get tired behind the plate, and your knees start to hurt a little bit." "It was a nice approach by him," D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. "I know offensively he's been grinding, but everyday he's working on creating those types of moments by working hard and being ready so I was really happy to see him step in and end the game that way."

[AZ Central] Contributions throughout Diamondbacks lineup key walk-off win over Mets - A two-out double from outfielder Yasmany Tomas in the seventh was also clutch as it scored Paul Goldschmidt to tie the runs at 4. The RBI continued a torrid stretch by Tomas against the Mets as he’s hit .356 with six home runs and 15 RBIs in 12 career games against New York. Two of those homers and five of those RBIs came in this series amid a tweaked mental approach by Tomas, who said he hasn’t tried to do too much in the batter’s box. “It’s the reason why I feel really good at home plate right now,” Tomas said before the game through interpreter Ariel Prieto.

[Arizona Sports] Chris Herrmann smacks 11th-inning walk-off homer, D-backs sweep Mets - 0-for-10: The D-backs did not record a hit with a runner in scoring position. They finished 4-for-24 (.167) in the three-game series. Entering the game with baseball’s fifth-best mark (.293) with runners in scoring position, the D-backs failed in their first nine chances through the fourth inning. They went 0-for-3 in the first, second and fourth innings; three times (Brandon Drury, Fuentes and Owings respectively) stranding a runner on second base,

Team news

[MLB Trade Rumors] Inside The Draft Room: The 2009 Diamondbacks - A detailed look through the eyes of Tom Allison, Arizona’s scouting director, at a draft where we had eight picks in the top 100. It was a draft that gave us Paul Goldschmidt, Chris Owings and A.J. Pollock... and could have given us Mike Trout as well. “But here was a northern state player who was just a little bit more raw in his overall baseball repetitions. How he held the bat, the pitching that he saw… it was just a little bit further behind some of the other players that had more reps under their belts.” The whole thing is very much recommended, as we head towards the 2017 draft.

[AZ Central] Lamb sees progress in at-bats vs. lefties - The numbers might not suggest it, but Lovullo has seen progress, and he said he’ll not only continue to play Lamb against most left-handed starters, but that he has no plans of shifting him out of the cleanup spot in order to prevent teams from pitching around Goldschmidt last in games. “I know he is making adjustments,” Lovullo said. “It’s a process. He’s making progress. To bench him against left-handed pitchers just does not make sense right now for his growth. He’s got a lot to offer this ballclub for many, many years, and at some point he’s going to figure it out. He’s close to doing that.”

[Arizona Sports] D-backs still evaluating Zack Godley for role of fifth starting pitcher - Arizona’s leadership still remains noncommittal in naming Godley the permanent replacement for Shelby Miller, who is out for the year after undergoing Tommy John surgery. “He’s come up here and given us very, very good starts, a lot of dependability,” D-backs general manager Mike Hazen told Doug and Wolf Wednesday. “I still think Zack has to go out and perform and continue to perform,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “We don’t want to anoint anything really at this point in time … but if this continues, we’re idiots if we don’t say, ‘Let’s give it to him, let’s continue to give it to him.'”

[dbacks.com] Tomas' adjustments paying off at plate - "It's very simple with Yas," hitting coach Dave Magadan said. "He's one of the strongest guys in the game and when he is just up there ready to hit when the ball is ready to be hit -- if he barrels it, the ball is going to go really hard somewhere, and sometimes it's going to go over the fence." When Magadan says ready to hit he is referring to Tomas keeping his leg kick to a minimum and not wrapping his bat around his shoulders so that it points to the pitcher during the process.

And elsewhere...

[FiveThirtyEight] The Best Teams Of Baseball’s 2015 Season Are Bums In 2017 - Since the League Championship Series format began in 1969, it’s tough to find a “Final Four” of baseball that’s fallen on harder times two years later than 2015’s quartet of the Kansas City Royals, New York Mets, Chicago Cubs and Toronto Blue Jays. Through 40 games of a season, this is the first time ever that all four LCS participants from two years prior were .500 or worse.

[The Ringer] MLB Is Having a Midlife Crisis - Compared with the overall league population, the 2017 season’s 35-and-older cohort has a batting average 9 percent worse than average, which represents the worst such mark in modern baseball history. By this method of comparison, the group also boasts the third-worst on-base percentage ever and second-worst slugging percentage ever, ahead of only the figures in 1965. The veteran stragglers comprise All-Stars, Silver Slugger winners, home run leaders, and MVPs.

[FanGraphs] Everyone Is on the Disabled List Right Now - Disabled list trips are up about 50% compared to the five-year average going into this season. That seems less than ideal. And it’s going to get worse. It looks like the Dodgers built their team for this new reality, filling their roster with decent major-league pitchers who could rotate in and out as the disabled list allows. As much as other teams with different levels of resources can copycat this, it’s likely they will (if they haven’t already).

[ESPN] Female knuckleballer Claire Eccles joins West Coast League - Claire Eccles will join the Victoria HarbourCats of the West Coast League to become the the first woman to compete in the Canada's 11-team circuit. Eccles, a left-handed pitcher from Surrey, British Columbia, with a knuckleball as her main pitch, will be playing in the 2017 season of a summer baseball league that attracts some of the best collegiate level baseball players in North America. "I never thought I could get an opportunity like this," Eccles said. "I'm obviously not going to be the fastest pitcher in the league, but I have some good off-speed pitches that will keep hitters on their toes."