Record: 65-60. Pace: 84-78. Change on last season: -6.
Magic number: 37. Playoff odds: 55.2%.

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Master of his domain: Tony Peña, +37.7%
Honorable mentions: Dunn, +18.8%; Davis, +13.6%; Young, +10.2%
God-emperor of suck: Brandon Lyon, -36.1%

I'm moving the FanGraph up, since they say a picture is worth a thousand words - and that's true for the above, which illustrates nicely the snooze-fest that was the second-half - up until Brandon Lyon's spectacular meltdown. There were certainly a thousand words uttered in SnakePit Towers during the ninth, in a wide-ranging discussion which included Brandon's parentage, his leisure activities, and a future career, based around the phrase, "D'you want fries with that?" In non-save situations over the past month, the results have been less than impressive: 2.1 innings, resulting in 11 hits, three walks and seven earned runs. That's a good part of why his ERA on July 18 was 2.37; it's now 4.60.

Today, Lyon came in with a comfortable 7-3 lead, but retired one of the six batters he faced, and Melvin had to go to Tony Peña, with the tying run on third and only one out. [I have to say, our Win Probability at that point felt an awful lot lower than the unemotional 62.3% claimed by FanGraphs!] He got Hundley to ground back to him, and calmly threw to Snyder, catching the runner coming home in a rundown. By the time the tag was made, men were on second and third, so the Padres were a bloop away from taking the lead, but Peña got the hitter to fly out to Chris Young, to preserve the victory, and send San Diego to a record of 3-56 when trailing after six innings. It was Tony's first save since May 16th, and I think few will begrudge him the position as Master of his Domain tonight.

That made a winner out of Doug Davis who pitched - and I can hardly believe I am typing these words - a quality start, allowing two runs over six innings. If the mark of a great pitcher is being able to get the victory despite not having his best stuff, i nominate Davis for the Cy Young this year. Because he was frickin' awful early on: unable to find the strike-zone with anything apart from batting-practice fastballs, with virtually all the outs being hard-hit balls that happened to find fielders. The second was particularly wretched, the first four Padres all reaching, to score one run and load the bases with no-one out.

However, all San Diego managed to add on was a sacrifice fly and, as so often, Davis worked through the issues. He ended up producing his best outing of August, giving up seven hits and two walks in six innings, fanning six. He threw 100 pitches - only 58 of them were for strikes. He turned it over to the A-bullpen, where Qualls has a perfect seventh, though Rauch struggled a bit in the eighth, with two hits and a walk, leading to an earned run. The coroner's report which was the ninth has already been sufficiently re-hashed, I feel - but I do think a debate should be opened on whether Lyon remains as closer down the stretch. He shouldn't be fatigued: at 47.2 IP, he's well short of his total last year [74], but the results of late have been far from comforting.

Fortunately, the offense proved just up to the task, breaking out early - for the third time in four games, we sent nine men to the plate in the first inning. Arizona were able to take advantage of wildness from opposing starter Banks, who walked no less than seven in four innings of work. That included four in the first inning, and we scored four times as a result, on RBI singles by Jackson and Snyder, and sacrifice flies sent out there by Reynolds and Burke. The patience at the plate was especially crucial on a night where San Diego outhit Arizona 13-7. It is, certainly, due in part to bad pitching and a small sample size, but we've been averaging six walks per game since the arrival of Adam Dunn - that compares to 3.4 over the 118 before he got here. Dunn himself had two more, for a total of nine in seven games.

He also got his first home in an Arizona jersey, a two-run shot in the fourth to right, even though he clearly didn't get all of the pitch. So he reached safely three times, increasing his OBP for the Diamondbacks to .485. Ojeda, Young and Snyder all followed suit in this department, and Conor Jackson had two hits - that was good to see, as CoJack had been scuffling, having gone 5-for-34 with two RBI in eight appearances, since his last multi-hit game on the 7th. He singled home a run in the seventh, what turned out to be a crucial insurance run, even if we didn't realize it at the time of execution.

An unsurprisingly busy thread, with over 750 comments. I would have participated more, but dinner, a large bag of cookies and sloth kept me in front of the television set [when I should really have been much more productive!] Also present were utahdbacksfan, DbacksSkins, TwinnerA, soco, snakecharmer, Azreous, AZWILDCATS, foulpole, seanprh, 4 Corners Fan, kishi, Scrbl, emilylovesthedbacks, The Main Man, singaporedbacksfan, SongBird, J Up, Muu, hotclaws, pepperdinedevil, Zephon and dbacksbj.

With the Dodgers going down to Colorado, we're back in first place, all by ourselves. I've decided to tempt the baseball gods by posting our Magic Number, which is the number of Arizona wins and/or Los Angeles losses necessary for us to reach the playoffs. If we drop out of first, it will be replaced by our anti-Magic Number, the number of Arizona losses and/or LA wins necessary for us to be eliminated. I'll also post the playoff chances, as worked out at CoolStandings.com, but those sometimes don't get updated until post-recap, so those may be TBA depending on when we play. The current 55.2% figure is the best since August 6.

Record: 30-24. Pace: 90-72. Change on last season: -1

That one hurt. In the first two games, we were never really in them, so the defeat was more inevitable than anything too disturbing or shocking. This one, however, was looking pretty good through the seventh inning, as we held on to a one-run lead, and Randy Johnson just missed out on passing Roger Clemens for second-place on the all-time strikeout leaderboard. He tied Clemens by fanning the first hitter of that inning and seemed to get to two strikes on everyone else he faced, but was obviously running out of gas, and couldn't quite get the final one he needed to overtake The 'Roid Rocket. Still, he was looking good for win #289, if we could only get the last six outs.

Then, enter Peña and Jackson, who each deserve about equal blame for the eighth inning fiasco that followed. I don't think I can quite stomach a full recap, so let's just go with the play-by-play:

T. Pena relieved R. Johnson
A. Rowand flied out to center
B. Molina walked
E. Burriss ran for B. Molina
R. Durham safe at first on first baseman C. Jackson's fielding error,
       E. Burriss to second
O. Vizquel grounded out to first, E. Burriss to third, R. Durham to second
J. Bowker hit by pitch
F. Lewis walked, E. Burriss scored, R. Durham to third, J. Bowker to second
C. Qualls relieved T. Pena

Well done, Conor and Tony! You must get up very early. The Giants scored the tying run without actually - oh, I dunno - needing to get a hit or anything like that, on two walks, an error and Jackson booting what seems like his ten-millionth simple groundball of the year. We could still have escape on Vizquel's hard grounder, but a clearly-rattled Jackson opted to go to first for the simple out, rather than trying to turn the inning-ending double-play. One plunking and a bases-loaded walk later, and exit Win #289, muttering something about beating the traffic.

Okay, so we still had a chance to win, right? Right? Hello? Is this thing on? I suspect that no-one really felt too confident of our chances, and when Randy 'Snake Eater' Winn homered to lead off the Giants' ninth, the reaction seemed to be one more of inevitability and disappointment than anything else. Perhaps it was the seed I planted before the game, pointing out our poor record - now 1-15 - when scoring three runs or less. It never really seemed that three runs would be sufficient to hold off the Giants, any more than it was sufficient to hold them off in the first two games of the series.

[Obscure factoid for the day #1: Hitting. It was actually the fourth consecutive game scoring exactly the same total of runs, so at least we're consistent - albeit consistently inadequate. That sets a new franchise record: we've had a number of three-game streaks with the same offensive output, but this was the first such four-peat. The Diamondbacks still have some way to go to match the 2003 Cleveland Indians, who scored exactly four runs in seven consecutive games between July 12 and July 20.]

Justin Upton continues to show signs of life, getting his first multi-hit game in a couple of weeks, whacking his first homer since May 8, and adding an RBI triple. That's seven bases in all, the most he's had all season, and the first time too that he's had more than one extra-base hit in the same game, so there's hope he's getting back onto track. He did strikeout twice though, and is now ahead of Mark Reynolds in that category. Orlando Hudson continued his hot hitting with two more hits; since coming back from his layoff, he's hitting .396 [21-for-53]. However, he also grounded into his team-leading seventh double-play. Jackson and Reynolds each reached safely twice, with a hit and a walk.

The best thing to come out of the game was, without question, Randy Johnson's outing: seven innings, six hits, two walks and two runs, with those nine strikeouts bringing him level with Clemens on the all-time list at 4,672. It's just a shame he didn't quite manage to reach #2 in front of the home fans, but it seems all but certain he'll do so again the Brewers next week. He showed excellent control, and managed a couple of strikeouts that left the Giants' hitters looking particularly incompetent: one even falling over onto home-plate after striking out. In his past three starts, Johnson has pitched 20 innings, allowed three earned runs and has a K:BB ratio of 24:3.

[Obscure factoid for the day #2: Pitching. The loss dropped Chad Qualls to 0-5; that's the worst start to a career for any Arizona pitcher, since Willie Blair lost his first seven decisions back at the beginning of our inaugural season in 1998. Next up for Qualls: the consecutive loss streak for an Arizona reliever is seven, by Greg Swindell in 2001-02, and then for an Arizona pitcher overall, the 0-11 record by Edgar Gonzalez between September 2003 and June 2006. EdGon also holds the record run of futility by an Arizona starter - the above was part of a streak where he had thirteen losses in 14 outings, but he swiped a couple of relief wins during it]

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Master of his domain: Randy Johnson, +21.1%
Honorable mention: Justin Upton, +16.7%
God-emperor of suck: Tony Peña, -27.4%
Dishonorable mention: Chad Qualls, -14.8%

Another very busy Gameday Thread, with 'Skins posting his second straight double-century, finishing at 206 posts for the night. soco hit three figures too, and also present were, unnamedDBacksfan, dahlian, hotclaws, mrssoco, victor frankenstein, srdmad, dstorm, foulpole, RAMJB, TwinnerA, peeklay, Wimb, UofAZGrad, acidtongue, luckycc and LucaMaz3. The final tally was over eight hundred; it seems clear that the number of comments has little or no correlation to team performance. But we need to await 'Charmer's doctoral thesis on factors affecting Gameday Thread participation for a full analysis. :-)

I'm thinking maybe it's time to update our slogan: perhaps something along the lines of, "Hey, at least the Dodgers lost again too." For they also dropped their fourth in a row; while our wretched performance sees the Diamondbacks firmly entrenched, at 10-16, in their first losing month since 2006, Los Angeles has managed to catch up exactly one-half game on Arizona since May 2nd. Don't look now, but San Francisco are seven back...though that too is only one-half game closer than they were on May 2nd. Indeed, to prove how little has changed, despite our poor performance, here are the full NL West standings then and now:

And with that, to bed. I'm trying to talk Azreous into doing the recap for tomorrow night - because, to be honest, after the past three games, my enthusiasm has been stretched painfully thin. The Nationals should present something of an easier challenge, but all hopes of a winning home-stand now lie, like dust in the wind. I just hope that, when we go to Sunday's game, we are not looking to stave off back-to-back sweeps. That may seem unduly pessimistic, but after this series, it doesn't seem utterly implausible.

Record: 27-15. Pace: 104-58. Change on last season: +5

I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!
   -- Robert Burns

Okay, Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns, was writing about a mouse rather than the formerly-slumping outfielder who (almost) shares his name, but it seems a somewhat appropriate way to start off the recap. It is, at least, slightly more intellectual and cerebral than the alternate title I briefly considered: "Byrnes, Motherf_____ - Byrnes!" For our much-maligned Face of the Franchise [I listened to Doug + Wolf on KTAR the past couple of mornings: brutal, simply brutal] finally had a good night. His first home-run since April 21; his first multi-hit game since April 26; the first time in sixteen consecutive games his batting average went up.

Will this turnaround Eric's season, which had plummeted in the throes of that 15-game streak where he went 6-for-62 with no walks? We can but hope. However, it was clear, from the first at-bat where he lined out, hard, to the outfield, that this was different. According to Grace on the broadcast, Byrnes was keeping his head still - whether that was the case, or if hitting coach Rick Schu had helped Eric correct something else, his next at-bat saw the ball rifled into the left-field bleachers. By the end of the night, he's scored twice, including the tying run, and driven in two as well - in one evening, doubling his RBI total for the preceding seventeen games combined. Welcome back, Eric. We missed you. Please stick around.

I trust we won't be hearing that crap Outfield song ever again; he went back to Van Halen's Jump as his entrance music last night, and the results were immediate. Amusingly, however, it was Chris Snyder who made the change - and Byrnes was none too happy about it. In fact, to be perfectly honest, the phrase "whiny" leaps to mind on reading the following comments by Eric regarding the matter:

I was upset. I figured they changed it up top (in the press box), and I'm like, 'You've got to be kidding me.' Whether or not I'm getting hits has nothing to do with my music. And I like hearing the Outfield, and even though I wasn't getting hits, it was nice hearing the Outfield. Now Snyder's not gonna let me change it back. . . . No one was complaining about the Outfield when I was having a 14-game hitting streak, so I think it's more of a joke.

Last night was a fine comeback for the Diamondbacks, with our Win Probability reaching a low of 15% just before Byrnes' homer with two outs in the fifth - it was only our second hit of the night to that point. Arizona took advantage of some sloppy defense in the seventh by the Tigers, which basically gave us five outs in the inning. Snyder, who walked, should have been retired on a pop-foul which two Detroit players left to each other; the go-ahead run then scored on a bad throw by Guillen, allowing Drew to reach first. As long as we kept the Tigers to three runs, we should have known we'd be okay: Detroit are now 0-21 when scoring three or less. [Surprisingly, it's something Arizona has done only seven times so far; we're 1-6, the sole win coming in the Webb-Peavy game from April 27]

After a couple of occasions where the bullpen has cost Dan Haren victory, it was a refreshing change to see him get the W after he left. It looked dicey early on, especially following the fourth-inning home-run to Cabrera that made the score 3-0 to Detroit. But on a night when the available bullpen would have been hard-pushed to complete a hand of bridge, he held on, throwing 104 pitches and keeping us in the game for seven innings. He allowed three runs on six hits, didn't walk anyone and struck out four. Much credit is also due to Cruz and Peña, who locked down the lead for the final six outs.

Cruz simply struck out the side in the eighth, with a couple of those strike threes reaching 98 mph. In just 17 innings, Ghost Rider has now fanned 24 hitters, a rate of 12.7/nine IP. That trails only Octavio Dotel (13.50) among pitchers with a meaningful number of innings, i.e. more than two. Of course, he has also walked fifteen batters, a rate which puts him towards the top there as well - to be specific, at #9 of the 362 pitchers in the majors with ten innings or more. But when Cruz is on - and if you saw the game last night, you'll know he was very, very on - he might just be the most unhittable pitcher in baseball.

Peña got his first save since last September, facing some dangerous hitters including Ordonez and Cabrera - the former gave the ball a long ride to deep-center, but Young had room to make the play, and a ground-out from Cabrera ended the game. Lyon was not available, having pitched every game in the Rockies series [his use in the opening one, in a non-save situation, blew back on Melvin there]. But it's comforting to realize that we have alternatives: indeed, between Lyon, Peña, Qualls and Cruz, there are probably no less than four pitchers whom I'd be more or less comfortable to see in the ninth inning of a close game. That's a very nice situation to be in: most teams would be happy with two relievers like that. [And as if on cue, my computer, on random, starts playing Rob Zombie's Dragula, which is Lyon's entrance music!]

The offense struggled more than I expected against Bonderman. We did show decent patience, taking five walks with only six strikeouts. Byrnes had two of our five hits, and Justin Upton reached safely three times, on a hit and two walks. However, he was to be found somewhere equidistant between first- and second-base on Snyder's failed bunt attempt, and was thrown out by almost the same distance. Mind you, that was countered by an amazing piece of defense on a drive down the right-field line from Ordonez: Upton swooped, spun and fired a missile to second, gunning the runner down cold. Like most 20-year olds, he's capable of amazing and infuriating almost simultaneously.

Melvin's liking for the sacrifice also almost cost us big in the seventh, when Ojeda's bunt attempt with men on first and second gave the Tigers a huge out. Let's just take a look at the win expectancy in this bottom of the 7th situation, using a convenient calculator:

• Before: no outs, down by two, men on 1st+2nd = 37.0%
• Bunt Success: one out, down by two, men on 2nd + 3rd = 40.2%
• Fail: one out, down by two, men on 1st+2nd = 29.6%
• Hit: Bottom seventh, no outs, down by two, bases loaded = 56.0%

Even if the bunt had worked, it would have added a trivial amount, little more than three percent, to our win probability. Instead, the failure reduced our chances by 7.4%. If he'd allowed Ojeda to swing, and Augie had got a hit - he came in batting .370 on the season, don't forget - it would have resulted in a massive 19% difference, and made us the favorites to win. There are very, very few circumstances where giving up outs to advance base-runners is a good idea, unless the guy at the plate is a particularly-poor hitter. Play for one run, lose by one run, as they say: in this aspect at least, it was a game won in spite of Melvin, not because of him.

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Master of his domain: Eric Byrnes, +21.7%
Honorary mentions; Drew (+17.7%) and Pena (+16.7%)
God-emperor of suck: Conor Jackson, -11.6%

A good Friday night. Wasn't about in the Gameday Thread much, spent the game with Mrs. SnakePit instead, but kept an eye, just in case an overflow thread was needed. Not quite, but thanks for the contributions to friendly visiting fans busta and Redhawk, plus DbacksSkins, njjohn, foulpole, kishi, Muu, hotclaws, 4 Corners Fan, dahlian, UofAZGrad, IndyDBack, Azreous, unnamedDBacksfan, likeavirgin, TwinnerA, oklahomasooners and Wimb. The win, and a Dodgers loss, puts our divisional lead back up to 5.5 games. That's the best it's been this month, and is just a game off the largest of the season, last achieved on April 28.

Doug Davis's return to the rotation is looking likely to be May 23rd against Atlanta. He has what will hopefully be his last rehab start in Tucson tomorrow, so we'll keep an eye open and see how that goes. The aim is to get him stretched out to about 100 pitches - effectively, a full major-league outing - and then slot him in, replacing Max Scherzer. Of course, the word is that Mad Max will be taking his differently-colored eyes to the bullpen, which poses a tricky question - who there do we get rid of? I don't see many with minor-league options left down there.

That road-trip will likely also see Chad Tracy re-activated: he's continuing his rehab down in Tucson. Tracy has played in six games thus far, but is batting just .130 there, having gone 3-for-23 with no extra-base hits or walks to date. He has played mostly first-base and as designated hitter, with Jamie D'Antona tearing it up at third. D'Antona is batting a monstrous .425, though his plate-discipline could do with some work, since he has walked just twice in the first 38 games. Trot Nixon, the regular left-fielder for the Sidewinders, is also doing well after a slow start, and has a line of .321/.461/.571. We'll draw a veil over the pitching, however, since the ERAs there resemble ice-skating scores more than anything - there's an awful lot of fives and sixes...

We're off to Gilbert this afternoon to see a play a friend of ours is appearing in, so I'm going to post the Gameday Thread good and early. I know there's an auto-schedule feature in SB Nation 2.0, but I just don't trust this new-fangled technology as yet. ;-)