Record: 58-54. Pace: 84-78. Change on last season: -4

1st inning. This is not the start I wanted to see. Rather than us teeing off against the worst pitchers in the National League, it's Dan Haren who is being smacked about like a Little Leaguer. Three hits - albeit one a checked-swing bloop - and a wild-pitch give Pittsburgh the lead, and they have men on second and third with only one out. A strikeout gives hope of escaping without further damage, but he grooves one to Moss, who uncorks a two-run double off the wall in center. All of a sudden, we are staring at a three-run deficit.

Important to start getting back those runs quickly. Herrera has allowed opposing hitters to bat at a .408 clip, which in encouraging. Drew doesn't even need to bother, walking on four straight pitches, which is a start. Two more balls fly out of the zone before the seventh pitch finally finds the zone. The eighth gets slapped right back up the middle by Hudson, and we have two on with no outs. Jackson grounds out, but O-Dawg does a nice job of breaking up the double-play. Tracy walks on four straight too, loading them up for Reynolds. He swats the first pitch to left-center, and we're on the board, still with the bases loaded. However, Romero swings at a 3-1 pitch and grounds into a double-play. Blast. Still: Herrera looks eminently hittable, to say the least.

2nd inning. Need Haren to post a zero. He does, with a great deal more conviction than in the first, retiring the Pirates in order and hardly breaking a sweat. Time for us to keep clawing our way out of the sand on this one, having been buried up to our necks below the high-water mark, to use an appropriately piratical metaphor. Young legs out an infield hit, then takes second on a passed-ball. Snyder walks - the third already - and I'd be thinking about not having Haren bunt, since Herrera doesn't deserve to have any outs given to him. Still, Dan gets it down, and it's up to the top of the order. Drew does the job, two runs somehow scoring on a ball that doesn't quite get out of the infield. That ends Herrera's night, having coughed up the entire three-run lead in four outs, and we are into the Pirates bullpen already. Hudson grounds out, and Jackson flies out, but we're back in this one.

3rd inning. A sudden rush of comedic spectators distracts me (along with the unexpected arrival of The Complete Frank Miller Batman), and I am discomfited to see that the Pirates have somehow taken the lead again: I'm presuming a homer was involved, given the lack of men on base. However, that is all the damage, and we come out swinging, with a lead-off single to Tracy. Reynolds takes strike three, though it didn't look like it to me. Hmmph. Romero and Young fail to do much, so the Pirates have their first zero of the game and we still trail by one run.

4th inning. Another leadoff single against Haren, but outs follow - in particular a nice, leaping grab and swipe-tag by Hudson of a wild throw from Reynolds as he tried to start a double-play. There's nothing doing for the Pirates thereafter. Unfortunately, there's nothing doing for the Diamondbacks in our half of the inning either, and we are retired in order. Is it too late to ask for the Pirates to bring Herrera back? We miss him...

5th inning. Another lead-off hit: that's four in five now for the Pirates. Worse is to follow, with the next batter reaching too, and there's activity in the Arizona bullpen. A fielder's choice gets one out, but a wild pitch brings back memories of the first inning. However, Haren bears down and ends the inning without damage, keeping it a one-run game. We get a lead-off walk for Hudson, and Jackson ties the game with a double into the left-center gap. Tracy has a productive out to advance Jackson to third, but Reynolds doesn't, grounding out to third. Romero, however, gives Arizona the lead for the first time with a single, then steals second: he tries to reach home on a single by Young, but is gunned down quite easily. Doesn't show much faith in Snyder. We are now ahead for the first time, 5-4.

6th inning. It certainly didn't look like we'd still be seeing Haren at this point after he allowed three runs in the first. This might be his most impressive frame yet, as the Pirates go down easily, without a ball leaving the infield. Be nice to pad the lead a bit, and a leadoff walk gives us the opportunity, but the pinch-hitting Tony Clark grounds inNorto a double play. Drew reaches, and then steals second - our aggressive running-game raising its head again. Hudson walks, giving Jackson a chance to extend the lead. He comes through with a single and though Tracy goes down, the lead is up to two.

7th inning. Haren is done, and Pena comes in. It's looking like it could be a long nine outs, with a leadoff homer. But there's no more damage and we still have a one-run lead as we stand and stretch. The lead is immediately re-extended in the bottom half, with Reynolds' 23rd homer - we're now helping to increase the Pirates' road average. After Romero pops out, but Young triples down into the left-field corner: it looked like he was going to try for an inside the park homer, and thought better of it. He still managed to make the out at home, getting caught in a rundown after a botched suicide squeeze by Snyder. Shame, since Snyder and Clark then singled. So much for aggression, eh?

8th inning. Rauch out of the bullpen. A pair of rather too long to be comfortable fly-balls and a strikeout later, we are done with that, and the Pirates are down to their last three outs. Hudson leads off our half of the eighth with a double, becoming the fifth D-back to have a multi-hit game tonight - Young leads the way with three hits. "Anyone but the Dodgers," seems to be his motto. An Ojeda single makes it a three-run lead - and for the firs time tonight, I feel somewhat comfortable.

Reynolds adds another tally, and we are officially piling-on. Bases-loaded walk? Sure. Ground-rule double for Tony Clark? Bring it on. Run-scoring wild pitch? Don't mind if we do. We may have learned only one thing tonight: the Pirates pitchers clearly are as bad as we heard. It's something of a relief when Hudson grounds into his eighteenth double-play of the year to end the inning, with the game blown apart and the score 13-5. Fifty games still to go, and O-Dawg is already #6 on the franchise all-time list for GIDPs in a season.

9th inning. Surprised to see Lyon out for the ninth, but I guess he was warmed up. Maybe he got cold again, as he walks the first hitter and after a strikeout, gives up back-to-back hits to help the Pirates give the score some respectability. Another single loads the bases for McLouth, Pittsburgh's best hitter, and I begin to shift nervously, as a long ball here would make things...interesting. He singles, and the Fangraph, which flatlined after the eighth, twitches as if hit with a defibrillator. Fortunately, with Cruz warming in the pen, a flyout and groundout ends things.

Focusing on the positive; season high for runs and hits. Three hits each for Reynolds and Young, while Drew, Hudson and Snyder all reached safely four times, on hits and walks, and Jackson added a couple of hits. A grand total of 28 base-runners, on eighteen hits and ten walks - that's one below the franchise record for a regulation nine innings [September 26, 2001, against Milwaukee: also eighteen hits and ten walks, but we had someone reach on an error too].

The pitching... About the only nice thing I can say is, it's the first time we've won this season while giving up seven or more earned runs. Haren did jack up his K:BB ration, with eight more strikeouts and no walks, and after that first inning, he pitched commendably. Having had a few tough decisions go against him early on, it's about time he got a W in a game where he might not have fully deserved it, based on his performance. Our bullpen is certainly in a lot better shape than the Pirates', who were forced into 6.1 innings of work this evening.

[Click to enlarge, in new window]
Master of his domain: Conor Jackson, +22.0%
Honorable mentions: Drew, +13.5%; Hudson, +12.0%
God-emperor of suck: Dan Haren, -6.1%

The Gameday Thread was very, very busy, with 31 participants: DbacksSkins clearly missed us while he was away, returning with 231 comments. Some of which even were to do with the game. :-) [I would gently remind participants that we have an off-topic chat room for a reason... Basically, when the thread can't go any further right, go chat-roomwards.] Also present, were 4 Corners Fan, kishi, snakecharmer, Zephon, soco, TwinnerA, Shums, G Dub, utahdbacksfan, J Up, hotclaws, Wimb, unnamedDBacksfan, njjohn, the mystical one, Muu, srdmad, singaporedbacksfan, MamaLing, dahlian, DiamondbacksWIn, foulpole, AZWILDCATS, nargel, TuLoRocks2008, AJforAZ, JUPTON10, Scrbl, mrssoco, and emilylovesthedbacks. Sorry to have missed discussing this one.

Not quite the well-pitched exhibition I anticipate, though you can't complain any time you score more than a dozen runs. Limited action in the rest of baseball; no Dodgers game, so we are 1.5 games clear, fractionally more breathing space for Arizona. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that this isn't the start of Haren's second-half slump. However, the team victory is the most important thing, starting off the home-stand on the right foot; let's just not make a habit of needing to score eight or more runs for victory, shall we?

Record: 57-54. Pace: 83-79. Change on last season: -4.

It's official. The Dodgers have suddenly vaulted their way towards the top, and are now located among my three most hated teams. I'm still working on the exact specific position, but if they continue to - and I'm sorry, but there's not really another word for it - fellate Ramirez in the manner seen this afternoon, then the Yankees could end up with a run for their money.

A meaningless home-run this afternoon was apparently deemed worthy of a curtain-call; I don't know who is worse, the fans for demanding it, or Mandy for giving them one. I've seen it attributed to various coaches [Landry, Lombardi, etc.], but the appropriate phrase for Ramirez is, "Act like you've been there before." You didn't win the World Series. You didn't clinch a playoff spot. It was a solo homer, in the fifth inning, and you were already leading. Billy Buckner still qualifies as a rookie pitcher, f'heavens sake. So whoop-de-doo. You're on a second-place team, traded there because you made such a complete ass of yourself, that Boston was willing to pay LA $7m for you to leave. Go out there, put your head down and play.

Give the Dodgers credit though: their offense showed up. Ours - outside of Stephen Drew - didn't. Doug Davis didn't show up either, or at least, not the one who took a perfect game into the seventh inning last time out. He went from the best outing of his time with Arizona, to the worst, being unceremoniously yanked off the mound before completing two innings for the first time ever in his career. Six hits, two walks and five earned runs was the final line, with only 25 strikes in the 47 pitches that he threw, as eight out of thirteen batters faced reached safely.

Initially, it looked like this one was going to be a slugfest. After the Dodgers scored twice in the first, we came back to tie the game on RBI singles by Davis [yep, we were surprised by that too!] and Drew. But Los Angeles scored three more in the bottom of the second, chasing Davis, and Johnson settled down, retiring the next eight Diamondbacks' batters, before Drew homered and Hudson walked, to bring the tying run to the plate. That ended Johnson's day, and the Dodgers bullpen shut out Arizona for the remaining 4.2 innings, with only three singles and a walk to show for our efforts.

The bullpen was forced into mop-up duty, with mixed results. Buckner and Rosales performed admirably, combining for 4.1 innings of one-run ball. However, Qualls and Rauch were less effective: Each allowed three hits in their inning of work, with Qualls allowing one run and Rauch his first two in an Arizona jersey. Pretty much an irrelevance at that stage, though it leaves our relief corps somewhat thin for the upcoming series against the Pirates: I'm hopeful we won't need to use them quite as much in the next couple of days, what with Haren and Webb starting tomorrow and Tuesday.

The only real bright point was Stephen Drew having a three-hit game, including his 13th homer. After Mark Reynolds, our birthday boy, struck out for the third time in a row, as well as having a poor day with the glove, it was decided that a swift alteration of the birthday cake was necessary. The word "Mark" was therefore stricken from the record [or dessert, at least], and ingeniously replaced with the word "Drew." For those who missed the Gameday Thread, this was the result. You may need to squint a bit. :-)

Romero did have two hits, raising an interesting question. When Justin Upton comes back, should we move Romero to center-field and bench Young for a bit? Since returning to the roster on July 5 - basically a month ago - Romero has a line of .295/.318/.429, with seven K's in 63 at-bats. In comparison, over the same time, Chris Young is hitting .211/.269/.368, with 34 strikeouts in 95 at-bats. Romero simply puts together better at-bats, and is capable of fouling off good pitches in the hope of getting a mistake. The Dodgers exposed Young's frailties ruthlessly, and the results this series showed it. Sixteen times he came to the plate: no hits, seven strikeouts and one solitary ball that left the infield.

A particularly weird play in the bottom of the third. With Loney at first, Berroa popped the ball up on the infield. Going up the line, he collided with Tracy who was coming down from first, knocking Chad's glove clean off his hand. He tried to catch the ball bare-handed, but dropped it; then threw to second, where it appeared Loney was signaled out. However, the official ruling was that Berroa was out on batter's interference, and Loney had to return to first. This appears to have been the correct call. According to the Baseball Field Guide, the fielder has the right of way when attempting to make a play on a batted ball, whether the interference is intentional or not, and the ball is dead at that moment, with other runners having to go back to the last base they touched prior to it.

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Master of his domain: Stephen Drew, +17.0%
God-emperor of suck: Doug Davis, -40.4%
Dishonorable mention: Conor Jackson, -10.6%

Big thanks to soco and mrssoco for opening their house to us this afternoon, where Mrs. SnakePit and I were joined by kishi, mrskishi and Azreous. There was a tense moment after the TV decided to commit suicide, lemming-style - the mount falling off the wall, with the whole assembly coming close to crushing mrssoco. Miraculously, it suffered only superficial damage: Vizio TV's are clearly capable of taking a good pounding. But it was a lot of fun, and we're contemplating a repeat for the penultimate game of the season at the end of September, this time at SnakePit Towers.

Apart from the above, present in the online version of the Gameday Thread [that'd be the one without cake and plummeting domestic appliances] were unnamedDBacksfan, hotclaws, Wimb, AF DBacks Fanatic, 4 Corners Fan, hotchixsnake27, luckycc, snakecharmer, foulpole, TwinnerA, Snakebitten, Scrbl, AZWILDCATS, Turambar, britdback, Shums, srdmad, emilylovesthedbacks and AJforAZ.

You can never be too unhappy with a road-trip where you win seven out of ten. However, having gone 7-1 up until yesterday, I think most fans will be somewhat disappointed. Much as we hate to admit it, it's clear that the Dodgers made the move of the season in acquiring Ramirez - not least because, somehow, they're paying him less we are to Tony "4-for-26" Clark. We still possess the lead as we head into the final 51 games, and the next couple of weeks have the schedule definitely easing up: our next five series are all against sub-.500 teams. We face the Dodgers again at the end of the month: will we still be in first then? Fasten your seat-belts, people: it's going to be a bumpy ride...

Record: 47-47.  Pace: 81-81. Change on last season: -2

Well, that was unexpected, wasn't it? I mean, in a serious, lightning from a clear sky kind of way. The Phillies had just tied up the game at two on a Victorino homer, and the first two in the Arizona fourth went down quietly, exposing the bottom third of our order, which had been - and would be again - wretchedly ineffectual [Outside that inning, slots 7-9 went 0-for-10, in fact]. But Romero rifled a ground-ball into right-field, and Hammock drew an unintentional intentional walk. That brought up Randy Johnson - who, since the end of the 2004 season, had hit .080 [4-for-50] with one RBI. Little wonder that the limit of my hopes and aspirations at this point were, "Well, at least we've got the offensive epicenter of the Gurgling Vortex of Suck(TM) out of the way."

Eaton quickly went 1-2 on the Big Unit, but the third strike proved remarkably elusive. Johnson, somehow, managed to lay off the bad pitches and foul off the good ones, finally working the count full. Then, on what I think was the ninth pitch of the at-bat, Eaton sent down a fastball, and Johnson smashed it into the left-field corner for a two-RBI double. Eaton would have been better off taking the baseball and cramming it down his throat in a suicide bid. As by the time the third out was eventually recorded, nine consecutive Diamondbacks had reached base safely, on six hits plus three walks, and we'd scored eight runs, all with two outs.

- A. Romero singled to center
- R. Hammock walked, A. Romero to second
- R. Johnson doubled to deep left, R. Hammock and A. Romero scored
- S. Drew walked
- C. Jackson doubled to deep left, R. Johnson scored, S. Drew to third
- O. Hudson intentionally walked
- C. Tracy singled to center, S. Drew and C. Jackson scored, O. Hudson to third
- M. Reynolds homered to deep center, O. Hudson and C. Tracy scored
- C. Young singled to center

Ah, that's the kind of inning that has been a long time coming as far as the Diamondbacks are concerned, with a cunning mix of bloops [Tracy's broken-bat blooper - especially impressive as it came off a leftie pitcher, brought in specifically to face him] and blasts, Reynolds getting his nineteenth homer of the season with a three-run bomb that capped the inning. If he gets one tomorrow, he'll be the first Diamondback hitter to reach twenty homers before the All-Star break, since Steve Finley had 21, back in 2004. Special K's 58 RBI is already the most in the first-half for five years: Gonzo had 67 in 2003.

So, victories are like buses for Randy Johnson: you wait forever for one to show up, then two come along together. After seven weeks for career win #289, he had only six days before #290 gets tucked in his locker. He wasn't brilliant; more 'good enough'. Johnson allowed four runs on five hits and a walk, including two homers to the light-hitting Shane Victorino, who had only three round-trippers in 312 AB this season prior to the game. He could perhaps have gone longer, having thrown 84 pitches after the sixth; however, he suffered cramps in his calf while warming up, a result of his running the bases. [Must be said, he didn't look comfortable there. Mark Grace joked Randy was looking for an oxygen mask in the dugout. I commented his hit would have been a triple, if he hadn't had to stop at first and ask for directions.] Better safe than sorry though, and with about nine days till his next outing, he should be fine.

Tracy had three hits - two off southpaws - while Drew and Jackson each reached safely three times, with a pair of hits and a walk. Every starter bar Hammock had a hit, though Young's 1-for-5 with two K's is...about par for the course of late, unfortunately. There just is no alternative right now: he has played 816 of the 836 innings there this season; Alex Romero, with thirty-five minor league games at the position, and one in the majors, is not the answer. However, if we continue to get decent production from 1B and LF [on this road-trip, Tracy and Jackson are 8-for-20 and 7-for-21 respectively], then we might be ok. If I don't want to say we're out of the woods yet, in fourteen games since our team BA reached a low of .244 on June 27, we've hit .264 and gone 7-7.

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Masterof his domain: Randy Johnson, +21.1% - batting!
Honorable mentions: Tracy, +17.0%; Jackson, +17.0%
God-emperor of suck: Randy Johnson, -5.1% - pitching!

Welcome to Randy Johnson's Bizarro World. I think it may be a very, very long time before we see Johnson master of his domain...for his ability at the plate, rather than for directing 94 mph sliders over it. However, that was genuinely a decent at-bat he put together, and sometimes that, and a little luck, will bring unexpected dividends to even the least effective hitter. Today was his first multi-RBI game since October 2nd, 2004, and the eighth of his career overall. The win sends us back to .500, and guarantees that the worst we can finish the first half is tied for the lead in the division.

A chunky Gameday Thread, passing 600 comments - admittedly, the game itself seemed well down on the list of priorities, even before our eight-run outburst effectively ended it as a spectacle. Present were seton hall snake pit, AF DBacks Fanatic, DbacksSkins, TwinnerA, hotclaws, kishi, golfmanthee, mrssoco, soco, Zephon, AZWILDCATS, Mr. Philosophical, emilylovesthedbacks and, unnamedDBacksfan. We now get to kick back and see whether the Dodgers can break their two-game streak against the Marlins this evening. Then, tomorrow morning, it's Brandon Webb against Cole Hamels, to decide whether we finish the first-half over .500 or under it. Should be fun: see you for that!

Record: 46-46. Pace: 81-81. Change on last season: -3

There are those out there who may mock our beatification [look it up...] of Penelope Cruz, canonizing her as St. Penelope of the Cross. But even the nay-sayers would be hard pushed to discount the miracles that followed immediately the invocation of her name, on not one but two occasions tonight. The first time was to break up the perfect game being thrown by Bergmann in the fourth - he'd retired the first ten Diamondbacks batters in a row. Immediately, the very next hitter, Drew, singled - as did the one after him, Hudson. Still, St. Penelope was only warming up: breaking up no-hitters is what drew her to our cause to begin with.

Even more impressive was her performance in the bottom of the 10th, after Peña had blown our second save opportunity of the night, coughing up three runs, while retiring one batter. The winning run was at third with one out, and the plaintive cry, "Help us, St. Penelope, you're our only hope" rang through the Gameday Thread. And lo, our prayers were heard: Flores grounded out, and Montero survived being plowed into by Kearns at home-plate. Another ground-out followed, and the hopeless cause which is the 2008 Arizona Diamondbacks lived to fight another inning - where Qualls finally managed to hold the third multi-run lead of the night.

Speaking of whom: all previous bad things said about Qualls are officially stricken from the record after his past trio of performances. In two of them, he came in with an inherited runner at third and one out, and that runner did not score [and the third was a 1-2-3 inning]. Mark Grace had an interesting observation, saying that he thinks Qualls is more effective when he takes a bit off his pitches, the increased movement making up for the lower velocity. I can see how that's the case, and Qualls has now retired the last ten batters he has faced, and pitched out of a couple of very sticky situations, not of his making. As an illustration, let's take a look at the Fangraph for this game. And remember, the louder you scream, the faster we go...

[Click to enlarge, in new window...IF YOUR HEART CAN STAND IT!!!]
Master of his domain: Chad Tracy, +44.7%
Honorable mentions: Qualls +42.7%; Haren +31.6%; Drew 26.6%;
Hudson +13.6%; Romero +11.8%
God-emperor of suck: Tony Peña, -78.6%
Dishonorable mention: Lyon -16.5%; Young -16.4%

A picture is worth a thousand words, though most of the words caused by the above were unrepeatable in polite society. I think this fangraph sets new records in a number of areas. Most AZ players at +10% or above: seven [Special K was at 10.1%, but for reasons I'm sure we'll mention shortly, he deserves no "honorable mention"]. Worst performance in a winning cause: Peña, -78.6%. And best performance in a losing cause goes to Austin Kearns of the Nationals, who ended the day at a staggering +77.5%, even as his team was defeated.

How, exactly, did this happen? How did Arizona turn an excellent first eight innings by Dan Haren into...that? Well let's start by asking Bob Melvin, who opted to send Haren out there for the ninth, though he was at 104 pitches, in pursuit of a meaningless complete-game shutout. Even after Haren walked the lead-off man, getting his pitch-count up to 110, his manager opted to leave him out there, and a single promptly followed, putting the tying run on base. Finally, at least one and perhaps two batters too late, Melvin went to Lyon for a save that had, quite unnecessarily, become a great deal more difficult than it would have been.

Exhibit B: Mark Reynolds. Lyon allowed a single to load the bases, still with no-one out, but then got Kearns to hit a grounder to third. Special K, however, backed up and let the ball play him; instead of a nice double-play, it went right past him into left-field, and two runs scored to tie the game. Worse was to follow, as two outs later, he clanked yet another ground-ball, loading the bases and forcing Lyon to get a fifth out in the inning. While fortunately, our closer was up to the task, added to another error in the game, it left Reynolds with three on the day, and a major-league leading eighteen on the season. Do have to wonder whether a Ryan Braun-like move to left-field might be best for all concerned? Oh, hang on... :-( [Stats LLC said that, had Washington not scored, we'd have become the first teams to play each other in five straight shutout games for 28 years]

Reynolds did redeem himself somewhat in the tenth, as our offense girded its loins [Chris Snyder was excused loin-girding, for obvious reasons] and posted a three-spot on four straight hits with two outs. It started in fortunate fashion, Rauch - at 6'11" the tallest pitcher ever in the majors - unable to field a half-swing from Jackson. Tracy and Reynolds followed with RBI doubles, and Montero added a third run to the cushion. That hit rejuvenated our Win Probability to 96%, after it had dropped as low as 18.1% during that troublesome ninth. Surely, Tony Peña would come in and lock down the save in the bottom of the tenth - especially as Reynolds had been removed for the defensive wizardry which is Augie Ojeda.

Er, no. Pestileñce allowed hits to four of the first five hitters he faced, and the lead evaporated entirely - that Win Probability collapsed entirely, going all the way back down to 17%. As noted above, Qualls - with a little help from St. Penelope - turned back the tide, and handed things over to the offense. Ojeda got plunked to lead off the eleventh, was bunted to second, and came home on a double by Drew. After Hudson was walked, Jackson delivered another hit, but Drew was thrown out at home - with only one out, seemed a bit questionable to send the runner from third, rather than keep the bases loaded. However, Tracy added an insurance run to make it 7-5, and Qualls pitched a remarkably stress-free 1-2-3 inning to give us what we should have had all along - a two-run margin of victory.

We might want to play extra innings more often, based on this performance, as our offense clearly loved it - they got seven hits in the tenth and eleventh, which is exactly the same number as the first nine innings combined. Drew, Jackson and Tracy all had three-hit days, while Hudson had two hits and a walk. Particularly pleased to see Tracy getting hot - they're picking the match-ups for him, but in eight July games, he is batting .407 [11-for-27] with six RBI. Chris Young went 0-for-5 and continues to struggle a bit: since June 20 he is now hitting .203 with only five walks, for an OBP of just .257. Yet Melvin continues to bat him lead-off.

Lost in this was another brilliant outing by Haren, who pitched eight innings, allowing three hits, two walks and two runs (one earned) while striking out a season-high nine Nationals. That's his eighth quality start in a row, even if Haren only has been credited with the win in three of those. His ERA over that time is 1.45, with a K:BB ratio of 52:11. If there is a hotter pitcher in the National League over the past month and a half, I'd be surprised, and it would be no shock if his next appearance is starting the All-Star Game for the National League on Tuesday. It'd certainly be well-deserved.

A "somewhat tense" Gameday Thread today, and we surged past 800 as a result - pleased to see some new (or newish!) faces, so a formal welcome to NewJackCity, AF DBacks Fanatic and MamaLing. There was also a good turnout of regulars: Zephon, srdmad, kishi, nihil67, 4 Corners Fan, Muu, Scrbl, TwinnerA, Azreous, Counsellmember, soco, Wimb, mrssoco, Geno Ardi, golfmanthee, ChandlerDad, hotclaws, SongBird, garyho, dstorm and Diamondhacks. The net result is that we did indeed take two out of three in Washington, ugly and lumpy though this last victory was. The Dodgers are still playing - tied 4-4 with Florida in the eighth as I write - but at the very least, we will be tied for first as we head off to Philadelphia for cheesesteaks and the Phanatic, quite possibly the finest mascot in all baseball. If the games are less pulse-pounding than this one, I wouldn't mind too much!

Record: 42-41. Pace: 82-80. Change on last season: -4

As this game wore on, it seemed the question was going to be, less whether Arizona would score enough runs, than whether they would have enough able bodies to man all nine positions. First, Eric Byrnes basically collapsed half-way between second and third, as he tried to steal a base in the second: he never even made it to third. Though he limped off the infield under his own steam, he went straight to the dugout, and it looks likely that he is going back onto the DL with a re-occurrence of the hamstring injury which kept him out for four weeks earlier this month. If it is the same problem, one has to wonder whether he came back too soon, before the injury healed properly - especially since it came basically the first time he hit full speed. If so, whose fault is it? Byrnes, for claiming fitness, or the Diamondbacks' training staff for not spotting it?

He was replaced in left-field by Jeff Salazar, and the game continued. However, in the fourth inning,. Chris Snyder also got taken out of the game - in rather unfortunate fashion. The Republic describes it as "an unspecified injury," but here's what happened. A foul ball ricocheted off the ground and up into... Well, let's be honest here: Snyder's crotch. Now, catchers do wear a protective cup, but that's designed to protect the family jewels from frontal assault. Judging by the way our catcher dropped to the ground like a stunned heifer, this ball managed to bypass the armor with a degree of accuracy that would have made Lee Harvey Oswald proud. Mark Grace was not exactly sympathetic, squeaking "I'm not quite ready yet!" in a high-pitched voice as Snyder got back down, somewhat uncomfortably, behind the plate. Chris toughed out the inning, but was replaced by Montero for his at-bat in the bottom of the fourth.

The fifth inning saw another bump at home-plate. We had men on second and third, when Jackson hit a ball to right-field. Hart successfully duped Ojeda, on third, into thinking he'd have to tag to score, even though the ball dropped in front of him. Augie scurried home, getting there at the same time as the ball, and ended up colliding with Kendall and going down in a heap. The ball got away, and Drew scored behind Ojeda as well, though there seemed to be a bit of a clinch going on between Augie and Brewers' catcher Kendall. Not quite sure who was to blame there, but Kendall probably needs to pick on someone his own size. No-one touches the Littlest Ballplayer and gets away with it. :-)

That play, and a subsequent RBI double by Reynolds, proved to be the turning points in the game, giving Arizona a three-run lead. Not that it was all chocolate and flowers from there on, the sixth inning being particularly interesting, shall we say. It started with Davis plunking Prince Fielder, presumably some kind of attempt by Doug to prove that, yes, he can hit the broad side of a barn. Two walks followed, and Davis was yanked in favor of - cue screams from the assembled masses - Mr. Inherited Runner, Chad Qualls. Yes, probably the last person we wanted to see with the bases loaded, and a mob with torches began to assemble in the foyer at Chase Field. He then walked in a run for Milwaukee, but with the tying run a bloop away, managed to get Weeks swinging for the third out. The mob decided to go to Chili's instead, and put away their copies of 'Skins visual aid regarding Qualls.

Mark Reynolds was the offensive force of the game, going 3-for-3 with a walk, and all three hits being for extra-bases - including his 17th homer of the year, matching his total from all of last year, despite 91 fewer at-bats to date. The three runs driven in gave Special K 52 in total, and he is currently on pace to become the first Diamondback to reach three figures for a season, since Luis Gonzalez had 104 RBI in 2003. Augie Ojeda had two hits from the lead-off spot, and scored both times he got on base. This makes perfect sense, since it's what the lead-off hitter is supposed to do, and his on-base percentage (.394) is second only to Jackson (.400). Certainly beats Drew (.297) and Byrnes (.272), though since he was only in the starting line-up to give O-Dawg a day off, expect normal service to be resumed tomorrow. Drew had two hits, and Montero a pair of walks.

Doug Davis picked up the win, but his control issues in the sixth meant he fell one out short of a fourth straight quality start. He began in somewhat wobbly form, falling behind 2-0 before retiring the second Brewer of the night, but buckled down from there. The only further damage was the run charged to him on Qualls' bases-loaded walk in the sixth: Davis's final line was 5.2 innings, with five hits, four walks and three strikeouts. Qualls came back out for the seventh and pitched around a lead-off double, while Pena came in for the eighth and Lyon the ninth. Be very interesting to see what happens in the event of a close game tomorrow, as both Pestileñce and War have now pitched in the past three games. Cruz to close and Qualls to set-up?

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Master of his domain: Mark Reynolds, +25.8%
Honorable mention: Stephen Drew, +12.8%
God-emperor of suck: Justin Upton, -10.1%

Looked like it was going to be a low-key Gameday Thread early on, but just as the Diamondbacks did, participants kicked up their output in the middle innings, and finished strong - albeit somewhat off-topic. Dbackskins cracked the two hundred mark, while everyone else lollygagged in double-digits: also present were kishi, 4 Corners Fan, hotclaws, seton hall snake pit, DbacksSkins, soco, unnamedDBacksfan, mrssoco, emilylovesthedbacks, Muu, snakecharmer, LucaMaz3, DiamondbacksWIn and The Main Man, so thanks to all those who showed up.

Dodgers lost. Giants lost. Rockies lost spectacularly, coughing up an 8-3 lead to lose 15-8 to the Padres, for their eighth defeat in a row. The net result is that the standings in the NL West are basically unchanged from what they were on June 8, even though we've gone 8-12 in that time:

Finally, a quick note on Micah Owings, since injuries seem to be the theme of the day. It's still up in the air whether he'll make his scheduled start on Wednesday: He said, "We're planning on it right now, but we'll see how it feels after I do some more treatment... I wish I could explain it. When I went down for the ball, my lower right side and upper glute just locked up on me... I've never had anything like that happen." The Petit Unit looks likely to get the start if Owings is not ready to go.

Oh, and tomorrow is a special Gameday Thread, in which all discussion of the game in the comments will be prohibited while it is in progress. Marshals will be carefully monitoring for any violations of this condition and all violators will be punished harshly. Suggestions of alternative topics to discuss are welcome.

Record: 34-30. Pace: 86-76. Change on last season: -3

Or, for those not fluent in the language of love, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Or, for those who prefer a less flowery version, "Same shirt, different day." [Well, more or less. :-)] Mark Reynolds almost had four homers in consecutive at-bats, but lost out as the umpires reversed one and turned it into a double. Bob Melvin picked up his first ejection of the season in the second inning, for arguing the above call. There was almost the first bench-clearing brawl in a long time for the Diamondbacks.

However, the end result still remained exactly the same: 6-8 hits once more [13 games in a row]; five runs or less [14 straight] and a defeat [6-14 over the past twenty]. The "less than nine hits" thing is now reaching epic proportions: no National League team has had a longer run of such offensively-limited games, since the Mets rolled for twenty straight in July 1972. Mark Reynolds continued to be the main offensive force, swatting a homer and two doubles, while Chris Young got two hits and Justin Upton reached safely four times, with a hit and three of our four walks. However, I can't blame the Pirates for walking him, since behind J-Up sat Miguel Montero - he went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts and eight men left on base, as well as committing one of our three errors. I haven't looked at the Fangraph yet, but I've a fair idea he will not be master of his domain.

Randy Johnson's control was not his best today, and it really hurt him. Of the five runs he allowed, four of the batters who scored had reached base on balls, and the fifth was driven in thanks to a bases-loaded walk. He seemed a bit upset with the home-plate umpire's strike-zone, and far more than upset with Doug 'Triple-word Score'  Mientkiewicz stepping out of the batter's box in the middle of Johnson's delivery. Words were exchanged, the Big Unit headed towards the batter's box, both benches cleared, but order was restored without things escalating further. "It didn’t bother me at all," Johnson said. "If it would have, he’d probably be on a stretcher and I’d probably be out of the game."

Subsequent events would suggest otherwise, and that the incident definitely affected our starter. He walked Mientkiewicz, made a fielding error on the next play and then, after Montero muffed Duke's sacrifice bunt, walked another man with the bases loaded and still no-one out. He did bear down, retiring the next three without further damage, but continued to struggle thereafter  He ended up allowing five runs (one unearned) on six hits and five walks. Johnson was replaced by Juan Cruz with two outs in the sixth inning, failing to complete six for the first time since May 13th, but throwing a season-high 106 pitches. Win #289 remains as elusive as it has been in his past four starts now.

Mark Reynolds thought he'd got a homer in the second, with a long drive to right. A fan caught the ball, and while initially ruled a four-bagger, after the Pirates' manager came out to appeal, it was ruled that the fan had leaned into play to grab the ball. Bob Melvin came out to put his point of view, and something he said clearly upset home plate umpire Jeff Kellogg, who tossed Melvin. Replays appeared to indicate the men in blue got this one right in the end, though you wouldn't find our manager willing to admit it after the game. He commented, "My opinion was the first-base umpire got it right. The first-base umpire is closest to the play and my opinion was he got it right, and I didn't know why they overturned it."

The Pirates pulled steadily away, reaching a 5-1 lead after six. An RBI double for Young pulled back a run in the seventh, and we had the tying run at the plate with one out. However, first Montero, then pinch-hitter Owings, struck out swinging. Our best chance was in the eighth: Drew homered to lead things off, and we loaded the bases after that, putting the tying run in scoring position. Inexplicably, Montero was left up there to hit for himself again - the swinging K which followed had the air of inevitability about it. Chris Burke batted leadoff once again, and went 0-for-4, making him 0-for-11 at the top of the order this year. His presence in the starting lineup puzzles me: put him the spot where he'll get most at-bats, and I'm beyond puzzlement. I can only be described as bewildered.

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God-emperor of his domain: Justin Upton, +18.0%
Honorable mention: Mark Reynolds, +15.4%
God-emperor of suck: Miguel Montero, -29.3%
Dishonorable mention: Randy Johnson, -16.8%

For a weekday morning game, not a bad turnout in the Gameday Thread. Certainly, no shortage of things to talk about. Present were 4 Corners Fan, DbacksSkins, luckycc, nihil67, Counsellmember, hotclaws, isoldout, TwinnerA, Muu, kishi, Diamondhacks, srdmad, dahlian, Wimb and victor frankenstein. A series which started so well, with back-to-back wins behind solid pitching, sputters out into a split. It seems the only way we can win is if the Dodgers do so too.

It's on to New York, who are staggering even worse than we are, having just been swept in a four-game series by the Padres. Sheesh. They took two of three from us back in Arizona at the start of  May and, in a quirk of scheduling fate, the rematches will see exactly the same pitchers go head-to-head again. First it's Owings vs. Maine, then Webb vs. Pelfrey and we finish on Thursday with Haren vs. Santana. At this point...sheesh, dare I hope for two out of three? Oh, and a pony...

Record: 34-29. Pace: 87-75. Change on last season: -2

Double-D has made 39 starts since coming to Arizona. In the 16 where has allowed less than three walks, his record is 9-2. In the now eleven starts where he has handed out more than three free passes, it's 2-8. So, from the moment Doug Davis walked two Pittburgh batters in the first inning - even though one of them looked like a pretty good strike three - it was clear this was going to be a struggle for the Diamondbacks. When Davis walks people, whether the result of a miserly umpire, a lack of control or, as today, a bit of both, trouble tends to result, sooner or later.

In this case, it took a bit of time. The Pirates stranded five men on base in the first three innings, without scoring. But Pittsburgh made no such mistake in the fourth, getting five hits, a walk and a sacrifice fly to plate five runs. The game was blown open, and Davis yanked after just 3.2 innings in which he allowed seven hits and four walks - simply too many base-runners to be effective. It's not necessarily the walks themselves; today, only one of the four came round to score. However, it does drive up his pitch-count - he'd passed fifty before getting out of the second today - and means the hits which Davis will give up are more likely to score runs.

Arizona took the lead on a passed ball in the second, allowing Jackson to trot home from third. However, the next time we got a runner past first-base, we were four runs behind: Mark Reynolds homered to lead off the fifth, but Max Scherzer struggled with his own control in the bottom half. He walked one batter, hit two more and then allowed an RBI single to push the Pirates lead back to four. Even so, we had our chances thereafter: we loaded the bases up and brought the tying run to the plate in the sixth, but Reynolds grounded out. We got two men on in the seventh...and Hudson flew out. Reynolds cut the Pirates' lead in half with his second homer of the day in the eighth, and when Ojeda singled with two outs in the ninth, we had the tying run at the plate once again. However, O-Dawg grounded out to complete an 0-for-5 day, and the winning streak was over.

Pretty much a standard day for Arizona at the plate over the past month: 6-8 hits once more - twelve games in a row for that little streak now - five runs or less [13 straight] and a defeaeach had a pair of hits and a walk, while Reynolds had his two homers, giving him thirteen on the year and 39 RBI, both leading the team. Special K is one of the few Diamondbacks to have been hitting of late; since May 18, he is batting .323 [20-for-62], with six homers and 11 RBI in 18 games. [Despite the ohfer today, O-Dawg is still hot, batting .321 post his return]

The B-squad was out today, with Ojeda, Burke and Romero all starting. I am still not quite sure what Melvin is trying to accomplish by putting Burke in a) the starting lineup, and b) the lead-off spot. I've seen very little to convince me that he is a better option than Jeff Salazar, even taking into account the handedness of the opposing starting pitcher. 0-for-3 with a walk for Burke, dropping his season average to .184. Romero started in right, replacing Upton, whose slump showed no signs of abating with a pinch-strikeout in the seventh. At this stage, it's hard to say what we should do with J-Up. Much as I'd like to see him stay here and work his way through it, there has got to be a point where a young hitter may need to take a step backwards, in order to keep going forward. 6-for-62 with thirty K's, would seem precariously close to that point.

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Master of his domain: Conor Jackson, +9.2%
God-Emperor of suck: Doug Davis, -30.9%
Dishonorable mention: Orlando Hudson, -11.8%

Thanks to kishi for starting the overflow thread today. How wise of me to give him the ability to to do so...about two months ago :-) He's now been "properly" promoted to the page footer, alongside the other editors. I like the pyramidal structure, with one manager, two editors and three authors...  Anyway, present for this morning's entertainment were soco, foulpole, DbacksSkins, mrssoco, kishi, Azreous, hotclaws, dahlian, TwinnerA, Wimb, emilylovesthedbacks, CPAYNEonaplane, luckycc, unnamedDBacksfan and Muu.

Have to say, this was the game in the series I was least optimistic about winning: Davis is still not a pitcher I can bank on for a quality start in the same way as Webb, Haren - and, increasingly, Randy Johnson. If we can get a win tomorrow [and that depends upon whether our offense can rub the sleep from their eyes in time for an unholy first pitch - 12:35 in Pittsburgh, which is about 4 am, Arizona time or something], then that'll be fine. Three wins out of four for a road series is pretty good. Meanwhile, we wait to see whether the inevitable Dodger loss after a Diamondbacks loss ensues as expected.

Record: 32-26. Pace: 89-73. Change on last season: -2

Ooh, look at the Diamondbacks queuing up for the all-you-can-eat Blame Buffet this evening. There's Mark Reynolds, piling his plate high. Chad Qualls looks particularly hungry too. Doug 'Batting Practice' Slaten is forming an orderly line, right in front of Augie 'Mini EB' Ojeda. I see Chris Snyder, letting Prince Fielder steal in, right before his eyes. And Bob Melvin is coming back for a second helping, while we try to work out the logic behind his baffling managerial choices. Even Doug Davis is nibbling on an appetizer, since Fielder's theft of third-base was likely as much on his head as Snyder's.

Otherwise, though, up until the seventh inning, Davis was pretty much everything you could want, with just one run on five hits and a walk. Sure, the Brewers had runners in scoring position with no outs in the first and second inning, and two outs in the third, but the only damage after six frames was Fielder's manufactured run: single, wild-pitch, steal, sacrifice fly. I was more than a little surprised - and said so at the time - that he was allowed to bat for himself in the sixth, then go back to the mound for the seventh. With a fully-rested bullpen [only two innings over Saturday and Sunday], it seemed to be pushing our luck somewhat, especially as we only had a two-run lead.

And events proved these fears entirely justified. Another infield single [one of five on the night, which seems like an awful lot], Drew's off-line throw pulling Tracy off the bag, and then a walk, marked the end of Doug's night, but was only a warm-up for the atrocity exhibition to come. Chad Qualls came in, and Kendall tried to sacrifice - Qualls, with plenty of time to get the runner, threw wildly and again pulled the fielder covering first away from the base. That meant everyone was safe, with the bases now loaded with Brewers, and still no-one was out. Worse was to follow: Qualls then coaxed a ground-ball to Reynolds, who fired the ball home. Or, more accurately, fired the ball about five yards to Snyder's right, allowing two runs to score and tying the game.

Remarkably, Qualls then managed to escape the second and third, nobody out jam without further damage, on a strikeout, a walk and a double-play - let's just review the Win Probability as the inning unfolded:

Milwaukee Win Probabilty - 22.3%
B Hall Single - 29.3%
J Hardy    Walk - 39.7%
C Qualls relieved D Davis
J Kendall SacBunt+Err - 53.0%
G Kapler FC+Err - 82.3%
R Weeks Strikeout - 73.5%
M Cameron Walk - 73.5%
R Braun    Ground DP - 50.0%

"Ok, we somehow got out with the score still tied. We just need our bullpen to..." Barely had that thought crossed my mind, when Doug Slaten served up a fatty to a fatty, and Prince Fielder promptly crushed the ball to deep center. It may not have landed yet - the results of that pitching change made the NL Manager of the Year look a bit crap, didn't it? In the ninth, some luck finally broke Arizona's way: back-to-back errors by the Brewers allowed Reynolds and Upton to reach. With the tying run on second, we were back in the game; a sacrifice bunt by Snyder [and, for once, this actually increased our Win Probability, albeit by a massive one-half of one percent] brought the tying run to third with one out. Even a sacrifice fly would do.

But there then followed a pair of mystifying decisions by Melvin. Firstly, letting Burke - about the worst hitter on the roster - hit for himself. Somehow he managed to work a walk, loading the bases for a pinch-hitter. Who do you think Melvin sent up? Miguel Montero? Jeff Salazar? Even, perhaps, the injured Conor Jackson, for some Kirk Gibsonesque heroics? No: try Augie Ojeda, a man who has been in the majors since 2000, has amassed eight sacrifice flies in that time and was getting his first at-bat since May 25. Really: much as I love the littlest ballplayer, he's not who I wanted to see at the plate. I have a better chance of driving the ball to the outfield than Ojeda. He immediately fell behind 0-2, just got a piece of a couple of pitches that were miles outside the zone, then popped up weakly on the infield. Drew got screwed by the umpire for strike three, though the way we played over those final innings, we can hardly complain - we don't deserve to win a game for the rest of the season.

The bullpen picked up its tenth loss of the season, against only three wins, wasting another quality start. The Diamondbacks' rotation has now gone 29-16, the most victories in the majors - even including the AL, where starters go deeper and so have more chance of a decision. In comparison, last year, our relievers didn't pick up their tenth defeat for another entire month, until July 4. It's turning into a real Achilles heel for the team: Qualls and Slaten have combined to go 0-7, in just 43.2 innings of work. I know wins and losses are not the most reliable method of judging performance - especially for relievers - but a 3-10 record would seem to provide credible cause for concern.

The offense sputtered, coughed, and fell back into the trough from whence they came, going 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position. And even that hit resulted in an out: Reynolds singled to the infield, scoring Drew from third - but Chris Young motored around too, trying to score from second and was thrown out at the plate. That run would have been very nice to have later on, shall we say. Reynolds and Snyder has a pair of hits apiece, with Snyder adding his fifth homer of the year. Burke had a hit and two walks, while Drew reached twice, on a hit and a walk - he was caught stealing on a strikeout/thrown-out double play. That's the first time he's been nailed in the majors, after 13 successful attempts.

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Master of his domain: Chris Snyder, +22.5%
Honorary mention: Mark Reynolds, +21.1% No, I'm calling that null and void
God-emperor of suck: oh, where to start? Deep breath...
Augie Ojeda, -22.4%
Stephen Drew, -23.3%
Doug Slaten, -25.5%

Tonight's fangraph looks like the overnight pulse-rate of a man whose bedroom was visited at 4am by Al Qaeda, 5am by Jenna Jameson, and finally, at 6am by the Grim Reaper. Not one for the ages, shall we say. I did still mostly enjoy the Gameday Thread, so thanks to the contributors: DbacksSkins, Azreous, kishi, dahlian, foulpole, mr.tunes [welcome!], hotclaws, soco, luckycc, DiamondbacksWIn, Wimb, RAMJB, LucaMaz3, njjohn, Zephon, 4 Corners Fan, Goose, TwinnerA, unnamedDBacksfan, mrssoco and shoewizard.

No-one seems to know how long Jackson will be out. He took batting practice today and is scheduled to run some agility drills tomorrow, which will hopefully answer some questions there. The MRI he received on Saturday showed a small tear in his quadriceps, and Melvin said yesterday that "We're going to try to shut him down for potentially three or four days and see where we're at. If he's back in the lineup a couple days after that, it's kind of what we're hoping for." Seems like it might be the middle of the Pittsburgh series before we get him back fulltime, at best. The latter story does say Jackson might be available as a pinch-hitter, and Melvin describes him as "usable, but not my first option." Which makes his absence in the ninth today all the more puzzling.

The Dodgers, to no-one's great surprise, closed the gap to 3.5 by beating the Rockies, who dropped their eighth game in a row. If Colorado keep this up, they are going to end up right alongside the 1998 fire-sale Marlins, for the biggest implosions in baseball history: Florida went from 92 wins and World Series champions, to just 54 the next year; the Rockies have now lost 16 of their last 21 games, and are on pace to go from the World Series to a 56-106 season. More importantly, we can't expect them to take the next two games from Los Angeles, and so winning tomorrow and Wednesday become doubly-important. 

Record: 31-25. Pace: 90-72. Change on last season: -2

One hour, fifty-two minutes. That was the first sub-two hour game in over a year [April 22, 2007, a 2-1 loss against the Giants, took 1:56], the shortest Diamondbacks contest since August 25, 2004, when Josh Fogg beat Randy Johnson 2-1 in Pittsburgh, in a game which took a phenomenally crisp 1:47, and was also the shortest ever in Chase Field history. It kinda renders the early, 5:10 pm start somewhat redundant, when the game itself is over in less time than the average Michael Bay movie.

But, what it lacked in duration, it more than made up for in a great pitching performance by Brandon Webb, who threw his second complete game of the year and his first shutout since the 42-game inning streak last season. 113 pitches; six hits, all singles; no walks; eight strikeouts - only three Nationals got past first base, and two of those had to steal second to get there. After a very wobbly outing last time out, this was the Brandon Webb we wanted...no, make that needed to see, and he became the first major-league pitcher to hit double-figures in wins. The five-game losing streak was ended, and if May will remain eminently forgettable, at least we ended it on a high note, bringing our lead over the Dodgers back to 3.5 games.

The offense was...well, I guess you can't complain about hitting four homers in a game, but they were all solo shots, and from what I see, we didn't get anyone past first-base either. Can't be many times that a team scores four runs, and doesn't get a single at-bat with runners in scoring position! Instead, we relied on the long-ball: Mark Reynolds had two of those solo homers, both monsters in one dimension or another. The first, which broke a scoreless tie in the second, was over by the Fatburger sign in deep left, and estimated at 450 feet. We'll wait for the more accurate assessment out of HitTracker.com, but it didn't feel very much shorter than his April 7th blast to the same area, which was measured at 463 feet. His second only reached the front row of the bleachers in left, but felt like it went 450 feet straight up. They both counted exactly the same though.

That one was immediately preceded by Justin Upton launching his eighth of the year, and Chris Young, not be outdone, re-took the team lead in homers [Reynolds had matched him on eleven] during the eighth, homering onto the porch in left-center for his twelfth of the season. Outside of the long-ball, there wasn't much to offer: singles from Drew, Hudson and Webb, and no walks, though as we only had 30 plate-appearances, chances were somewhat limited. Bergmann posed questions which proved tricky to handle for most of our line-up, outside of those homers. Helped by the pitcher-friendly Angel Hernandez behind the plate ["If it didn't bounce on its way here, it's a strike"], the two hurlers combined for 16 K's and no walks, which also contributed to the swift page.

Couple of other points to note. Bob Melvin called a closed-door clubhouse meeting before the game. Hard to say if it had much effect, as we scored four or less for the seventh game in a row. [Still well short of the franchise record of 15, which we did most recently last May] Stephen Drew batted leadoff, for the first time this season - I'd kinda forgotten, but he was actually our regular in that spot at the start of last season. Jackson And, I have to say, Mark Reynolds' diving sprawl to take a bloop hit away from Dmitri 'The Meathook' Young, leading off the ninth, was an almost certain nominee for play of the year. Of course, the infield needed to be on their feet the entire game: only three outs were recorded by Webb on fly-balls, with sixteen groundballs and the eight K's, No problems on that front today, I'm pleased to report.

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Master of his domain: Brandon Webb, +53.3%
Honorary mention: Mark Reynolds, +15.5%
God-emperor of suck: Chris Young, -9.4%

A thoroughly-enjoyable Gameday Thread, helped both by Webb's great performance, and this month's selection from the Beers of the Month Club, a birthday present for which I have to thank Mrs. SnakePit. [She was out this afternoon, because her mother demanded a picture of St. Jude, patron saint of hopeless causes, so she could sent it to the Globe, because they ran a cover story about Patrick Swayze being on his death-bed. These things are not apparently easy to find.] A fairly light turnout, but I had a lot of fun, so thanks to those who turned out: soco, Muu, unnamedDBacksfan, DbacksSkins, UofAZGrad, TwinnerA, hotclaws, luckycc, Wimb, Ridster09, RAMJB, UptonMVP and Zephon.

Looks like we will be without Conor Jackson for a couple of days. He strained his quadriceps trying to avoid a pitch during Friday's game; it's apparently something he has had problems with earlier in the season, and was aggravated as a result of this game. He had an MRI, but hopefully, it won't be enough to take him out for long: According to Melvin, "He's been playing with it, but it was hurting him significantly enough where he needed to come out. We were thinking last night and earlier today that maybe [he'll be out] a couple days, but we'll see what the MRI has to say. Our feeling still is that this will just be something that will keep him out for a couple of days." At least with Tracy, we have coverage there, and Chad made a couple of very nice plays at first today.

Not much more to add, for the moment. I have to do a review of the month, but I don't know if that will be tonight (unlikely), tomorrow morning (marginal), or tomorrow evening (probably most likely). In the meantime, here's the poll for Diamondbacks' Player of the Month for May.

Record: 30-23. Pace: 92-70. Change on last season: 0

I'm sorry: these are not the San Francisco Giants I signed up to face. I signed up for the franchise widely predicted to have the worst record in the National League, and probably lose somewhere around 100 games. There appears to have been some kind of mistake - these Giants came into the impregnable fortress known as Chase, and pounded our butts to the tune of 17-6 in the first two games. I would like to return them for the anticipated woeful bunch of Bonds-less losers. I still have the receipt somewhere.

Ouch. That'll leave a mark. And, I note from the opening line, bring us back on track with the 2007 version of the team for the first time in a long while. Since they went on to win games #54-56 inclusive, we're going to have to seriously pull up our socks if we don't want to end this homestand in negative territory and trailing ourselves from last season. We can't hit, we can't pitch and we can't play defense. How in hell is this team still 3.5 games ahead in the NL West? We've now lost five of our last seven games and yet, have actually increased our lead by half a game in that time. Sheesh: I can only imagine what the rest of the division has been doing.  Oh, yeah: losing to the other divisions. The NL West now has a combined record of 22-31 against the East and 31-47 facing the Central.

Where to start tonight? Not that I really want to, for this is the kind of humiliating defeat that is best ignored entirely. As tonight's Gameday Thread proved, in which we managed to accumulate more than 750 comments, most of them not dealing with the actual game at all. Can't say I blame anyone. Let's being with Doug Davis, who was awful: nine hits, three walks and six earned runs in five innings of work. That said, he just about kept us in the game until the four-run fifth, and he would probably have got out of that unscathed, except for an ill-conceived stab at a comebacker with the bases-loaded. That turned a potential double-play into an RBI infield single; an RBI walk and a two-run single later, the Giants were 6-0 up and the discussion of ice-cream could begin in earnest.

Our bullpen hardly covered itself in glory, allowing five earned runs in the four frames of mop-up duty. Juan Cruz was the worst offender, with what started off as a fairly typical Cruz performance: walk, swinging K, walk. He then allowed a double and was lifted from the game complaining of a sore neck. This was also experienced by the 24,336 in attendance, who strained their muscles watching the Giants players whizz around the base-paths. Slaten and Gonzalez followed, while Brandon Lyon appeared in among the least save-like situations of his career, as we trailed 11-3. [On August 24, 2005, he did come in to a game against the Mets when we were 16-0 down!] He struck out the side, around a couple of hits, becoming the only pitcher to escape unscathed.

That was a rare pleasant point on a night where we sucked on just about every level. If we're clutching at straws, Justin Upton finally got a hit, ending his streak at 0-for-27. He thereby dodged setting the franchise record for such things, which remains at 0-for-30, by both Steve Finley in April 2001, and Travis Lee in July-August 1999. J-Up, however, had rather more strikeouts during his streak, than that pair combined - he added another two K's tonight, and is now tied with Mark Reynolds on 62, equal third in the majors [Ryan Howard, remarkably, is already on 76, on pace to smash all known strikeout records into oblivion. By about the All-Star break...]

By the time Upton put us on the board with his two-run double, we were already ten runs down, so the words "damned with faint praise" come to mind as far as our offensive performance went tonight. Mark Reynolds showed signs of life with two hits, including his ninth homer, and a walk - if we can get him and Upton back on track, that will be a major step towards this team breaking out of their funk at the plate of late. In April, we collectively batted .268; in May so far, much the same roster has slumped to only .246. We are taking a few more walks, but the power outage has been dramatic; we had 36 homers through the end of April, but Reynolds' shot was only the team's 20th in May, with just three days to go. Reynolds, Upton and Jackson combined for 17 homers in the first month, but have only four since then.

[Click to enlarge, in new window]
Master of his domain: Conor Jackson, +6.7%
God-emperor of suck: Doug Davis, -22.8%

Our worst performance in quite some time, but the best Gameday Thread turnout in a while too. I blame 'Skins, who cracked the double-century of posts, but got valuable assistance from: srdmad, soco, hotclaws, kishi, UofAZGrad, victor frankenstein, dahlian, mrssoco, likeavirgin, foulpole, 4 Corners Fan, RAMJB, Wimb, unnamedDBacksfan, IndyDBack and Zephon, the last-named who had the misfortune to be present at the game. Wisely, he left with the score 6-0, and it didn't get much better from there on.

As they say, it's always darkest before the dawn, and these couple of games have been pretty damn dark - ergo, it's time for light to peer over the horizon. Tomorrow sees a battle of more or less over-paid starters; normally the prospect of facing someone who's 1-8 would be an encouraging sign, but the way the offense has been playing of late, we'll probably get no-hit by Mr. Zito. I know it doesn't feel like it, but do please try to remember that we are not just still atop the division, we have also got the biggest lead in all baseball. The rest of the season starts here...