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: 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.

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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: 48-50. Pace: 79-83. Change on last season: -2

Way to ruin our wedding anniversary, Diamondbacks. I should have realized this was going to go pear-shaped when we got to the cinema and due to an apparent scheduling change, were not able to see Wall-E. We saw Wanted instead which, while more than adequate, is hardly the kind of romantic, snuggly movie you want to go and see on your anniversary. Things were not improved subsequently by a) the tilapia at Outback not being very tasty at all, and b) the manager of The Sets not being present to give Mrs. SnakePit the cash she was due. The highpoint of the day was one of our burlesque dancers [who were rehearsing for their show next weekend] admitting she has had a crush on Mark Grace since eighth-grade. All told, the day pretty much went downhill from there.

At that point, Brandon Webb had just finished off the Dodgers in the seventh, and we had a three-run lead with six outs to get. At that point, our Win Probability was 94%, and it would get as high as 97.2% after Webb got a nice ground-ball double-play to end the eighth inning, with the score still 4-1 to Arizona. Then came Lyon. I had been wondering what would happen if the ninth was a save situation. While he has pitched three days in a row before, it's never been after having thrown forty pitches over the first two appearances, as he did Friday and Saturday. Now, obviously, the main alternative candidate, Tony Peña, was little better off, having thrown 37 pitches in those two games. But it was painfully obvious that Lyon was far from sharp yesterday, when he came within 90 feet of blowing all of a three-run lead. Sending him out again today seemed as suicidal as ordering Angelina Jolie's Wanted character, to get back into the kitchen and cook you dinner.

At the very least, someone else should have been ready to go in case of trouble. Instead, it took Bob Melvin seven batters, five hits, four runs and the lead being turned over to LA, before he decided our closer didn't quite have what it took. In mitigation, Lyon wasn't helped by Stephen Drew's inability to turn a double-play in the middle, instead getting only the force at second. However, it was still our fourteenth defeat when leading after six innings - in contrast, we have only five victories, when trailing at the same point. The bullpen, such a strength last year, is now on the verge of absolute implosion: in eleven innings this series, they allowed ten runs. Seven of those came off our closer, on eight hits over just 2.2 innings. That Valverde trade looks like a frickin' disaster about now, doesn't it? Qualls is unable to pitch, Burke is an offensive black-hole and Gutierrez has a 7.18 ERA with Tucson.

Another great start by Brandon Webb, yet the result was another no-decision - he's had four this season, and only in one of them has he allowed more than two earned runs. He wasn't perhaps at his very sharpest, allowing six hits and three walks, with four strikeouts, but he proved very capable of bearing down when necessary, getting the big double-plays almost on command. "I worked out of some jams, made some pitches when I had to and came out pretty much unscathed," said our ace afterwards. He threw 109 pitches and only three of the 24 outs he recorded came in the air, which is always a sign that his sinker is working at a high level.

Offensively, Stephen Drew was the star for Arizona, getting four hits for the second time in his career. Since June 30th, he is batting .333 (22-for-66) and is even hotter during his current seven-game hitting streak, having gone 15-for-35. His season average is up to .270, and it's good to see - hopefully it can continue to climb, up towards the .280-.290 range, last seen at the end of May. He almost managed to complete an inside-the-park home-run in the fourth, but was thrown out at home - it wasn't even that close a play, and we have to put the blame for that one at the feet of third-base coach, Chip 'The Windmill' Hale.

Mark Reynolds went 2-for-4, while Chris Young reached safely twice, on a hit and a walk. Tony Clark got the start at first-base, which raised some eyebrows, given his poor track record against Lowe (4-for-27 before today), and the great success currently being enjoyed by Chad Tracy: his July line is merely .404/.415/.577. It certainly didn't work too well today, Clark going hitless in four at-bats, striking out twice and also making an error at first. Still, can't put a value on all that veteran presence, eh? Chris Snyder was duly activated before the game, with Hammock going back to Tucson - he walked in his first at-bat, and also drove in our fourth run with a successful squeeze play in the sixth, as well as nailing Nomah when he tried to steal second. Welcome back, Chris.

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Master of his domain: Brandon Webb, +33.2%
Honorable mention: Mark Reynolds, +10.4%
God-emperor of suck: Brandon Lyon, -78.9%

I think the above graph is pretty self-explanatory. Present in the Gameday Thread were kishi, hotclaws, Jim McLennan, 4 Corners Fan, TwinnerA, DbacksSkins, njjohn, unnamedDBacksfan, srdmad, DiamondbacksWIn, Scrbl, mrssoco, emilylovesthedbacks, soco, seton hall snake pit, Wimb, Silverblood, nargel and new poster "BS,L"yon - welcome to him. srdmad was nominally present, but his only comment was duly hidden under the new profanity policy, so he's excluded from the roll. Ditto visiting troll hollywood55, who has duly been warned. A little spikiness towards silverblood, which may not have been entirely justified, but is certainly understandable. Her visit was certainly unfortunate timing, at the very least.

A very disappointing series: we had chances to win all three games, and certainly should have taken at least a couple of them. Oddly, the one we did is where we scored least runs, and we lost both the contests where we scored five or more - totally the reverse of the standard pattern this season. Regardless, instead of being four up on the Dodgers - or even two ahead - we find ourselves level with them. And now we just have to face the NL Central-leading Cubs, with the back end of our rotation, in Johnson, Owings and Davis. Anyone feel comfortable about taking two out of three there, which now becomes almost a necessity? No, me neither. About the only plus is the Dodgers have to go to Colorado, where the Rockies have suddenly re-discovered how to win, albeit only by sweeping Pittsburgh.

I think I am gradually coming to terms with the fact that this team is not actually very good. Oh, there are some components of it which can shine on any given day, but the odds appear to be in favor of another component countering this competence by sucking so badly, that we still manage to lose. When we hit [Friday], our starter blows chunks; when our starter is great [Saturday], we get no offense; when our starter is great and we get some offense [Sunday], our closer decides he will spend the day redefining the term, Gurgling Vortex of Suck (TM), with a career-worst appearance. If all three components ever aligned some day, the defense would, no doubt, step up their efforts in the service of a loss.

Still, what can you do? See you tomorrow for the Cubs game...

Record: 44-45. Pace: 80-82. Change on last season: -3.

It wasn't pretty. We had to struggle and claw our way to a massive three runs, while another botched play by the defense almost cost us the game. But, the franchise's longest ever streak in sole possession of first-place rolls on - at least for another day. We don't play tomorrow, but the Dodgers do: it would be ironic if they won, and ended the streak that way. It's probably too early to describe games as "must win" before the All-Star break, but this was certainly a "really, really like to win, pretty please with sugar on top" game. Being swept by our division rival at home, and losing first-place as a result, would have been a painful blow.

Let's start at the end, shall we? Lyon came in to cling to a two-run lead in the ninth, but things started poorly with a leadoff single by the Padres. They immediately got a great deal worse: Kouzmanoff hit a line-drive to right, which caromed off the glove of a diving Upton for a double. Then, Upton's throw back to the infield glanced off Hudson's glove, and then again off the desperate grab of Tracy, who was backing up - one run trotted home, and the tying run now stood at third-base, still with nobody out. First-place; it was nice to have known you. Maybe we'll meet again sometime down the road?

Hah! Brandon Lyon is made of sterner stuff than that. Chase Headley, the dugout will see you now - he went down swinging. Khalil Greene: why don't you ground out to the drawn-in infield? Thank you for your co-operation. Brian Giles: oh, same again will be fine. Game over, Lyon gets his sixteenth save, and the mere +7.8% he gets on the Win Probability doesn't quite reflect the roller-coast nature of that ninth inning:

The effective work done by Lyon Salvage Incorporated finally got the loss monkey off the Big Unit's back, breaking a streak of six straight losses and giving him his first victory since May 18. It didn't look like that would be the case after the first batter he faced, as Diamondbacks' nemesis Scott Hairston cranked his third homer of the series into the bleachers, giving Arizona an early hole from which they, inevitably, struggled to escape. Four straight zeroes were posted by Banks: add on the seven by Peavy, six from Baek, six by Parra in the Matinee Miracle, and a couple from McClung at the end of his stint, and it meant we hadn't scored a single run off the opposition starter for twenty-five innings, over parts of five games.

But when that streak ended...hoo-boy, it ended. Justin Upton merely uncorked what is being called the longest home-run in the majors this year, utterly crushing a ball into Friday's Front Row. And not the bottom row either, but the top tier: a couple of feet to the left, and it would have been pinging around the inside of the restaurant like a psychotic pinball. The estimate from the club was 484 feet, but we'll wait from a neutral estimate out of HitTracker.com before anointing it officially: "I just caught it perfect and it took off a little bit," said Upton, in what appears to be his entry for Understatement of the Year.

Hammock was next up, and a shaken Banks hit him - I think Upton's blast broke the Banks, as it were. Johnson bunted him over, and with two outs, Drew gave the Diamondbacks the lead, with a single to right-center. Mark Reynolds added a crucial insurance run with his eighteenth homer off the batters' eye in center during the sixth inning. Justin Upton could probably be heard sniggering in the dugout, for Special K's shot was "only" estimated at 424 foot. "Hey, it still counts exactly the same as yours," would be Reynolds' appropriate reminder. Two hits for Tracy and two for Upton, but the K:BB ratio remained weak, at 1:6, leaving the final tally for this series four walks and twenty-four strikeouts.

Mind you, the Padres were a good deal worse than us, fanning fourteen times without taking a walk. Ten of those came courtesy of Johnson who, after and outside of the homer to Hairston had one of his best outings in a long time; he allowed only three hits and retired 19 of 23 batters faced, with the other one getting plunked. He was pulled after a leadoff double in the seventh was followed by a ground-out that advanced the runner. Hearts collectively sunk as Chad Qualls came to the mound, who has rarely met an inherited runner of late that hasn't crossed home-plate as a result. However, he belied that rep with back-to-back strikeouts, and Peña also pitched out of difficulty in the eighth, after letting the first two Padres reach base. Over those final three innings alone, San Diego were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position.

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Master of his domain: Randy Johnson, +18.6%
Honorable mentions: Upton, 13.1%; Qualls, +12.2%
God-emperor of suck: Conor Jackson, -12.0%

This one ended up over 600, which is pretty monstrous for a single thread. Thanks to soco, unnamedDBacksfan, DbacksSkins, snakecharmer, Snakebitten, DiamondbacksWIn, kishi, hotclaws, Muu, mrssoco, Zephon, luckycc, emilylovesthedbacks, golfmanthee, Counsellmember, dahlian, 4 Corners Fan, srdmad, Geno Ardi [welcome!] and SongBird for their comments - no thanks to the now-banned RAMJB and ben_grdn, who are both the same person, but still outstayed their welcome.

Congratulations to Dan Haren and Brandon Webb, both very deserving selections to represent the Diamondbacks at this year's All-Star Game in New York. It's not clear at the moment whether Webb will be able to play: he's scheduled to throw on the side that day, so he might be able to get an inning off, even as he starts the last day before and the first day atter the break. Tuesday would be Haren's regularly-scheduled day to pitch, so I imagine he'll be good to go: I doubt he'll get the call to start. I suspect that ERA leader Volquez, who picked up his eleventh win tonight, might get the nod, schedule permitting. See the attached poll for who was the Diamondbacks first-half All-Star, outside of these two.

Off-day tomorrow, and I've got one too - woo-hoo, four-day weekend! Arizona will be heading towards Washington, for their series there. They might be joined in first by the Dodgers, as they will be playing the Braves tomorrow - and must be salivating at the prospect, since the Atlanta bullpen had to work for eleven innings tonight, finally getting past the Astros in seventeen. Go, Braves... More to follow on Monday, including our old favorite, the Random Off-Day Thread.

Record: 41-41. Pace: 81-81. Change on last season: -5

This was a game which we would have won, if only... That sentence can be completed in a number of ways. If only Mark Reynolds hadn't made a hash of a ground-ball from Willingham, turning it into a double. if only home-plate umpire Brian Runge had been able to count - Orlando Hudson was denied a walk to lead off the fourth, despite getting ball four. If only Brandon Lyon hadn't allowed his first run in a save situation since April 6. If only Hermida's subsequent double had been six inches to the left, and so foul.

However, if wishes were horses, the Diamondbacks would be spending most of their time mucking out their locker-room, and the post-game buffet would consist largely of sugar-lumps. To no great surprise, the team failed to score enough runs to put the opposition away, and the bullpen coughed up three runs in 1.1 innings, allowing the Marlins to escape from a Win Probability of only 11.8%, after Lyon retired the first hitter in the bottom of the ninth. That was his only success; Ramirez homered to tie the game up, then Hermida doubled, advanced on a wild-pitch, and a single punched through the drawn-in infield, gave the Marlins victory.

Poor Dan Haren. He was, once again, incredibly solid, going seven innings with the only run allowed was an unearned one in the sixth, after Reynolds' fourteenth error of the season. Haren allowed five hits, two walks and seven K's, and left the game with a 3-1 lead, in line for the victory. Our bullpen took care of that, however; Peña gave up a walk, two hits and a run in the eighth, and then Lyon blew the save and took the loss in the ninth. I suppose we know Lyon's streak of saves was bound to end eventually: just a shame that it robbed such a deserving start by Haren of the win. I think there's no doubt Haren was player of the month for Arizona in June: he went six-for-six in quality starts during the month of June, with a minuscule ERA of 1.32, and certainly deserves more than three victories.

Oh, look: Arizona scored three runs or less, for the twelfth time in the past fifteen games. Two came on a homer by Drew in the third, after Haren had doubled [it's worth noting he has driven in more runs than Owings this year, and has the same number of RBI as Miguel Montero]; the other came courtesy of Chris Burke, who just got a hit to drop in front of the charging left-fielder, scoring Jackson from third with two outs. Jackson was lucky to be there: he should have nailed trying to turn a single into a double, but the throw from left bobbled past the infielder. Candiotti - whom I usually enjoy listening to - praised the "aggressive base-running," but I put it in the category of "psychotic" rather than "aggressive". See also our stolen-base percentage, now sitting at an inefficient 66%, compared to 82% last season. Jackson had two hits, Drew and Montero a hit and a walk.

The remarkable failure of Runge to give Hudson a walk after the fourth ball does deserve some more attention. It looked like Hudson thought it was ball four, but no-one in the Diamondbacks dugout seemed to back him up: was nobody over there keeping count? I know someone is supposed to be charting the pitches, often the next day's starter. Did Doug Davis not pick this up? I can understand the other umpires staying quiet - a cardinal rule is not to offer an opinion on another umpire's decision, unless asked for it. But someone from Arizona should have been willing to ask Runge to double-check. It's also worth noting, something Sutton brought up: the official record of the game on MLB Gameday was quickly censored to remove ball four. That's just wrong. I certainly hope someone speaks to Runge, as he had a horrible game, with a strike-zone that was more of a strike-shiftingamorphousblob.

Here's a startling section from the AP recap. "The Diamondbacks took fielding practice before the game after committing two errors the night before. Arizona has only taken fielding practice two or three times this season, Melvin said." Am i missing something obvious here? Do players stop practicing on their weaknesses once they reach the majors or something? Our defense has been a constant, obvious issue in the first three months, Arizona has allowed the most unearned runs in the NL - and our players have "only taken fielding practice two or three times" in the entire first-half? What, pray tell, have they been doing before the other 78 games? Taking care of all the ponies, it would appear.

The good news is, Byrnes, who didn't play today, "probably" won't be hitting lead-off on his return. The bad news is, the candidates Melvin keeps talking about rolling out there are Drew and Young, who both have on-base percentages almost at .300. It won't be O-Dawg, much though that idea has its appeal - not least, because it'd help stop him from hitting into so many double-plays, for which he is on course for another franchise record, smashing the one which he set last season. Melvin described him as, "Our most consistent guy. If you move him up to solve a problem, you might open up another problem." At this point, I think anything is worth a shot.

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Master of his domain: Dan Haren, +32.1%
Honorable mention: Stephen Drew, +18.7%
God-emperor of suck: Brandon Lyon, -79.1%

Present in the GameDay Thread were; DbacksSkins, soco, mrssoco, unnamedDBacksfan, Zephon, luckycc, kishi, emilylovesthedbacks, hotclaws, TwinnerA, Wimb, srdmad, 4 Corners Fan, seton hall snake pit, dahlian, peeklay and garyho, so thanks to them for their participation. The road-trip ends on a downer: Arizona lost all three series, went 2-7 on the trip, and go back home with their lead cut to 2.5 games. Fortunately, the Dodgers were on the receiving end of a 1-0 game this afternoon, or things would likely be worse. However, we face another team over ..500, in the shape of the Milwaukee Brewers, who are in town for four games. I think taking two of those would be something of an achievement, based on the woeful output of our bats on this trip.

Record; 35-30. Pace: 87-75. Change on last season: -2

8.6%. That was the meager extent of our Win Probability after Stephen Drew flied out, becoming the second batter retired in the fifth inning. With just thirteen outs left, and a four-run deficit to overcome, things were looking distinctly bleak for the Diamondbacks, and another defeat on this miserable road-trip loomed large in front of us like....like a large, looming thing. But wait! They say it's always darkest before the dawn; and the victory snatched from the jaws of defeat tonight, the result of eight unanswered runs, might possibly - just possibly - be the tendrils of dawn creeping over the horizon like...like a creeping, tendrily thing. I'm sorry: that game drained me of all literary aspirations, you'll have to wait for the simile bank to refuel.

The game brought a merciful end to the sick streaks which have plagued Arizona of late. We scored more than five runs for the first time since May 26, and broke past eight hits for the first time since May 27. We ended up with twelve - seven of them in four innings from the Mets pen - which is a number not seen since May 15. Drew, Hudson, Jackson and Snyder got two apiece, including a homer for each man, with O-Dawg and CoJack adding a walk. Hudson started the fightback with a two-run homer in the fifth, but it was Augie Ojeda who had the key blow, a two-run single in the sixth which brought the scores back level. At the end of that inning, the winds swirling around Shea brought a 61-minute delay to proceedings, and it seemed possible the game might be held over till tomorrow.

Fortunately for the Diamondbacks, it wasn't, as they dominated the final three frames. Snyder broke the tie with a solo homer in the eighth, and Peña made it stand up with a scoreless frame, going through the top four slots in the Mets order. Romero led off the ninth with a slap-double down the left-field line, and after Young made his fifth out of the evening, Drew smashed the ball into the largely-deserted outfield bleachers, to provide us with some breathing room. Jackson followed with his own blast, and though not a save situation, Lyon posted his 23rd straight zero in the ninth, despite a leadoff double. [One quick note. Sutton said it's the longest scoreless streak by a reliever since Carlos Marmol last year. Not so. J.C.Romero of Philadelphia went 28.1 innings from September 2, 2007, through May 1, 2008.]

It all looked pretty unlikely in the first inning, as Micah Owings retired only one of the first seven New York hitters to come to the plate. The early lead Arizona had taken, on an RBI single from Jackson, proved to be a fleeting, stillborn thing. If Snyder hadn't managed to gun down Reyes as he tried to steal second, we could well have ended the first further behind than two runs. We soon were anyway, as David Wright uncorked a two-run homer off Owings. He struggled on beyond that, but was bailed out by Cruz after 4.1 innings, with his final line being eight hits, three walks and four earned runs - a third non-quality start in a row for him, though he did single and score on Hudson's homer.

Much credit is due to the five members of the pen who followed Owings. Cruz, Slaten, Qualls [who finally broke his streak of five losses, and got his first win in a Diamondbacks jersey], Peña and Lyon, who combined for 4.2 innings of shutout ball, allowing three hits and no walks. Perhaps equally important, they were economical with their work, those 4.2 frames requiring only 56 pitches, so our bullpen should be relatively fresh, especially with Webb going tomorrow, and averaging almost seven innings per start. Compare the Mets pen, who took 82 pitches for their four innings - Vargas (29 pitches) and Sanchez (24) will likely be unavailable on Wednesday.

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Master of his domain: Augie Ojeda, +21.9%
Honorable mentions: Snyder (+15.6%), Peña (+14.6%),
Hudson (12.8%), Jackson (+12.1%)
God-emperor of suck: Micah Owings, -34.3%
Dishonorable mention: Chris Young, -13.7%

I think that may be a record: I don't recall a game before where we had five players in positive double-digits. Of course, this was largely because of the large hole dug for us by Micah Owings early on. However, kudos are due to all the players mentioned in bold-type above, who all played key roles in the game. This was a great game to win: Todd Walsh, from beside the Diamondbacks dugout, said he could see the whole body-language change, and that they now clearly couldn't wait to get to the ballpark tomorrow. Whether that's true or not - and 'momentum' may be as over-rated as Pulp Fiction - if this victory doesn't turn our season around, then nothing short of fifty thousand Volts will.

Tumbleweeds rolled across the Gameday Thread in the second through fourth innings: I think we added only about 45 comments in the hour or so between me leaving work and getting home. However, early and late, there was a great deal of activity, and we ended at not far short of overflow levels. Present were Wimb, DbacksSkins, TwinnerA, hotclaws, luckycc, Augie's Army, bcloirao, foulpole, dahlian, CPAYNEonaplane, soco, kishi, unnamedDBacksfan, Counsellmember, srdmad, Stile4aly, emilylovesthedbacks, 4 Corners Fan, dstorm and mrssoco, so thanks to them for their attendance. Though perhaps the most entertaining thing in the game was the called strikes from home-plate umpire Jim Joyce - they sounded somewhere between a trumpeting elephant and the horn on a Model T Ford.

Looks like we'll not be getting Eric Byrnes back this series. While he's eligible to come off the DL tomorrow, Melvin ruled out any possibility of that happening before the team's return to Arizona on Friday. "He will not come off here, much to his chagrin... I want him to be able to run full speed and not have to hold anything back. That's a big tool in his game, whether it's psychologically or fundamentally. A lot of his game comes from being able to run and put pressure on a defense, like he does in the outfield. He's got to be able to go out. I'm not saying he has to be a certain time down the line, but he's got to be able to run and not hold back."

Oh, look - the Dodgers won... ;-)

Record: 34-28. Pace: 89-73. Change on last season: -2

If you watched only the first and last inning of this, you'd think the Diamondbacks were an unstoppable force. We scored three times in the first, taking full advantage of early wildness from Gorzelanny, who walked two of the first three hitters he faced - both of them came round to score on a single by Jackson and a double by Young. Reynolds added a sacrifice fly, and despite Melvin's fascination with the detrimental bunt [Drew's sacrifice with one out took -1.8% off the Win Probability], Dan Haren had a three-run start before he even took the mound. It was the first time since the opening frame of Sunday's game that we'd put a crooked number on the board, a span of 43 innings.

Similarly, in the ninth, Snyder led off with his sixth bomb, having flown out deep a couple of times earlier in the game. Bookending this game, our offense was on fire! The seven innings in the middle, however... Not so much. In fact, tumbleweeds pretty much rolled across the scoreboard for Arizona, as three hits, one walk were all the Diamondbacks mustered over that spell, leading to no runs at all. The Pirates chipped away at the lead, slowly but steadily, with single tallies in the third, fourth and finally, tied it up with the second homer off Haren, when McLouth went deep with two outs in the fifth. The promising start gurgled down the plughole like Paris Hilton's dirty bath-water - and leaving a similarly-questionable taste in the mouth,

This piece of tale had a happier ending, however, even if the only hit from a non-pitcher we managed between that point and Snyder's homer, was a lead-off double in the seventh by Haren . Typically, of course, we failed to bring him home and he ended up stranded at third. Or, "business as usual", as we say for the Diamondbacks offense over the past month. Young had a couple of doubles, and Hudson a couple of walks. Otherwise, pickings were slim, and we ended up with just six hits for the fourth consecutive game. Indeed, say what you like about our batters, they are nothing if not consistent: - in the past eleven games, we have nrmanaged more than eight or less than six hits. I'd be a lot happier if said consistency had not resulted in a batting average of .216 over this time.

After Lyon had to wait three weeks for a save opportunity, two came along in consecutive days, and he pitched yet another scoreless inning. I haven't seen a longer line of zeros since the queue to get into the last anime convention. [Hey, it's ok: recovering anime fan, and still have several shelves of fansubs to prove it. I bailed when the market got over-saturated with apparently endless series about high-school ping-pong societies] As yesterday, the save was not without drama. A lead-off single brought in a pinch-runner, who broke for second with one out. Snyder, however, gunned him down - that'll help our poor showing in the area so far, where we came into the game having nailed only 16% of thieves, ahead only of the Padres (14%). "At some point, when they put in a pinch-runner like Rivas, he’s going to go," Snyder said. "Lyon gave me a good pitch to throw, I made a good throw and got him."

Haren was okay, rather than spectacular. Though he only walked one hitter, that came round to score the Pirates' first run, and it seemed he had problems throwing strikes - only 54 of 93 pitches - especially early in the count. Normally, starters who allow multiple home-runs don't  pitch quality starts, but both of the ones Haren allowed were solo shots, so he improved his ratio there to ten in thirteen outings,. However, if the win went to Juan Cruz for his scoreless eighth. and I think Dan would be the first to admit he probably didn't deserve it today. He said, "I've had really good stuff the last couple of starts, but today I really didn't have much. Got an early lead, which was really nice. I just tried to battle and they fought back. It's a tough team and a tough team to beat at home -- they play really well at this ballpark. I was fighting to keep us there and it's a really nice team win."

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Master of his domain: Chris Snyder, +23.9%
Honorary mention: Brandon Lyon: +20.9%
God-emperor of suck: Stephen Drew, -12.4%

I think that might be the biggest single Gameday Thread of all time. At various points, an overflow was mooted, but it never quite happened, and then the game was over...and the comments continued on. Close to 700 posts in one thread - though it did teeter precariously close to GLB-ness when we entered "Be my friend on Facebook" territory. Since it was after the game, I'll let it slide. :-) Nice discussion on the pros and cons of social networking sites though. Present were soco, foulpole, Wimb, dahlian, DbacksSkins, kishi, unnamedDBacksfan, Azreous, mrssoco, TwinnerA, luckycc, hotclaws, UptonMVP, CPAYNEonaplane [welcome!], UofAZGrad, 4 Corners Fan and emilylovesthedbacks. Oh, and you'll have to dig through the thread to find the true significance of tonight's title.

All of a sudden, the NL West has awoken. Between today and yesterday, the division which was the worst in baseball has gone 10-0 against other NL teams. Admittedly, the only team in the top two of the Central or West we're currently playing is the Cubs, but it's a start. Beat up on the bottom feeders now, work up to the big guns, oh, just in time for October. A two-game winning streak is a start: another victory tomorrow will seal victory in the series, and it'll be a run we've only seen once since April 19 [four W's versus the Rockies and Detroit]. But are we never going to get more than ten hits ever again?

Record: 33-28. Pace 88-64. Change on last season: -3

Not perhaps the most convincing of victories. But at this point, I feel like a sailor who has just completed a single-handed circumnavigation of the world, i.e. "I don't care how ugly it is, it'll do for now". While we may only have gone 6-for-33 at the plate, we broke the three-game losing sequence, and are now moving in the right direction - at least for the moment.

This one, of course, comes to the Diamondbacks courtesy of their ace, Brandon Webb - and I'm losing count of how many times we've said that this season. He picked up his eleventh win of the season on a sticky Pittsburgh night, that likely made his actual pitch-count of 95 seems a good deal more. That got him through seven innings, in which Webb allowed only three hits and no walks. Webb also chipped in by driving in a run, coming back from 0-2 to rifle a full-count pitch back up the middle - he said,  "I knew he didn't want to walk the pitcher. I was swinging no matter what." That was his fifth RBI - two more than Miguel Montero, and only one less than Chris Burke.

It was certainly among his most welcome win if it wasn't perhaps his most dominating outing of the year - he fell behind more often than usual, struck out only three Pittsburgh batters and had just four swinging strikes all night. He commented, "The arm felt fine and the legs had kind of a dead feeling and the ball just wasn't coming out of my hand real good, and I was flipping curveballs that didn't have too much bite and changeups kind of the same way."When you get out there in the first, usually the adrenalin kicks in and takes over, but the first inning I still had the same kind of stuff. It just wasn't jumping out of my hand and it didn't have a whole lot of movement." On that basis, it says a lot that his stuff still proved good enough to have a no-hitter up until two outs in the fifth inning.

It's also the fifth time this year he has won after a loss in our previous games: "I look to do that. I had to do it a couple of times this year. I've been fortunate enough to be that guy. I enjoy doing that. You don't want to be in those kind of situations, but it does happen." We are phenomenally lucky to have Webb, and I dread to think what we'd be right now without him. Oh, hang on: we'd be the Arizona Padres. It's only our second win of the season scoring three runs or less - the first being Webb's 2-1 victory over Peavy on April 27 - so improves our record to 2-18. That's actually a bit worse than the overall percentage in the National League with three or less, which is .196 [82-336], so we'd expect to have taken a couple more. Remarkably, the Giants have already ten such games in their W column: between April 23-May 3, they won six times, and scored a total of only seventeen runs in those victories.

Peña and Lyon polished off the win with a pair of shutout innings. You can probably forgive the latter for looking a little confused before the ninth - he probably had to look up "save opportunity" in the dictionary, since it has been so long since his last one, more than three weeks. This one was a bit of a struggle, with the tying run ending up on base, and it would likely have been worse yet, except for a line-drive which LaRoche smashed right at Hudson. Still, it's both 21 straight games and innings without a run allowed, the best streaks in the majors by a reliever this season. The games is a new franchise record, and the innings ties Willie Banks' bullpen mark from back in 1998. Perhaps more impressively, Lyon hasn't allowed an extra-base hit, and only two walks, in that time.

It was, however, also our twentieth consecutive game with ten or less hits. That's now the longest in the majors this year, passing Florida's nineteen between May 9-30. Indeed, this hasn't been surpassed since the Expos did it for 30 straight, from September 13, 2003 through April 22 the following season. [It seemed curiously fashionable at the time - for a week in September, as well as the Expos starting off a run, the Mets and Detroit were coming to the end of their own 25- and 21-game streaks respectively]. Simply by random chance, I feel it can't continue for much longer. However, I am far from happy to be relying on 'luck' for such things.

No-one had more than a single hit yesterday: Hudson and Tracy had a walk and a hit, while Salazar added two walks. That dropped our batting average on this trip down to .202, but is basically continuing a theme of the past three weeks. Since the Tigers arrived in town on May 16, the team is hitting a collecting .212. Justin Upton is the poster-boy for the slump, having gone 7-for-59 [.119] with 29 strikeouts over that time. That's almost down to Eric Byrnes' [6-for-62, April 27-May 14] level - at this rate, we'll probably end up trading Upton away to someone in the AL Central, for a nameless A-ball player. :-(

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Master of his domain: Brandon Webb: +36.2%
God-emperor of suck: Chris Snyder, -9.0%

Thanks to those who were in the Gameday Thread, which largely wasn't me, due to an unexpected power outage. Those less electrically challenged were: Azreous, hotclaws, Stile4aly, DbacksSkins, dahlian, unnamedDBacksfan, Wimb, foulpole, kishi, TwinnerA, peeklay, emilylovesthedbacks, soco, mrssoco, luckycc and srdmad. Let's focus on the positive, as Webb notches his eleventh win - nobody else in the league has more than eight, and he also leads the league in WHIP [Dan Haren, incidentally, is tied with Ben Sheets for second]. Barring a sudden collapse over the remaining month, we are looking at the National League starter in the All-Star game.

It doesn't seem like he'll have much company from Arizona: in the most recent figures from voting, we have a number of players in the top five, but no-one is even close to being elected. Upton leads our vote-getters with 329,467 - I'm assume few of those were cast in the last three weeks - but even he is languishing in eighth, more than 160K out of an automatic spot. We're getting decent showings from Hudson (5th, but barely a quarter of the votes for leader Chase Utley), Reynolds (4th, more than half a million behind Chipper Jones), Snyder (5th, trailing Soto by about 400K) and Young (14th, with 240K votes). Says something about the rest of the NL West, that the only other players from it among the 40 listed are Russell Martin and Matt Holliday.

There is other good news, in that Conor Jackson looks ready to return to the starting lineup after his quadriceps-enforced layoff. Melvin said our first-baseman was available to pinch-hit yesterday, and will be good to go today. "We ran him pretty good out here on the field today and tested him at about as high a level as you could test him other than playing in game conditions." Byrnes is also making progress: He did some agility drills today," Melvin said. "It was the first day for that. We'll progressively lead into the running part, which he is champing at the bit to do, but it was the first day that he did agilities out on the field." The way our offense has been hitting, we need all the able-bodies we can get.

Record: 1-1. Pace: 81-81. Change on last season: 0

Well, that ninth inning certainly gave me a chance to practice some of those choice epithets, from yesterday's "foul language in 19th century baseball" treatise. We entered the ninth, as in the opener, with a two-run lead, Qualls and Pena having again posted scoreless innings on the back of six frames from our starter. As above, so below. However, Brandon Lyon diverted drastically from Monday's script, going single, single, three-run homer (after a failed bunt!), to dramatically snatch defeat from the jaws of victory without even teasing us by, oh, retiring any hitters.

Expect the second guessing to begin immediately. For Jose Valverde never had an outing where he failed to retire a batter. He only allowed three earned runs in two of the 253 games he played for us. I also note that Brandon Medders and Jose Cruz were both warming up in the bullpen during Lyon's appearance, indicating that Melvin was perhaps not over confident in his closer. On the other hand, crank the Wayback Machine to the second game of last year, and you'll find Jose Valverde blowing the save that day too; he allowed two runs in the bottom of the eleventh at Coors, to end up tagged with the loss.

Still, when I wrote about Lyon and his qualifications as closer yesterday, "I suspect we won't know for sure until he's blown his first save - how he responds to that, will be the true test of his mettle," I must admit, I was kinda hoping it would take him less than 24 hours to deliver said blown save. :-( Lyon's incredible ability to avoid the long-ball last season, with no homers in his first 44 appearances, has not continued into this year, pretty much as predicted. And now we need to see whether he can follow the advice of famous baseball analyst Rudyard Kipling:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,..
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same...

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man closer, my son!

We'll see, before too long, whether Lyon is a man or a mouse. If he can come back from this - and it's difficult to imagine a more horrific, disastrous pit into which to be plunged - then we'll be okay. Best, perhaps, to get it out of the way early on. And with that, we'll move on.

Dan Haren made his first start, pitching five great innings and one fairly-sucky one. The net result was a quality start, with Davis going six innings and allowing three earned runs, all of them coming in the fourth inning, on a pair of home-runs, with a walk between them. We'll take that, especially since he was feeling less than 100% on his arrival at the park - seems a common issue, with Conor Jackson forced out of the game in the fifth inning [more on which later]. Haren allowed four hits and a walk in six innings, striking out four too. Overall, a very respectable start; the home-runs could be a problem (and this was thought likely to be an issue), but outside of those, he was solid, and even had a double and a sac-fly; not bad for someone whose last hit was in June 2005. Qualls and Pena were, once again, extremely solid, each with one hit in their inning.

On the offense, good outings by Hudson, 2-for-3 with a walk, and Stephen Drew, who also had two hits, including his first homer of the season. Chris Young had a double to lead off the game, and scoring our first run on a groundout, and had his first-ever three walk game, which is just what we want to see from our leadoff hitter. However, I certainly feel that we should have added on a few more runs; overall, the Diamondbacks were 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position. The most painful failure was in the top of the ninth, where we loaded the basis with one out. Byrnes  had a hideous AB, which ended when he managed to run into his own batted ball and was out on interference, then Chris Burke struck out swinging, setting the stage for Lyon's implosion.

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Master of his domain: Stephen Drew, +19.3%
God-emperor of suck: Brandon Lyon, -90.3%,
which appears to be an all-time low...

Still, what can you say? It's only one game, even if it's one we should certainly have won. I also note that Jose Valverde, in his Astros debut, coughed up the go-ahead run to the Padres in the eighth inning, but ended up the lucky winner, as Trevor 'I used to be quite good, y'know' Hoffman allowed four runs in the ninth. [On that note, a big hello to Phantom and California Penal over at GLB, who were gloating about AZ blowing the save, "On a three-run shot, no less," moments before Hoffman allowed a three-run HR of his own. Beautiful] To sum up, San Diego Colorado and the Dodgers all lost, so no ground lost to our rivals tonight. There are only two unbeaten teams left in the National League: the Brewers and...pauses to rub eyes...the Nationals? It's a long season.

The Conor Jackson issue is worrying. According to mlb.com, Jackson was taken to hospital after complaining of shortness of breath. Doctors there took chest X-rays, gave him some medication and said it was possible that he had pneumonia - so much for the "flu-like symptoms" which were reported, eh? That would be a real blow for our cleanup hitter, though he did get back to the park before the end of the game, "They're going to start me off on antibiotics and see what happens," he said. Hope he gets well soon - and, possibly just as important, doesn't infect anyone else on the roster.

Right up until the middle of the ninth inning, that was a thoroughly enjoyable Gameday Thread, with a turnout only fractionally short of Opening Day. Present and correct were bcloirao, kishi, dstorm, njjohn, Muu, Craig from Az, seton hall snake pit, DbacksSkins, Azreous, foulpole, Mr. Philosophical, hotclaws, 4 Corners Fan, unnamedDBacksfan, isoldout, oklahomasooners [welcome back!], Wimb, singaporedbacksfan, Captain D Bag, snakecharmer, frienetic and Wactivist. Early start tomorrow, folks: afternoon game in the Nati, so that'll be about as stern a test of Gameday Thread attendance as imaginable...

However, there is a 70% chance of rain there tomorrow afternoon, according to the forecast, so it seems there is a good chance the game might be delayed, or possibly even postponed. This is the only time we'll be in Cincinnati, so that would mean a return trip would have to be squeezed into the schedule somewhere. Wondering if that would mean they'll skip Davis's turn in the rotation (given his situation), or just push it back a day to Colorado? That's probably getting ahead of ourselves. Gameday Thread [weather permitting] to follow in the morning.

Happy April Fools' Day! i did think about trying to come up with something appropriately hoaxish, but couldn't come with anything that was plausible enough to merit consideration (that ruled out the 'RUSS ORTIZ SIGNS WITH AZ' headline), yet extreme enough to be a good joke: 4 Corners Fan outdid me, in the comments on yesterday's piece. I like the one KTAR pulled this morning, claiming that to help the state meet its budget, tolls were immediately being imposed on valley freeways. "On the Loop 101, drivers will pay $1.01. On the Loop 202, it's $2.02. On State Route 51, it's a real bargain at 51-cents," with exact change required at the on-ramps, where toll-collectors would be stationed. Amazingly, some people swallowed it whole.

There have been some good baseball hoaxes in the past - even the creation myth of the sport itself, which did not involve Abner Doubleday. The best one was in the April 1985 edition of Sports Illustrated, where George Plimpton wrote about incredible rookie baseball player Sidd Finch, who was training with the Mets in Florida, and could pitch at 168 mph with pinpoint accuracy. The sub-heading of the article read: "He’s a pitcher, part yogi and part recluse. Impressively liberated from our opulent life-style, Sidd’s deciding about yoga —and his future in baseball." Take the first letter of each word to find Plimpton's secret message; the full piece can be found here. Amusingly, the teacher who 'played' Finch in the photos for the article still gets recognized as him.

In a similar vein, last April, GQ magazine ran a story on Jake Floyd, the 13-year old GM of the Ash Fork Miners, who play in the Desert Cactus Independent League here in Arizona. I particularly liked the way the writer even fabricated some new-fangled fielding metrics - ISH and OSH for infield and outfield stolen hits - and also gave Floyd a 9-year old intern, who has a shrine to Bill James in his bedroom. It's as much a sardonic comment on the ever-younger wave of general managers in the major-leagues; it was a dark day when I discovered that our GM, Josh Byrnes, at 37, is four years younger than I am. :-( Cross that potential ambition off the list...

Finally, one that no-one seems to know whether it's a hoax or not. Robert Edward Auctions found this artifact in the estate of baseball historian Al Kermisch. To quote another historian of the sport, John Thorn, "Apart from the schoolboy delight in reading this, it is a significant testament to the atmosphere in the single-league era, when professional baseball was losing ground to college football for many reasons, including the atmosphere at the park."

The 1898 document pictured above, entitled "Special Instructions To Players," regarding the use of obscene language by players at the ballpark, to intimidate umpires and opposing players, and to verbally battle with unfriendly fans. Reading this document started out very drab for a sentence or two, but then quickly got our attention as the language used became very unexpected for an official Major League baseball document, let alone one devoted to demanding players not use "any indecent or obscene word, sentence, or expression." It turned "blue," and, well, got "bluer."

Scans of the document can be seen at the link above, though it had perhaps best be viewed with some caution. Maiden aunts should likely stay clear, but fans of Deadwood will likely feel right at home. There are a few phrases in there which I feel deserve to be brought back into popular usage, adding a welcome blast of variety to the usual F-bombs.

Team Marketing will be releasing their annual Fan Cost Survey tomorrow, but have already given the highlights. It starts, "Baseball has never been more popular, or more expensive to watch. On the heels of another record-setting season, the average ticket price has gone up to $25.40, a 10.9 percent increase from last season. Team Marketing Report’s 2008 Major League Baseball Fan Cost Index jumped 8.3 percent to $191.75 this season. Both increases are the highest for MLB since 2001."

Looking into the specifics, there are some jawdropping numbers there: the Red Sox average ticket-price is $48.80 - that's more than three times the cost of the least expensive ticket, $15.96 for...hey whaddya know, it belongs to the Arizona Diamondbacks again. Expect a rant from diamondhacks on how this independent survey is wildly inaccurate, not independent and how the researchers must have been bought off by Jeff Moorad, in 3...2...1... Alternatively, since that's basically what we got last year, there may instead be a piece on how our caps, at $22, are the most expensive in the majors, and how this proves Ken Kendrick is Satan incarnate. :-) Actually, sympathy is due to 'hacks; the MLBlogs network went through an update of its own lately and...let's just say it doesn't seem to have been as well thought-out as ours. However, going by the logo on his page, he's now an Angels fan?

Good piece in the Republic on Lyon closing. Looks like, if nothing else, he will peeve a lot fewer opposing fans:

I'm going to downplay this as much as I can all year. It's the same for me when I go out there to pitch any inning. I'm not going to change what I do. It's just a different inning than what I've been pitching the last couple of years... I try not to think about all the hoopla and the ninth inning. It's just a save situation. Just go out there and try to throw quality strikes and make pitches. Most of the time if you do that you're going to be successful.

Speaking on behalf of my gastro-intestinal tract, I welcome this. I think we had our fill of drama last season. It was a very promising first outing for Lyon, but I suspect we won't know for sure until he's blown his first save - how he responds to that, will be the true test of his mettle. If he does the same as he did last season, we will be fine - he came into 39 games in 'save situations' [AZ leading by three runs or less] and only blew three of them.

A couple of final notes on yesterday's game. According to HitTrackerOnline.com, Byrnes and Young's homers were the two longest balls hit in the majors so far, in terms of actual distance, at 458 and 443 ft respectively. I was surprised that Eric's went further than Chris's upper-deck shot, but just one of our CF's 32 blasts in 2007 was bigger - the one off David Wells on 09/22, at 479 feet. Byrnes' best was a May 8th, 470-foot shot, against Adam Eaton. Both came at Chase, as did nine of the ten longest homers hit by Diamondbacks all year. Only one road homer passed Byrnes' Opening Day distance; a 467-footer by Mark Reynolds off Lance Cormier at Turner Field, on 08/17.

Jeff Salazar's homer wasn't as far, and was only the third of his career - however, all come as a pinch-hitter, in only 18 PA's. He's now a remarkable 7-for-16 with three HR off the bench. "I don't know if I want to continue that trend or not," he said. "Probably the biggest thing that I learned was to try to anticipate situations... If you can be ready before he [Kirk Gibson] tells you to be ready, I think it makes it easier. You don't hit a panic mode... It's still not easy. I'm still accustomed to being an everyday guy." If you keep delivering like you did yesterday, Jeff, we will soon be saying "Tony who?", in addition to "Jose who?"