SB Nation - Chad Qualls

The 2009 'Pitties: The Cy Young Award

Jim McLennan — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:30:12 -0000

More photos » by Marcio Jose Sanchez - AP

Congratulation to Gerardo Parra, who romped away with the Rookie of the Year 'Pittie, with 68% of the overall vote. I'm a little surprised it was quite as wide a margin, because by objective measurements like WAR or VORP, Parra was a good deal less credible a candidate than Juan Gutierrez. For instance, by WAR, Gutierrez came in at 1.5 wins, while Parra was all the way down at 0.3 wins. That puts him behind Rusty Ryal (0.6) and Zavada (0.4) and only fractionally ahead of Trent Oeltjen (0.2). However, by the time this was mentioned to me, Parra already had what was basically an unsurmountable lead.

To be honest, I've got a feeling this penultimate award is going to prove even more one-sided - and in this case, I don't think there will likely be much argument from the sabermetric community. Frankly, a chunk of me is tempted to toss up the obvious nomination and then go back to gnawing on honey-baked ham [which is basically what I'll have been doing for the past 24 hours or so] . However, that would be an abdication of my responsibilities. And, perhaps more important, merely typing the words "honey-baked ham" made me feel slightly nauseous. So, after the jump, we'll go through the five names on the ballot. And remember, it's an honor simply to be nominated...

Doug Davis: 203.1 IP, 4.12 ERA

After three seasons of DD, we're used to it by now. He's up to sixth on the all-time franchise list for innings pitched, and hit 200 IP for the first time in Arizona. His WHIP of 1.505 was also the lowest it has been with the Diamondbacks, despite Davis leading the league in walks (103). However, Davis was then insanely good with men on base, posting a line of .215/.310/.321. Davis certainly deserved a better record: in the past fifteen seasons, only four qualifying NL pitchers have had a W-L% below .400 and a better ERA+ than Doug's 111 [Brandon Webb's 2004 leads that list]. If this was his last hurrah in Arizona, he can leave with his head held high.

Dan Haren: 229.1 IP, 3.14 ERA

Haren posted his fifth straight 200-inning season in 2009, one of only four pitchers with such a streak (alongside Vasquez, Buerhle and Arroyo). Dan was also the best pitcher in the National League over the first-half of the season, with a 2.01 ERA, and a K:BB ratio better than 8:1. He had 18 quality starts in his first 19 outings, including seven straight where he went 7+ innings and allowed two or less runs - there hasn't been a longer streak in the NL since 2001. While Haren cooled off after the break, he still set career highs for IP, K and ERA+ and came within one measly hit of becoming the first NL starter in four years to have a WHIP below one.

Chad Qualls: 52 IP, 3.63 ERA

In his first year as full-time closer, Qualls ended the season with 24 saves in 29 opportunities, good for sixth on the franchise all-time list. He'd likely have finished third, except he blew out his knee and missed the last month, following the pitch which secured his final save. That came as a pity, because he'd posted a 2.90 ERA over July and August. Qualls showed excellent control, walking just seven batters all year (he had almost as many double-plays: five), while fanning 45 hitters. 69% of all his pitches were strikes, and pitching in Chase didn't bother Chad at all: his ERA here was 2.63, with opponents held to a .657 OPS.

Max Scherzer: 170.1 IP, 4.12 ERA

Questions about Scherzer's stamina coming into 2009 were largely answered: the 25-year old threw over three thousand pitches, ranking him between Cole Hamels and Zach Duke, and gradually stretched out, to the point where he averaged 6.60 IP/start in September, a career high. He also ranked 13th in the league for strikes, at 65%, ahead of Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum. Scherzer had a 2.16 ERA in June, which included his best outing, 7.2 shutout innings against the Giants. Not helped by his defense - the 16 unearned runs allowed was an NL high - Scherzer simply did it himself, fanning more than a batter per inning.

Clay Zavada: 51 IP, 3.35 ERA

Left-handed relief has often been a problem for Arizona, but Zavada's ERA+ of 136 was the best by such a player for us since 2000 (min 40 IP). Zavada set a franchise rookie record of nineteen consecutive appearances without allowing an earned run, which was also the best streak ever to start a career in the NL. Curiously, he was particularly brutal on right-handers, holding them to a .205 average, and faced 98 batters before allowing a home-run in the majors, during Zavada's 25th outing. His off-field contributions were perhaps as important: he energized the bullpen, the dugout and the fan-base like no-one else on the 2009 roster.

Poll

Who takes home the 2009 Cy Young 'Pittie award?

Doug Davis

3 votes

Dan Haren

147 votes

Chad Qualls

4 votes

Max Scherzer

7 votes

Clay Zavada

9 votes

170 votes | Poll has closed

The 2009 'Pitties: Game of the Year

Jim McLennan — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:00:35 -0000

by Ross D. Franklin - AP

Gerardo Parra tried to dodge a pounding after a walk-off hit in the 10th inning against the Dodgers on August 15th.

View full size photo »

Not quite as close a poll for the second of the 2009 'Pitties. The B-bullpen of Jon Rauch, Esmerling Vasquez, Clay Zavada and Leo Rosales swept majestically to a collective victory, for their nine innings of no-hit ball in the marathon against the Padres. The same game is also nominated in this week's category.

One of the good things about baseball having a 162-game schedule is that, even in a disappointing year like the Diamondbacks experienced in 2009, there will still be contests which we remember with great fondness [contrast any 'Game of the Year' poll for the Detroit Lions last season, which I imagine made kinda wretched reading...] Arizona still won 70 games, and included among them were blowouts, squeakers, comebacks, slugfests, pitching duels and marathons.

After the jump, you'll find our selection of the five best games of the 2009 season described in detail - the link goes to the recap of the contest in question.

May 16th: Max finally tastes victory, vs. ATL

Only twice since 2002 has the team scored a dozen or more and shutout the opposition - oddly, both times were against the Braves. Here, a 12-0 victory was important, not just for the offensive outburst, but because it gave Max Scherzer his first career win, in his fourteenth start. However, it was only late on that it became a sure thing: when he was lifted for a PH in the seventh, after six innings of four-hit ball, it was only 3-0 to Arizona. However, the offense then piled onto the Atlanta bullpen, tagging them fror nine earned runs over the final seven outs, capped by Chris Snyder's grand-slam in the ninth. This was the largest winning margin for the Diamondbacks since 2006.
May 23rd: biggest comeback of the year, vs. OAK

Arizona had more than their fair share of opposition recoveries inflicted on them in 2009 (44 blown leads in all, ahead only of Washington in the NL), but this was our biggest comeback of the year. We trailed the A's 5-1 going into the eighth, having been stifled by, of all people, former D-back Edgar Gonzalez. However, another ex-Arizonan, veteran Russ Springer, was tagged for three runs without retiring a batter, and we tied things up on a two-run Chad Tracy double. We scored three times in the 11th, but Chad Qualls made it interesting, allowing two runs to score and putting the tying run on third with one out. A ground-ball double-play allowed him and Arizona to escape, 8-7.
June 7th: the game without end, vs SDP

I think the fangraph is all we need here, as we blew a 6-0 lead, allowing five runs in the ninth, then traded zeroes with San Diego until the 18th, where Mark Reynolds' three-run shot off a utility infielder won it for the Diamondbacks, five hours and 45 minutes after the first pitch. Madness? This is Petco!
August 15th: the late, late show, vs. LAD

Jonathan Broxton came into the ninth with 25 saves in 29 opportunities, and having allowed just two home runs in his previous 97 innings, going all the way back to June 2008. With a 3-1 lead - Hiroki Kuroda having out-duelled Doug Davis - things looked bleak for the home outfit, especially after Gerardo Parra's K reduced our WP to 5%. However, Mark Reynolds then deposited the first delivery he saw into the bleachers, and three pitches later, Miguel Montero followed suit, tying the game up. Parra then redeemed himself, driving in the winning run with one down in the bottom of the tenth, sealing the Diamondbacks' first series victory over the Dodgers for more than a year.
August 29th: Garland and Upton and Reynolds, oh my! vs. HOU

Seven shutout innings from Jon Garland - not just his best start in a Diamondbacks' jersey, but also his last before getting traded to LA. Mark Reynolds became the first Arizona batter since 2001 to hit forty home-runs in a season. And Justin Upton hit his 21st blast, four days after no longer being 21 himself. On Luis Gonzalez Appreciation Day and in front of the fourth-biggest home crowd of the year to that point, the D-backs rolled to a 9-0 win over the Astros. This was SnakePitFest 2: Clay Zavada pitched a scoreless eighth in front of the mustached ranks of the Zavada Brigade and team president Derrick Hall stopped by to say hello. Yeah, not too bad a day, all told...

Poll

What was the Game of the Year for the Diamondbacks in 2009?

May 16th: Max finally tastes victory, vs. ATL

5 votes

May 23rd: biggest comeback of the year, vs. OAK

13 votes

June 7th: the game without end, vs SDP

25 votes

August 15th: the late, late show, vs. LAD

14 votes

August 29th: Garland and Upton and Reynolds, oh my! vs. HOU

10 votes

67 votes | Poll has closed

The 2009 Diamondbacks Season, Part V: The Bullpen

Jim McLennan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:15:35 -0000

More photos » by Ross D. Franklin - AP

Somehow, this pic - Qualls yelling to the bench for help after hurting his knee against Houston - sums up the bullpen's entire season...

Browse more photos »

The Arizona bullpen allowed 271 runs and finished the season with a 4.61 ERA, both numbers which put them ahead only of Washington among National League relief corps. We've previously discussed the waking nightmare which was the eighth inning, but it's also worth taking a look at the numbers posted by the bullpen in general. How do they stack up in total? What were the issues? How might things have gone, and where do we go from here?

FIP vs. ERA
On straight ERA, as noted above, our relievers were pretty bad, even when you adjust for park factor. However, the underlying performance numbers weren't quite as horrendous. Arizona relievers had a combined line of .264/.338/.395, which is an sOPS+ of only 101, not too much worse than average. Fangraphs.com's FIP stat goes even further: the D-backs FIP was 4.02 - sixth-best in the league - with the biggest gap between that and 'actual' ERA of any team in the National League. This explains why they rated our pen at 36.1 runs above replacement, not just above average, but very close to the number (39.4) posted by the "lights out" 2007 bullpen.

The only two relievers with 10+ innings, to have a FIP higher than their ERA were Clay Zavada (FIP 3.92) and Blaine Boyer (3.34), both of which make sense. Zavada certainly benefited from the lucky scoreless streak which opened his career - his ERA the rest of the way was 5.34. And Boyer is obviously not the 2.68 ERA pitcher he was with Arizona: if he was anything like that, the Cardinals wouldn't have dumped him. Still, even if they deliver their FIP numbers in 2010, I don't think we'll mind too much. The other eight relievers all had FIP better than their ERA, the amount ranging from 0.07 (yeah, Scott Schoeneweis was as bad as he looked) to 1.06 for Juan Gutierrez.

There are various reasons why FIP can differ. It's based purely on home-runs, strikeouts and walks: you might think, "Hang on - the number of hits that stay in the park is irrelevant?" But the problem there, is that those do depend on the defense, so are not a good measure of pitching ability. I'll go into more detail about our glovework in the final part of this series, but Arizona's defensive efficiency - the percentage of balls turned into outs - was below average. If it seems counter-intuitive that you put H, K and HR into a mathematical blender and get a number that means anything, studies have shown that FIP is a better indicator of future performance than ERA.

Win Probability
However, the Hardball Times Win Probability Added is less convinced, saying our relievers cost Arizona 2.81 wins, this year ahead only of Pittsburgh and Washington. This is the same Win Probability we graph after every game; the winning team has 0.5 of a win to divide up, and the losers -0.5 blame. Over the entire season, our hitters "cost" Arizona 6.53 wins, and our starting pitching 1.67. [The total, not by coincidence, is 11, the number we were below .500] However, you should remember the value of a performance is radically dependent on when it happens. As Dave Studeman points out, "If a player hits a home run in the ninth inning of a 1-0 game, he is credited with more WPA points than if he hits a home run in the first inning of a 1-0 game."

The late innings will tend to have more leverage as a result, though given the bullpen threw about half the innings of the starters, to be "responsible" for more losses than the rotation isn't good. Still, the implication is that the offense was a bigger problem for the team in 2009 than the pitching in total. For context, it 2008, the bullpen WPA was -1.16 wins and in 2007, it was a stunning +7.48 victories. This is likely a reflection of the huge number of close contests in which that team was involved. Almost one-third (52) were decided by one-run, and when you get into the late innings of such games, every out has a very significant impact on Win Probability.

Was the bullpen overtaxed?
Not apparently. The average team saw 2,184 PAs dealt with by their relievers last season; Arizona saw fractionally less than that, at 2,122 - it clearly helped to have one of the most durable starters in the league, in Dan Haren, whose IP/start was 6.95, fourth-best in the league. Jon Garland (6.18, 24th) and Doug Davis (5.98, 34th) were also above the NL-average of 5.82. The Diamondbacks were also the least-likely team to use a reliever on back-to-back days: this happened only 80 times, the most common subjects being Gutierrez and Rauch, each eleven times. However, the results of such outings were good, with a 3.67 ERA.

The only reliever who worked more than 55 innings for the Diamondbacks was Gutierrez, who threw 71 innings [Rauch and Tony Peña were both around the same for the year, combining the totals for their two teams], which was not enough to put him among the top thirty 'pure' relievers in the majors. By appearances, his 65 games was only ranked #70, though Rauch ended up =13th by that metric. Arizona were right in the middle of the pack with regard to asking our relievers to get more than three outs too, so overall, workload doesn't appear to have been much of an issue for the bullpen as a whole.

Inherited issues
What did seem to be a problem was the bullpen's problem with inherited runners. Across the league, 30% of inherited runners scored, but for the Diamondbacks' relievers, that number was 38%, the worst figure in the NL. Only two relievers were below league average, and that fractionally: Scott Schoeneweis and Leo Rosales both came in at 29%, and the brevity of the former's appearances were likely a factor. From there, things only get worse, all the way up to Blaine Boyer (8 of 17 inherited runners scored, 47%) and Daniel Schlereth (7 of 12, 58%). Obviously, while we are talking small sample size here, and not all inherited runners are created equal, the overall numbers are significant enough to indicate a problem.

The Arizona bullpen: anti-clutch in action
A major driving factor in a pitcher's ERA will be how they perform with runners in scoring position - as we saw with Doug Davis this year, you can get away with allowing a lot of base-runners, as long as you don't let them get past third-base. This was something our bullpen didn't do last season. The Diamondbacks' OPS for their relievers across all situations in 2009 was .734: they can be divided into three groups by their performance with runners in scoring position (min. 30 such PAs):

    Significantly better: Leo Rosales (.653), Tony Peña (.655), Esmerling Vasquez (.686)
    There or thereabouts: Chad Qualls (.728), Juan Gutierrez (.730),
    Significantly worse: Blaine Boyer (.779), Jon Rauch (.853), Clay Zavada (.959), Scott Schoeneweis (1.078), Daniel Schlereth (1.192)

This would explain the high ERA; not just the raw number of pitchers, but the disparity. We had four relievers whose OPS was 100 points or more worse than bullpen average, when they had runners in scoring position, compared to none who were that much better. Avoiding such a skewed result in 2010 will certainly help. Harder to say whether it's something that can be addressed, or is just a question of waiting for regression to the mean.

What might have been
The front-office got criticism for letting Brandon Lyon and Juan Cruz walk at the end of 2008, and it's fair to say that the arms they brought to Arizona instead, Schoeneweis and Tom Gordon, were dismal failures. Admittedly, the former's problema could in no way have been foreseen, and completely derailed the year. Before his wife's death, Scott had an ERA of 2.53; after, it exploded to 10.80. But in the final analysis, he is just another in a long line of disappointing LOOGY's brought in by the team: see also Randy Choate, Mike Myers, Eddie Oropesa, etc. Since Myers in 2002, no free-agent southpaw reliever has had an ERA+ above 100 for Arizona.

Gordon was a low-risk roll of the die, but even at that, it must have been disappointing to get no more than 1.2 innings and a 21.60 ERA from the veteran. He only cost $600K, but one assumes the budget included the maximum Gordon may have earned, $3m. Between the price of him and Schoeneweis ($2m), the team could certainly have done better. Looing at the players we let go, Juan Cruz signed a two-year, $6m contract with the Royals, but had an ERA of 5.72, with a strikeout rate almost cut in half (from 12.4 K/9 to 6.4). Allowing Cruz to walk now seems wise, and Kansas City will be hoping for much better in 2010.

At first glance, Brandon Lyon was excellent with the Tigers, holding opponents to a .205 average and posting a 2.86 ERA, that seemed to justify fully his $4m deal, and likely sets him up for a big pay-day this winter. However, Lyon did have a freakishly-low BABIP of .229, leading to a FIP above four - the difference put him in the top 20 among major-league relievers. Still, signing him for $4m and getting anything like his actual performance would have been a much better deal for Arizona than Gordon and Schoeneweis.

2010?
From statements so far, it does appear that one or more arms will be added to the bullpen in the off-season. We'll be discussing this in more detail in due course, but I imagine the core is alreay present, in Qualls, Gutierrez, Vasquez and Zavada. Boyer and Schlereth would also seem to have a potential role, though use of the latter in high-leverage situations still concerns me. I still wouldn't mind us spending $5 million or so of the estimated $28m available on a couple of decent arms: I think "reliable" is the key-word there. Rather than us taking a risk on anyone like Gordon, we want someone who we know will contribute.

The last installment of this series will follow, probably next Monday. There, we'll be looking at defense and base-running, and their impact on the team's performance last season.

NL West Report: Dodgers and Rox aim for October, the rest looking to 2010

Poseidon's Fist — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:00:17 -0000

More photos » by Tom Gannam - AP

Arizona has a difficult decision to make regarding Brandon Webb's option.

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I don't envy Arizona's position.

Brandon Webb has been the best home-grown starting pitcher in franchise history, and it's not even close. He won the Cy Young Award in 2006 and came in second place the following two years. Yet after having shoulder surgery which indeed involved the labrum, a complete recovery for the 30-year-old is not guaranteed.

According to Will Carroll at Baseball Prospectus, the surgery was "both good and bad." Most of it involved just cleaning up the shoulder, but arthroscopic procedure did reveal damage to Webb's labrum. It was not torn, rather "frayed," hence the good-and-bad description. Such damage does not tend to preclude pitchers from a full recovery, but here's the problem:

The Diamondbacks have to decide just days after the conclusion of the World Series, well before anyone could possibly know how well Webb will recover. Chances are quite good that he'll recover eventually to be at the least an ace-type pitcher again, but there are no guarantees his recovery would lead to that status for next season.

Webb could resolve matters a bit, but he is not interested in restructuring his contract.

Buster Olney doesn't blame him.

After presumably losing Jon Garland and Doug Davis from their Opening Day rotation, losing Webb would significantly hurt their rotation, one big reason why Dan Haren really wants Arizona to pick up his option.

So it appears Arizona is left with three options.

Decline the option and pay the $2.0million buyout, cutting their ace loose. This presumes $8.5million is too much of a risk for a pitcher coming off a late-season surgery involving a labrum, albeit just a fraying.
Decline the option, pay the $2.0million buyout and hope to resign him to a more economical deal. This seems unlikely, given Webb is already disgruntled with Arizona for pulling a $54million extension off the table last season. The contract would not be long-term given Webb's desire to return to dominance before getting into a long-term deal.
Stomach the near-eight-figure option and hope he returns to normal.

I'm generally very averse to taking risks with money and injuries. Plus, any damage to the labrum scares me. However, the the $8.5 million risk Arizona would sign up for is actually less than what they will stomach just to get rid of Eric Byrnes. Declining the option would probably mean the end of Webb's career in Arizona, and that's a rather unfortunate way to lose a franchise pitcher. In addition, if he pitches as he did from 2006-08 for even for just one-third of the season, they would see the return on the investment in 2010. He exceeded $26.0million in Fangraphs value in all three seasons. If I'm Arizona, I take that risk.

NL West team capsules under the fold.

NL West Report

Arizona (68-88, 5th, W2, 25 GB)

Last Week: 3-3. 1-2 vs Giants. 2-1 vs Padres. Friday's loss found them 5.5 games below the Padres, but consecutive wins at Chase this weekend gives them an outside shot of climbing out of the cellar. They'll have to do it on the road, as Chase Field is closed for MLB ball until next April.

Pace: 71-91 (+1)

Divisional Change: No change.

This Week: 3 game road series @ Giants, 3 game road series @ Cubs. The only thing left to be decided for Arizona in their final week will be their draft slot next season. They can finish with no worse than the 4th worst record in MLB, "best" case scenario falling to 10th.

News: Chad Tracy has a $7M option in 2010, so Arizona is likely to drop him after the season. They started him in their home finale yesterday as a symbolic gesture, and the red-headed veteran came through with a home run in his final AB, just his eighth of the season.

Chad Tracy

#18 / First Base / Arizona Diamondbacks

Height: 6-2

Weight: 215

Bats: L

Throws: R

Born: May 22, 1980

	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG
2009 - Chad Tracy	94	249	27	59	14	0	8	39	24	36	1	0	.237	.302	.390

60% of Arizona's Opening Day rotation could be gone by Opening Day next season, but Nick Piecoro also points out a veteran bullpen arm will be on the offseason shopping list.

Mike Axisa at MLBTradeRumors.com points out Arizona did not get the return they were hoping for from their bullpen investments:

Arizona's pen was supposed to be anchored by Chad Qualls, Scott Schoeneweis, Tony Pena and Jon Rauch, but Rauch and Pena were traded, Qualls battled injury, and Schoeneweis dealt with the unfortunate passing of his wife. The foursome combined for a 4.46 ERA in 163.1 IP for the D-Backs this season.

In what will likely bring a smug grin to the faces of some Rockies fans, the D-Backs could cut ties with Eric Byrnes this offseason, eating the $10MM+ he is due for the final year of the contract he signed after the 2007 season.

Tim Dierkes at MLBTradeRumors outlines Arizona's contractual obligations for 2010.

Mark Reynolds set the MLB strikeout record for the second consecutive year on Tuesday.

Transactions: None.

Injuries: Conor Jackson is playing every day in an instructional league, but he will not return to the Diamondbacks' lineup this year.

Arizona Diamondbacks Injuries

15-Day

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Chris Snyder	lower-back	08/23/2009

60 Day DL / Out for the season

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Chad Qualls	knee	08/31/2009
Conor Jackson	pneumonia	05/12/2009
Brandon Webb	shoulder	04/07/2009

Los Angeles (93-63, 1st, W2)

Last Week: 3-3. 2-1 @ Nationals. 1-2 @ Pirates. Anyone surprised by their two losses against Pittsburgh should remember the Pirates are nearly a .500 club at PNC Park.

Pace: 97-65. (No change)

Divisional Change: No change.

This Week: Last game of 4-game road series @ Pirates. 2 game road series @ Padres. 3 game home series vs. Rockies. The Dodgers can clinch the NL West title today, before the Rockies can even take the field Tuesday against Milwaukee.

News: The biggest bargain free agent pitcher from last season has to be Randy Wolf. Ned Colletti signed him for a one-year $5MM contract that reached $8MM in incentives, but he has given Los Angeles a value of $14.0MM this season. MLBTradeRumors posted a discussion yesterday about Wolf's value in the free agent market this offseason.

Randy Wolf

#43 / Pitcher / Los Angeles Dodgers

Height: 5-10

Weight: 200

Bats: L

Throws: L

Born: Aug 22, 1976

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Randy Wolf	11-6	34	33	0	0	0	0	209.1	173	79	75	24	54	158	3.22	1.08

Ned Colletti has been the Dodgers' GM for four seasons and Los Angeles has made the playoffs in three, though he has made some boneheaded free agent acquisitions in that time in retrospect. MLBTraderumors hosted a discussion on whether Colletti should be retained by Los Angeles and if so, for how much. I mentioned this topic last week as well, but MLBTR had yet to host a discussion on it.

Talented, cheap talented can't be had cheap for long. With Andre Ethier, Chad Billingsley, Matt Kemp, Hong-Chih Kuo, Jonathan Broxton, James Loney, George Sherrill and Russell Martin headed to arbitration this offseason, the Dodgers' payroll figures to increase by almost $20 million next year just from raises.

Los Angeles clinched a playoff berth Saturday, though Joe Torre demanded the champagne wait until they eliminated Colorado from NL West contention. The Dodgers could have done exactly that yesterday in Clayton Kershaw 's his first start since September 4. However, Jonathan Broxton coughed up four runs to the Pirates in the ninth.

Transactions: None.

Injuries: None.

Los Angeles Dodgers Injuries

15-Day

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Will Ohman	shoulder	05/28/2009

60 Day DL / Out for the season

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Xavier Paul	ankle	05/21/2009
Jason Schmidt	shoulder	08/06/2009
Eric Milton	lower-back	06/28/2009

San Diego (72-85, 5th, L2, 21.5 GB)

Last Week: 4-3. 1-0 @ Pirates, 2-1 @ Rockies. 1-2 @ Diamondbacks. The Padres week started strong with four wins the first five days, but they dropped the last two matches at Chase Field. They still preserved their winning week, extending their non-losing streak to five weeks.

Pace: 74-88 (+1).

Divisonal change: Gained 1.0 game on LAD.

This Week: 2 game home series vs. Dodgers. 3 game home series vs. Giants. Bud Black has done an impressive job with this roster, as they are practically a lock now to avoid 90 losses.

News: The Cubs are done with Milton Bradley after suspending him for the rest of the year. He still has over $20million left on his contract through the 2011 season, so he will be most likely moved in a trade. After wearing out his welcome playing for his 7th team in nine years, you have to wonder who would take a flyer on this guy. Jerry Crasnick reports that Kevin Towers admits to being interested in Bradley.

Milton Bradley

#21 / Right Field / Chicago Cubs

Height: 6-0

Weight: 225

Bats: B

Throws: R

Born: Apr 15, 1978

	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG
2009 - Milton Bradley	124	393	61	101	17	1	12	40	66	95	2	3	.257	.378	.397

We all remember his epic injury he sustained while with San Diego in 2007, but he actually was well regarded by the organization:

"We took a chance on him the first time we had him, and he actually played pretty well...our experience with him was a positive one. Not a negative one." -Towers, via Jerry Crasnick

Buster Olney and Jon Heyman individually suggested the reunion earlier this week as well.

Adrian Gonzalez hit his 40th home run yesterday, a dizzying accomplishment in present day considering half his games are played at PetCo.

Buster Olney and several Baseball Prospectus writers converged to discuss the Padres' season and their future. It's insider access only, so it's convenient that MLBTradeRumors pulled out these highlights.

Transactions: None.

Injuries: Prior to the game Saturday, Kevin Kouzmanoff took batting and fielding practice. The third baseman is hoping to return to the lineup for some last cuts tomorrow against the Dodgers. Edgar Gonzalez dislocated his shoulder on Clint Barmes' inside-the-park home run last week but has not been put on the disabled list. He is listed as day-to-day and will try to return by the end of the week.

San Diego Padres Injuries

15-Day

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Brian Giles	knee	06/19/2009
Kyle Blanks	foot	08/29/2009

60 Day DL / Out for the season

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Mark Worrell	elbow	03/27/2009
Cha Seung Baek	forearm	03/30/2009
Shawn Hill	elbow	04/26/2009
Chris Young	shoulder	06/15/2009
Cliff Floyd	shoulder	06/18/2009

San Francisco (83-73, 3rd, W1, 10.0 GB in Div, 5.0 GB in WC)

Last Week: 3-4. 2-1 @ Diamondbacks. 1-3 vs Cubs. The Giants are all but out of the playoff race after choking away a home series against the Cubs. With six games left, they trail by five, meaning the Rockies' magic number to eliminating San Francisco is just three.

Pace: 86-76 (-1).

Divisional Change: Lost 0.5 games in NL West (LAD), Lost 0.5 games in WC (COL).

This Week: 3 game home series vs Diamondbacks, 3 game road series @ Padres. It easily could have been the Giants' soft schedule in the final week that would make Rockies' fans sweat. Thank you Bruce Bochy for mismanagement.

News: After effectively eliminating themselves from playoff contention from losing three to the Cubs, the organization has unofficially begun looking towards next year.

Regardless of their moves next year, they have almost clinched having a better trade deadline in 2010 as in 2009. Ryan Garko has only started six games in September, only slightly better than the 11 Freddy Sanchez started down the stretch. Now Sanchez will have season-ending knee surgery. So you can't see injuries coming? According to Andrew Baggarly, Sanchez knew he would need knee surgery after the season while still with Pittsburgh. The last link includes an extensive Q&A with Sanchez.

Freddy Sanchez

#21 / Second Base / San Francisco Giants

Height: 5-10

Weight: 190

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Dec 21, 1977

	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG
2009 - Freddy Sanchez	25	102	11	29	1	0	1	7	2	16	0	0	.284	.295	.324

The Giants definitely want to bring Sanchez back. Their reported method of doing so involves turning down his $8.1million option in hopes of resigning him to a two year deal.

An interesting wild card in the Sanchez dealings is Juan Uribe. Henry Schulman at the San Francisco Chronicle says that keeping Uribe has become obvious. As Zach Links writes for MLBTR, Sanchez posted far inferior UZR numbers to Uribe this season, while Sanchez posted OPS numbers greater than Uribe has in his ABs this year only once in his career. Uribe gave the Giants $12.8 million in value this season, more than any Rockie hitter not named Todd or Troy, and a far cry from his $0.9mil in production for the White Sox last year.

Closer Brian Wilson has had another solid season, putting the closer in line for a nice raise.

Tim Lincecum is open to long-term deal. Well that's all but obvious. He enjoys San Francisco, where he is the ace of a strong starting staff on a team on the upswing. The only question is how much money he will be able to get. As a Super Two, he will be eligible for arbitration this offseason for the first time, increasing the chances the Giants intercept that path to offer a long-term deal.

Transactions: None.

Injuries: Bengie Molina has missed the last three games with a sore left hand. Edgar Renteria had season ending surgery Saturday to remove bone chips in his right elbow. Freddy Sanchez may be done for the year with a torn meniscus.

San Francisco Giants Injuries

60 Day DL / Out for the season

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Justin Miller	elbow	09/13/2009
Noah Lowry	ribs	03/27/2009
Kelvin Pichardo	shoulder	06/28/2009
Emmanuel Burriss	foot	09/01/2009
Henry Sosa	shoulder	08/05/2009

Poll

If you were Josh Byrnes, would you pick up Brandon Webb's $8.5million option without knowing how healthy he will be next season?

Absolutely. Buying him out would result in only a $6.5million gain by declining the option. The bigger risk would be effectively cutting ties with a franchise pitcher who could give them $8.5million in value in just half a season.

74 votes

Buy out the contract and hope Webb changes his mind and signs for a more economical short-term deal to prove his arm is healthy.

20 votes

Buy out the contract. The risk is too high that he couldn't pitch effectively next season. They have already committed to stomaching Eric Byrnes salary, and they can't just afford to pay a third of their payroll to players who aren't playing.

7 votes

Buy out the option year, sign him to 3-year, $18-million contract and trade him to Colorado for Omar Quintanilla and Juan Rincon.

32 votes

Something else. Tell me in the comments.

0 votes

133 votes | Poll has closed

That's not a rattler - it's just a little garter snake

Poseidon's Fist — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:00:20 -0000

More photos » by Denis Poroy - AP

Perhaps a bigger surprise than the Rockies' resurgence in the NL West this season has been that the Diamondbacks have allowed the Padres to beat them into the divisional cellar.

Browse more photos »

This has truly been a miserable season for the Diamondbacks. I didn't truly realize just how miserable until today.

Arizona is on pace to go 71-91 this season, their third worst season in franchise history. Only their inaugural season in 1998 (65-97) and that sorry 2004 team (51-111) has finished below 76 wins. Just for your comparison, the Rockies have 91 losses just thrice - 1993, 2004 and 2005. And this Arizona team was almost universally expected to finish in the top three in the NL West, with several projections placing them atop the division.

Losing their ace and cleanup hitter from 2008 for the season sure doesn't help, but the futility doesn't just come from those two players' absences. Anyone that had Arizona 24 games out at this point needs their own TV show.

Naturally, in all things sensical, it is the D-Backs that are just coming off a near sweep of the Padres, breaking San Diego's six-series win streak in the process. This after losing 9 of their last 10 games. After winning their last five games in August, Arizona is 4-11 in September. Baseball can be so random at times.

With one win in the series, Colorado will clinch the season series from Arizona, quite the rebound from the 3-15 mark they put up last season. Arizona's pitiful 32-40 home record bests only Washington, Cleveland and Kansas City for the worst home marks in the league, and given the Rockies are 38-37 on the road, the home field advantage for the series is flat non-existent.

Go hang out at AZ Snakepit. They are good people.

Scoreboard Watch

San Francisco (3.5 game lead) @ Los Angeles (5GB). Vicente Padilla vs Jonathan Sanchez. Jon Garland vs. Brad Penny. Randy Wolf vs. Tim Lincecum.

Atlanta (4.5) vs. Philadelphia. Tim Hudson vs. J.A, Happ. Javier Vazquez vs. Pedro Martinez. Tommy Hanson vs. Cliff Lee.

Florida (5) @ Cincinnati. Rick VandenHurk vs. Homer Bailey. Ricky Nolasco vs. Bronson Arroyo. Sean West vs. Kip Wells.

Arizona Diamondbacks (64-83, L1, 5th, 24 GB)

Friday-Sunday: 3-game series at Chase Field

The Bats: C

As Rockies fans know, it is hard to have a functioning offense with automatic outs in the lineup. All season, Arizona has suffered with whoever was playing in CF or 1B (and in LF before Conor Jackson left). With Brandon Allen showing signs of life and Chris Young heating up finally like D-Back fans prayed for all season, the easy outs are harder to come by. They still have terrible OBP at the top of the lineup, but there's a considerable power threat from the top five in the batting order.

For the season, they have the 4th worst batting average in the NL and MLB in spite of enjoying the benefits of Chase Field. Their 158 HR are 4th in the NL, easing them up to 10th in the NL in wOBA. They are middle of the pack in runs scored with 652, 8th in the NL. But with Chris Young starting to hit, the lineup is more dangerous than has been this season thus far.

LINEUP	Avg	HR	RBI	OBP	SLG	wOBA	OPS+
Chris Young - CF	.206	13	38	.307	.399	.312	80
Stephen Drew - SS	.257	12	58	.321	.432	.323	91
Justin Upton - RF	.308	24	76	.377	.550	.399	134
Miguel Montero - C	.300	14	53	.361	.487	.362	115
Mark Reynolds - 3B	.272	42	97	.363	.571	.398	135
Gerardo Parra - LF	.293	5	54	.324	.408	.315	87
Ryan Roberts - 2B	.271	6	21	.362	.401	.341	96
Brandon Allen - 1B	.224	3	24	.306	.421	.309	84

AJ Hinch has juggled his lineup in response to hot streaks (Young/Upton) and cold streaks (Drew/Reynolds/Roberts), also optimizing the left/right combo to the full extent. However, to do so, he had to put Chris Young back at the leadoff spot, drop Ryan Roberts - who has hit just as well as Felipe Lopez did - to 7th, and drop their best hitter and MLB's 2nd leading home run hitter to 5th. Even considering the streaks involved, It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Via OPS+, Upton and Reynolds are strong All-Star caliber hitters and Montero is solidly above average. Roberts is about average, Drew is a slightly below, Parra is moderately below while Allen and Young have been relative deadweights.

Chad Tracy (.227, 6, 34), Rusty Ryal (.262, 2, 3) and Augie Ojeda (.235, 1, 13) are Hinch's backup infielders. Alex Romero (.259, 1, 18), Eric Byrnes (.216, 6, 26) and Trent Oeltjen (.246, 3, 4) are on the bench as OFers while Luke Carlin (3-for-17) and John Hester (5-for-15, 1 HR) are the reserve backstops.

Hop after the jump for the scouting report on the arms, the D, the pitching matchups and the hot/cold players.

The Arms: B-

The Diamondbacks will throw out their top two starts for the series, including rejuvinated OMGace Dan Haren. Scherzer and Haren have faced the Rockies in the same series once this season, with Arizona taking that series in Coors Field (although Scherzer actually lost his game). Kevin Mulvey is no better than any of the pitchers we feasted on against the Mets or Reds.

Juan Gutierrez has arguably been the best reliever for Arizona this season and has taken a strangehold on the closer's role after Chad Qualls went down.

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Juan Gutierrez	4-3	60	0	0	0	5	1	65.0	60	29	28	2	29	60	3.88	1.37

Gutierrez is joined in the pen by lefties Daniel Schlereth, Scott Schoeneweis and Clay Zavada as well as right handers Blaine Boyer, Bryan Augenstein, Daniel Cabrera, Leo Rosales, Yusmeiro Petit and Esmerling Vasquez.

The D: C+

Arizona has been 2nd in MLB in errors for most of the season, and they sit eight behind Washington's league high 124. UZR-wise, their season-long range marks grade out above average, as they are 9th in the league. Parra, Reynolds, Allen and Young are graded as weak by UZR, while the rest of the lineup is solid, led by Upton's 8.0 UZR/150.

The Ballpark: VERY STRONG hitter's park

Chase Field has officially taken the torch from Coors Field as the NL's best hitters park. This year, Chase is playing at a Baseball-Reference park factor of 108, clearly stronger even than Coors Field's 105/106 (both have multi-year factors of 107). The park is extremely friendly to home runs and triples, giving a good shot in the arm for doubles as well.

Probable Pitchers:

Tonight, 6:40 pm MDT

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Jason Marquis	15-11	34	29	2	1	0	0	195.1	193	88	82	13	64	98	3.78	1.32

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Kevin Mulvey	0-1	3	1	0	0	0	0	7.0	12	7	7	2	3	5	9.00	2.14

Frankly, I'm a little worried about Jason Marquis, who has been poor in three of his last four starts. It is the first time all year he has given up 5+ ER three times in four starts, and he was facing three of the most anemic offenses in the league in Sad Diego, San Francisco and New York. The only time he has faced Arizona this season was in his third start of the year, when he allowed 6 ER on 9 hits (2 HR) in 5 IP at Chase Field. Luckily, he's drawing the weakest of starters for Arizona. Kevin Mulvey stepped into the rotation in place of Yusmeiro Petit with no big league starts under his belt. The waiver wire pickup from Minnesota got knocked around in his start Saturday while wearing a "Los DBacks" jersey, allowing 6 ER on 11 hits in 4 IP to Milwaukee. In his appearance before that, he served up a home run to Carlos Gonzalez and walked three Rockies. He utilizes a high-80's fastball, low-80's slider, mid-70's curve and will mix in a changeup now and again. Favors: ROCKIES moderately

Saturday, September 19, 5:10 pm MDT

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Jason Hammel	8-8	30	27	1	0	0	0	156.1	184	85	76	13	39	112	4.38	1.43

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Max Scherzer	9-9	29	28	0	0	0	0	160.0	158	87	72	18	55	162	4.05	1.33

Just when I started heaping uninhibited praise on Hammel, he broke his 8-game 3ER or less streak, allowing four to the Giants at AT&T. One very unpublicized part of Hammel's game is his 0.75HR/9, which is absolutely fantastic for a fifth starter for the Rockies. Part of that has been his filthy curveball, which Fangraphs has rated as 7th best in MLB, sandwiched in between Barry Zito and Chris Carpenter. Nice company. He threw two scoreless innings in relief at Chase Field in April and allowed 3 ER in 6 IP Sept 4 at Coors against the D-Backs. After suffering a miserable August, Max Scherzer has rebounded a bit in September, allowing 1 ER in two of his 3 starts. The heterochromic right-hander faced the Rockies twice this year, both times at Coors in July, having success neither night. He allowed 9 runs (7 earned) in 10 innings, serving up home runs to Troy Tulowitzki and Ian Stewart, This is a fairly even pitching matchup. Hammel has the better FIP, but Scherzer has the better tRA. Favors: DRAW

Sunday, September 20, 1:10 MDT

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Ubaldo Jimenez	13-11	30	30	1	0	0	0	198.0	170	81	78	12	75	173	3.55	1.24

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Dan Haren	14-8	34	30	3	1	0	0	209.1	166	68	65	25	32	201	2.79	.95

After being consistent for so long, it's odd to say Ubaldo has not given us what we wanted to see the last two starts. Tuesday at AT&T was the kind of abomination we ought to expect every once in a while, as even aces have bad games. Coming off that hamstring injury, one might think the leg contributed to the poor start. But I didn't see any evidence of that - I saw rust. If he can get Ian Stewart to play third and get back into his routine, we'll see the Ubaldo of old. After four weeks of struggles from mid-July to mid-August, Dan Haren has returned back into a forceful hurler. Since getting lit up in Philly, he has allowed no more than 3 ER in 5 straight starts. He did allow home runs in 9 of his last 10 starts before pitching in the land dingers go to die his last outing, so he could be vulnerable to the heavy hitters at Chase. Combine that with the fact that he walks no one and strikes out plenty, and the Rockies need to be very aggressive to achieve success. Overall, Haren has a slight edge over Jimenez in tRA and FIP. The two locked horns on July 5, with Haren besting Jimenez in the rubber game 4-3. Favors: DIAMONDBACKS slightly

My take: This series isn't absolutely essential in terms of the wild card. The Giants and Dodgers will beat up on each other. The Marlins are probably out of it as is and the Braves will get all they can handle against Philly. Even with a series loss, they'll still be in prime position. Now that I'm done sandbagging, the pitching matchups give the Rockies a solid chance in every game and there's no reason to drop this series. Rox take two,

Chris Young is hitting a stout .302/.373/.698 (.438 wOBA) for the month of September with 6 HR. Starting with the series at Coors Field two weeks ago, the CF has hit safely in 10 of 12 games. His previous best stretch of 10 games with hits was 16 games to start the season. Gerardo Parra is hitting .367 and Miguel Montero .327 this month. Juan Gutierrez has permitted just one run in his last 12.1 IP.

Ryan Roberts is hitting only .152 (7-for-46) in September, while Eric Byrnes, Stephen Drew, Mark Reynolds and Brandon Allen are all batting at a .220 clip or worse since the monthly calendar flip. Daniel Schlereth just gave up four runs in his last outing, Daniel Cabrera threw three scoreless innings in his last relief appearance, but in his only other appearance this month, he faced 5 Rockies and all scored in his D-Backs debut.

Chad Qualls is out with a nasty knee injury he sustained August 30 and will not return this season. Conor Jackson (Valley Fever - 5/12) and Brandon Webb (shoulder - 4/7) are also on the 60-day and have essentially provided no value to the team all year. Eric Byrnes (fractured hand - 6/26), Chris Snyder (lower back - 8/23) is on the 15-day. Snyder may still return this year - everyone else has been shut down for the season.

Poll

Good series?

A sweep is always good, yeah.

40 votes

It's a series win on the road vs Haren and Scherzer. That's a yes

104 votes

Losing the series hurts, but we'll still be in good position for the playoffs, and that's all that matters

19 votes

Swept by Arizona. THE SKY IS FALLING!

12 votes

175 votes | Poll has closed

NL West Report: D-Backs, Dodgers not done dealing

Poseidon's Fist — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:00:19 -0000

More photos » by Gus Ruelas - AP

Jon Garland has already beaten his former team, but it's stil not official who he was traded for.

Browse more photos »

Last Monday, the Diamondbacks traded Jon Garland to Los Angeles for infielder Tony Abreu. Sort of. In a bizarre twist, Arizona is now balking at the deal they originally agreed to, which includes the D-Backs picking up the remainder of Garland's salary this season. But don't worry, it has nothing to do with the fact that Garland promptly beat the Diamondbacks in Dodger duds days after the deal.

The issue is actually with Tony Abreu, who Arizona though would be earning near the league minimum for the next two seasons before having three controlled arbitration eligible seasons. What Arizona didn't realize was that Tony Abreu currently has a grievance filed with the Dodgers stemming from the 2007 season.

On July 18 of that year, Los Angeles optioned Abreu to the minors even though he had suffered an abdominal injury. He was not placed on the disabled list as he believed he should have, robbing him of 47 days of service time in the majors. Remember from Purple Row Academy that a player earns service time while on the disabled list but not if optioned to the minors (obviously).

The significance of that move is that Abreu could be the Diamondbacks' starting second baseman next season. If he were to play the entire season with his current 95 days of service time and that additional 47 days, he would be eligible for "Super Two" status, which certainly changes the economic package Arizona thought they were receiving.

The Diamondbacks believe they had no way of knowing of Abreu's filed grievance; moreover, sources state Arizona believes Los Angeles acted in poor faith by failing to inform them of it. Since the scheme of the trade has changed, Arizona may attempt to get a monetary kickback from the Dodgers to cover the expected difference in salary due to the service time issue. They could also choose a different player from the agreed upon list or ask the Dodgers to amend the list so that they could select a player other than Abreu.

Naturally, Dodger and D-Back fans see the situation a bit differently. Check out True Blue LA's reaction and compare the the reaction at AZ Snakepit. The issue could be resolved this week.

Before we get to the team capsules, I thought I'd mention that Peter Gammons has started to realize the NL West might actually be worth a damn. Of course, now is well past the point of plausible denial.

NL West Report

Arizona (61-77, t-4th, L4, 20 GB)

Last Week: 2-5. 2-2 vs Dodgers. 0-3 vs Rockies. By being swept in Colorado, Arizona fell into a tie with San Diego for last place in the division. It's hard to imagine their week helping the Rockies more.

Pace: 72-90.

Divisional Change: Lost 1.0 games on LAD.

This Week: 3 game home series vs Dodgers, 3 game home series vs Brewers.

News: Nick Piecoro notes Chris Snyder's health is a concern, though not in the way you might think. The Diamondbacks have not been shy about their desire to deal him, but he has yet to prove he is healthy returning from injury. He will need to come back and have a solid September to improve his trade stock.

Piecoro also notes Josh Byrnes' reaction to the Rauch and Garland deals.

If you watched the Rockies game yesterday, you no doubt witnessed Justin Upton being removed in the third inning after failing to run on a deep fly ball that bounced off the warning track, thinking it was a clear home run.

Punk

#10 / Right Field / Arizona Diamondbacks

Height: 6-2

Weight: 205

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Aug 25, 1987

	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG
2009 - Justin Upton	115	438	76	136	27	6	23	72	47	113	19	4	.311	.378	.557

Instead, he was stuck at second with a 415-foot single. AJ Hinch wasn't shy about flexing his judicial muscle, which is probably what The Punk needs. He's listed as "probable" for the series opener against the Dodgers, presumably for disciplinary reasons.

Speaking of Hinch, he supposedly takes the spoiler role seriously, choosing to put the best team out every game rather than giving young callups playing time. It didn't help this weekend.

The series at Colorado wasn't special for any Diamondback. Well, actually, it was a pretty special homecoming for Daniel Schlereth, who grew up watching baseball at Coors Field.

What would you do if you were in last place, putting a prized and talented young starter out every fifth day with a history of injury problems? If you said shut him down, consult Hinch's spoiler role philosophy. Instead, the D-backs will keep "close tabs" on Max Scherzer's innings.

Transactions: Called up RHP Bryan Augenstein, Billy Buckner and RHP Daniel Cabrera and acquried RHP Kevin Mulvey from Minnesota to complete the Jon Rauch trade. Traded Jon Garland to Los Angeles.

Injuries: Activated OF Eric Byrnes and RHP Bryan Augenstein from the DL. Placed RHP Chad Qualls on the 60-day DL with a dislocated left kneecap.

Arizona Diamondbacks Injuries

Probable

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Justin Upton	other-excused	09/07/2009

15-Day

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Chris Snyder	lower-back	08/23/2009
Scott Schoeneweis	other-excused	08/10/2009

60 Day DL / Out for the season

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Chad Qualls	knee	08/31/2009
Conor Jackson	pneumonia	05/12/2009
Brandon Webb	shoulder	04/07/2009

Los Angeles (81-57, 1st, L1)

Last Week: 3-4. 2-2 vs Diamondbacks. 1-2 vs Padres. Losing four home games in a week against the worst teams in the division is just a bad week.

Pace: 95-67.

Divisional Change: Lost 2.5 games on COL.

This Week: 3 game road series @ Diamondbacks, 3 game road series @ Giants. This week is dangerous for Los Angeles' divisional lead. The Rockies should be favored to take their series with Cincinnati and that series at AT&T Park will be difficult to win.

News: Check out some reactions from the Jim Thome trade at MLBTradeRumors.

The Nationals took MAA lefty reliever Victor Garate to complete the Belliard deal. Garate has had a strong season in AA, shutting down lefties and righties and being called a "poor man's Brian Fuentes." If he reaches that, or even if he makes the makes, he'll give the Nationals a fair deal on the trade.

Dan Uggla

#6 / Second Base / Los Angeles Dodgers?

Height: 5-11

Weight: 200

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Mar 11, 1980

	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG
2009 - Dan Uggla	133	472	68	114	22	1	25	72	81	122	1	1	.242	.357	.451

After Dan Uggla criticized Hanley Ramirez, the LA Times' Bill Shaikin wonders if Los Angeles should pursue him this offseason, noting Frank McCourt won't engage in a bidding war for Orlando Hudson.

Ned Colletti deserves criticism for failing to land Cliff Lee or Roy Halladay, but Peter Gammons notes he is pulling off highway robbery with some of his acquisitions, at least when considering what he's paying them.

Here is Eric Stephen's Week in Review at TrueBlueLA.

Transactions: Called up C AJ Ellis, OF Jason Repko, LHP Scott Elbert and designated OF Jamie Hoffman and RHP Jesus Castillo for assignment. Traded IF Tony Abreu for RHP Jon Garland. Sent LHP Victor Garante to Washington to complete the Ronnie Belliard deal.

Injuries: Activated RHP Hiroki Kuroda and 1B Doug Mientkiewicz from the disabled list. Placed RHP Guillermo Mota on the 15-day DL. Casey Blake is day to day with left hamstring tightness and will be back today or tomorrow. Travis Schlichting is out for the year with back spasms.

Los Angeles Dodgers Injuries

15-Day

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Will Ohman	shoulder	05/28/2009
Hiroki Kuroda	concussion	09/06/2009
Guillermo Mota	other-excused	08/30/2009

60 Day DL / Out for the season

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Xavier Paul	ankle	05/21/2009
Jason Schmidt	shoulder	08/06/2009

San Diego (60-78, 5th, L2, 22.5 GB)

Last Week: 5-1. 3-0 vs Nationals, 2-1 @ Dodgers.

Pace: 70-94.

Divisonal change: Gained 1.5 games.

This Week: 3 game road series @ Giants, 3 game home series vs Rockies.

News: Adrian Gonzalez was nominated for Clemente Award.

Long-time majority owner John Moores has said he will limit his role with Padres by stepping away from the day-to-day operations of the club and some of his commitments to Major League Baseball.

Mat Latos has been shut down for the season after reaching 123 IP (he had never thrown more than 56.1 in a season before), but he'll continue to work with pitching coach on mechanical issues with his delivery. The 21-year-old just from Low-A ball to the majors this season in just a couple months.

Mat Latos

#38 / Pitcher / San Diego Padres

Height: 6-6

Weight: 225

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Dec 09, 1987

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Mat Latos	4-5	10	10	0	0	0	0	50.2	43	29	26	7	23	39	4.62	1.30

In case any Rowbots love the Row so much they want a tattoo showing their love, it won't be hard to beat the quality of this Gas Lamp Ball tattoo.

Kevin Towers expects the Padres to be "pretty good" next year.

Transactions: Recalled RHP Adam Russell, LHP Wade LeBlanc, and OF Drew Macias. Optioned RHP Cesar Carillo to AAA Portland.

Injuries: Activated 2B Edgar Gonzalez and C Eliezer Alfonzo from the 15-day DL. OF Kyle Blanks will be evaluated this week but is expected to be out for the season. RHP Mike Adams played catch over the weekend in an effort to return this month.

San Diego Padres Injuries

15-Day

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Brian Giles	knee	06/19/2009
Edgar Gonzalez	concussion	07/19/2009
Kyle Blanks	foot	08/29/2009
Mike Adams	shoulder	08/22/2009

60 Day DL / Out for the season

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Mark Worrell	elbow	03/27/2009
Cha Seung Baek	forearm	03/30/2009
Shawn Hill	elbow	04/26/2009
Chris Young	shoulder	06/15/2009
Cliff Floyd	shoulder	06/18/2009

San Francisco (75-62, 2nd, L1, 6.5 GB in Div, 2 GB in WC)

Last Week: 3-3. 1-2 @ Phillies. 2-1 @ Brewers. The Giants did what they were supposed to do, treading water on a tough road trip. They remain legitimately in playoff contention despite the two game deficit given the remaining schedule.

Pace: 89-73.

Divisional Change: Gained 0.5 game in NL West (LAD), lost 2 games in WC (COL).

This Week: 3 game home series vs Padres, 3 game home series vs Dodgers.

News: Keith Law speaks to Brad Penny's impressive debut in his latest ESPN Insider Blog.

Penny will face the Dodgers this week, a team he doesn't have a soft spot for anymore, to say the least. He had several suitors including the Marlins, his original team, but he was not interested in returning to Miami because he "wanted to play in front of some fans, to be honest."

Brad Penny

#31 / Pitcher / San Francisco Giants

Height: 6-4

Weight: 230

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: May 24, 1978

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Brad Penny	1-0	1	1	0	0	0	0	8.0	5	0	0	0	1	2	0.00	.75

Penny had a great debut for the Giants after shutting down the Phillies on the road. Now Penny is out to prove that last start was no fluke. He gets a much easier foe this time, facing the Padres on regular rest.

Despite cliaming him on waivers, the Giants were never interested in actually acquiring Trevor Hoffman.

Transactions: Called up IF Jesus Guzman, OF John Bowker, C Buster Posey, Daniel Runzler and RHP Waldis Joaquin. Acquired Joel Collins from PIT and assigned him to Augusta. SIgned RHP Brad Penny. DFA'd RHP Ryan Sadowski and LHP Jesse English.

Injuries: Freddy Sanchez hopes to finally return today from a strained left shoulder. Emmanuel Burriss was transferred to the 60-day DL with a broken foot. Activated IF Rich Aurilia and OF Andres Torres from the DL.

San Francisco Giants Injuries

15-Day

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Freddy Sanchez	shoulder	08/18/2009

60 Day DL / Out for the season

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Randy Johnson	trapezius	07/06/2009
Noah Lowry	ribs	03/27/2009
Kelvin Pichardo	shoulder	06/28/2009
Henry Sosa	shoulder	08/05/2009

Poll

Did the Dodgers intentionally act in poor faith in the Jon Garland deal, as sources suggest Arizona believes?

Absolutely. The service time issue with Abreu is not a standard issue and directly lowers the value of the asset the sent Arizona.

63 votes

Definitely not. It is the Diamondbacks' responsibility to know the history of players they acquire in a trade.

20 votes

They knew about the Abreu issue, but that doesn't mean the deal was done in "poor faith." It's a GM's version of gamesmanship.

33 votes

I'm not sure.

18 votes

134 votes | Poll has closed

Arizona could be a tricky hurdle for Rox

Poseidon's Fist — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:44:03 -0000

by Danny Moloshok - AP

Jupton is practically a boy, yet still a man among boys.

View full size photo »

Sorry if this one's a bit scatterbrained, Rowbots - I spent the afternoon stranded due to a broken down vehicle. On to the snakes:

Don't underestimate them. I've seen this in numerous comments over the past couple weeks. You people are smart. Arizona dug themselves a huge hole in the standings and lost key contributors early on from injury (Webb), illness (Jackson) and aliens stealing a player's talent a la Space Jam (Young). After falling to the cellar due to those factors, ineffectiveness and just bad luck, Arizona was clearly in a position to play for next year.

Thusly, they sold off a number of prominent players, including Felipe Lopez, Jon Garland, Tony Pena, and Jon Rauch. Granted none of those are scary names and two of them are recent, but the point is after committing to youth, they have actually gotten better. By a lot. In fact, since the Rockies took two of three from them in mid-July, Arizona is 21-19, and that includes a 1-9 stretch on the road. So they've been a .500 team of late despite basically conceding the season. We are left to wonder where Arizona would be had they sustained their early season ineffectiveness and injuries. Most interesting of all to me - their run differential is just four runs worse than it was in 2007.

The Diamondbacks were nice enough to to pull out a 4-game split at Dodger Stadium, allowing the Rockies to gain a half game on Los Angeles. The D-Backs could close the divisional race more by falling flat in this upcoming series before rebounding against the Dodgers at home next week. A boy can dream.

As they all are now, this will be an important series. The Giants have a moderately difficult task playing in Milwaukee against three capable pitchers, but Los Angeles gets three home games against the last place Padres. Atlanta has a home series against the suddenly surging Reds while the Marlins hit the road against the ice-cold Nats. The Rockies are just 6-6 against the Diamondbacks, one of the few below .500 teams the Rockies don't have a winning record against. Time to change that.

Go hang out at AZ Snakepit. They may be rivals, but they're a good bunch all in all.

Arizona Diamondbacks (61-74, L1, 4th, 19 GB)

Friday-Sunday: 3-game series at Coors Field

The Bats: C

The starting lineup looks very different from the beginning of the season. Chris Snyder and Conor Jackson are on the DL, Chad Tracy is on the bench, Felipe Lopez has been traded, and a fringe prospect has taken over the body of Chris Young. However, Reynolds is 2nd MLB in HR and Justin Upton is showing signs of superstardom. They may rank 3rd worst in batting average despite the NL's most offensive park this season, but their team wOBA is right in the middle of the National League, while the majority of the lineup is hitting better of late. AJ Hinch has been shuffling his lineup frequently, but here are the predominant starters:

LINEUP	Avg	HR	RBI	OBP	SLG	wOBA
Stephen Drew - SS	.262	12	58	.326	.449	.331
Ryan Roberts - 2B	.291	6	20	.386	.439	.364
Justin Upton - RF	.314	23	72	.383	.567	.409
Mark Reynolds - 3B	.274	40	91	.362	.577	.399
Miguel Montero - C	.296	13	50	.356	.493	.361
Gerardo Parra - LF	.287	5	52	.324	.408	.315
Brandon Allen - 1B	.220	2	7	.273	.439	.296
Chris Young - CF	.187	7	28	.292	.343	.287

By wOBA metrics, the lineup features two superstar caliber players (Punk and Reynolds), two solidly above average hitters (Montero and Roberts), one average (Drew), one below average (Parra) and two that are struggling (Young and Allen). Brandon Allen came in the trade of Tony Pena and his presence in the starting lineup pretty much signals the end of the Josh Whitesell experiment. Oh, and batting Drew leadoff is stupid.

Chad Tracy (.234, 6, 34), Rusty Ryal (.303, 2, 3) and Augie Ojeda (.240, 1, 12) are Hinch's reserve infielders. Alex Romero (.261, 1, 17) is listed as the lone reserve outfielder and John Hester (4-for-6, 1 HR) was called up a week ago as the backup catcher and hit a home run in his first MLB at-bat.

Hop after the jump for the scouting report on the arms, the D, the pitching matchups and the hot/cold players.

The Arms: C+

Of the two series at Coors, we won the one in which Dan Haren did not pitch and lost the one in which he did. Haren does take the hill this weekend, but Haren is struggling a bit and his supporting cast in the rotation is not as fearsome. Doug Davis had major issues at Coors in his last start, and Yusmeiro Petit serves up home run balls as well as Josh Hamilton's batting practice pitcher. The Diamondbacks as a staff have a 4.25 ERA, tied with the Rockies, but with so many players coming and going, that doesn't mean much.

Four members of the Opening Day bullpen are gone, notably closer Chad Qualls, who is out for the year with a knee injury. His replacement - Juan Gutierrez - has arguably been the best reliever for Arizona this season.

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Juan Gutierrez	3-3	55	0	0	0	3	1	59.1	57	28	27	2	27	55	4.10	1.42

Gutierrez is joined in the pen by lefties Daniel Schlereth and Clay Zavada as well as right handers Blaine Boyer, Bryan Augenstein, Daniel Cabrera, Kevin Mulvey, Leo Rosales and Esmerling Vasquez. Despite the lack of name recognition there, only Vasquez has really been a negative in the pen.

The D: C+

Arizona has been 2nd in MLB in errors for most of the season, and their 111 is no fluke. However, their range is above average, at least by UZR, and they are listed as the 9th most valuable defense on Fangraphs. Parra, Reynolds and Young are graded as weak by UZR, while the rest of the lineup is solid.

Probable Pitchers:

Tonight, 7:10 pm MDT

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Dan Haren	13-8	31	27	3	1	0	0	188.0	147	61	58	22	29	180	2.78	0.94

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Jason Hammel	8-7	27	24	1	0	0	0	137.0	169	75	67	12	34	93	4.40	1.48

One should have expected regression from Haren, whose BABIP against at the ASB was below his playing weight. After allowing more than 3 ER in a start just once in the first half, he allowed 5+ in half of his six August starts, including a game in Philadelphia where he allowed three home runs. So hopefully he's primed to see his numbers fall off against the Rockies, who he's given up just 2 ER in 20 IP this season. Hammel is coming off his best 3-start stretch, allowing 5 ER through those 19 IP. He didn't allow more than 3 ER in his 6 August starts, and the Rockies have won 7 of his last 8 Coors starts. This game could be a lot more competitive than expected. Favors: DIAMONDBACKS moderately

Saturday, September 5, 6:10 pm MDT

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Doug Davis	7-11	28	28	0	0	0	0	169.0	155	79	71	21	87	125	3.78	1.43

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Jose Contreras	5-13	21	21	0	0	0	0	114.2	121	83	69	11	45	89	5.42	1.45

Doug Davis has a nice ERA, but his 4.80 FIP and 5.41 tRA suggest that's not quite as true, not surprising with those HR and BB rates. In the eight starts since allowing eight runs at Coors Field while getting just 7 outs, Davis was touched up for more than 3 runs only once. Arizona won his last start, though he allowed three HR at Dodger Stadium. Jose Contreras will make his Rockies debut. He hasn't started since August 19 yet pitched August 29, when he was lit up at Yankee Stadium. As RockiesMagicNumber wrote Tuesday, the Cuban has been more effective than his ERA would suggest. Note his comparable WHIP to Davis with far less HR allowed. Contreras' issue has been making pitches to strand runners. With a talented defense behind him, he should get better results, in theory. I view this game as the swing game of the series, with the teams favored to spilt the bookend games. That makes Contreras' performance all the more critical. Favors: ROCKIES slightly

Sunsday, September 6, 1:10 MDT

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Yusmeiro Petit	3-8	17	16	0	0	0	0	82.1	93	54	50	17	28	66	5.47	1.47

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Jorge De La Rosa	13-9	27	26	0	0	0	0	154.2	152	84	79	19	65	158	4.60	1.40

The Petit Unit doesn't even deserve the nickname he earned in jest. He nearly no-hit the Pirates, but that was the only time he's gotten into the seventh inning this season. He's allowed 6 ER in 8.0IP covering two starts against the Rockies this year, though in fairness, he's pitching better of late, having allowed just 3 ER in his last three starts, covering 17.0IP. He's a poor match for the Rockies though, given Colorado's strength in hitting for power. The only pitcher in MLB with a higher HR/9 than Petit is the demoted Josh Geer.

My take: Obviously, the Rockies must take this series. The games start with the most difficult to win and end with the most favorable matchups, so if Colorado doesn't come out like gladiators, there's no cause for alarm. Hammel/Haren is an intriguing matchup that the Rockies could possibly win, which would make winning the series all the more probable. I'll project the Rockies to take two.

Justin Upton is en fuego, rapping 13 hits in the last week, three over the wall. Miguel Montero is 8-for-23 over the last week with a HR, and Juan Gutierrez has back-to-back saves, part of a six outing scoreless streak.

Clhris Young has just one single in his last 17 ABs, which...let me check...yes, it does lower his season batting average. But not by much. Mark Reynolds is just 4-for-29 in his last 7 starts, while Gerardo Parra and Brandon Allen have managed only five hits in their past six starts.

Chad Qualls is out with a nasty knee injury he sustained August 30 and will not return this season. Conor Jackson (Valley Fever - 5/12) and Brandon Webb (shoulder - 4/7) are also on the 60-day and have essentially provided no value to the team all year. Eric Byrnes (fractured hand - 6/26), Chris Snyder (lower back - 8/23) and Scott Schoeneweis (depression - 8/10) are on the 15-day. Of the six, only Schoeneweis and Snyder are likely to return this year.

Poll

Are we going to win this series?

Absolutely. Haren is human. We will beat him and ride the momentum to a sweep

49 votes

Yeah, but we can't sweep. Not while facing Haren, having Street and Fowler injured, and throwing the bottom three in the rotation out there.

81 votes

No. Arizona is going to sneak up on us again and win the series

11 votes

Nope. Colorado is not playing well, and the Mets were bad enough to mask it. Sweep.

4 votes

Yes. I'm a Snake fan skewing your poll

8 votes

153 votes | Poll has closed

August Rush: the Diamondbacks Heroes and Villains

Jim McLennan — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:06:05 -0000

More photos » by Gene J. Puskar - AP

Yusmeiro Petit is disappointed to be reminded by Alex Romero of exactly what his spot in the rotation is - near no-hitter or not.

Browse more photos »

I kinda wanted us to have a losing record, simply so I could use the title The Wails of August, but Monday night's comeback ruined that. Curse you, Rusty Ryal. Instead, while it took a late burst to do it, in the shape of a five-game streak, the Diamondbacks posted their second consecutive winning month, going 15-14 in August, to follow up July's record of 14-12. That's not to be under-estimated, because Arizona hadn't enjoyed back-to-back months above .500 since the end of 2007. It was a pretty streaky month: we had our worst losing run of the year, when we dropped seven straight, but also contained a couple of five-game winning spells. [Contrast April, where our longest streak in either direction was only three]

After the break, we'll drill down a bit, to both team and individual performances in pitching and hitting, and see who starred in August and who should be barred.

This was a good month offensively, with the team enjoying their best OPS of the year to date, reaching .791. That was an sOPS+ of 105, ranking them fourth in the National League. We trailed only the Marlins in hits and the Phillies in home-runs - I was amused to note that, in August, the entire Mets roster had only three more home-runs than Reynolds! Of course, we also had more K's than any team bar the Rockies, and our BABIP of .321 was a little above league-average, .306, so a certain element of luck may have been involved.

On the pitching side, the Diamondbacks set right in the middle of the pack, a 4.32 ERA ranking them eighth, and an sOPS+ of 94 was good for seventh. However, this did conceal a significant split between the starters and the bullpen. Despite a 12-9 record, the rotation's ERA was 4.55, up sharply on July's figure of 3.72. The relief corps, on the other hand, had a 3.79 ERA, only fractionally higher on last month's figure of 3.66. This continued their excellent second-half form: since the break, their ERA is 3.47, third-best in the league. We'll see how that is impacted by the loss of Qualls for the rest of the season.

Heroes

Miguel Montero - .326/.367/.543, 3 HR, 18 RBI

Montero continues to produce at a very high level for the position. Among the ninteeen major-league catchers with 60+ at-bats, only Joe Mauer had a better August OPS - no shame being second to him. Montero had eleven doubles in the month, easily the most on the team, and was tied for the lead in extra-base hits with 14. One issue: he has forgotten how to take a walk, with only one in 78 PAs, from July 27-August 22.
Yusmeiro Petit - 28 IP, 27 H, 8 BB, 20 K, 3.54 ERA

August started for Petit with him becoming the Arizona pitcher to come closest to a no-hitter since the Big Unit's perfect game, and he returned the best ERA of anyone in the rotation over the month. The reason is largely due to his HR/9 rate dropping to 1.29, well below his career average of 1.95, and closer to NL average, 1.01. When he keeps the ball in the park, Petit is a decent-plus pitcher.
Mark Reynolds - 277/.370/.660 (1.030 OPS), 11 HR, 21 RBI

It's the first time Special K has had an OPS over a thousand for a full month, and it increased for the sixth straight month. He also had a new career high in home-runs; basically, the difference from July was largely that three hits left the park instead of hitting off the wall for doubles. Oh, and he led the team in stolen-bases, going 4-0 there. Mark is currently on pace to hit 49 homers and steal 27 bases by the end of the year.
Ryan Roberts - .352/.443/.560 (1.004 OPS), 4 HR, 12 RBI

Anyone who wants the 2010 second-base position e.g. Rusty Ryal, Tony Abreu, will have to go through Ryan Roberts to get there. He's staking his claim with a blistering second-half, batting .331 in 137 PAs after the break, mostly in the leadoff spot, and better still since the trade of Felipe Lopez left Roberts as the de facto starter at the position. It's a remarkable turnaround from June, where he hit only .098.
The B-bullpen [Esmerling Vasquez, Blaine Boyer, Juan Gutierrez] - 30.2 IP, 25 H, 10 BB, 19 K, 1.76 ERA

These three get a communal nomination; Vasquez in particular had an excellent month, allowing one run in 10.2 innings of work, for a 0.84 ERA. The trio don't strike out a lot of opposing hitters, with a K/9 of only 5.58, but they didn't allow mant hits either - their WHIP is 1.14. It's a big turn-around from earlier, in the season when their appearance in a game was largely taken as the waving of a white flag.

Villains

Stephen Drew - .229/.284/.419 (.793 OPS), 4 HR, 16 RBI

The much-anticipated second-half surge by Drew pretty much withered and died on the vine in August, though in his defense, a BABIP of only .225 was a significant factor in his disappointing month. While not as bad as April and May, Drew's struggles against left-handers were particularly obvious - in 32 PAs last month, he went 2-for-31 with one walk, and is now hitting only .191 this season against them.
Dan Haren - 40 IP, 42 H, 7 BB, 34 K, 22 ER, 4.95 ERA

The second-half slump was not unexpected for Haren, having been a feature of most seasons in his career. However, it's been much more pronounced in 2009, albeit magnified by the brilliance of his outings before the break. Some is BABIP regressing to the mean, but his walk-rate has jumped up, from 1.11/9 IP in the first half to 1.84 now. Same for home-runs, which have increased from 0.84/9 IP to 1.55.
Chad Qualls - 8.1 IP, 8 H, 2 BB, 11 K, 5 ER, 5.40 ERA

Our closer will certainly not look back kindly on August, ending as it did with him writhing on the ground in pain. But, even putting that aside, it was not a month to remember. He only had six save opportunities. Maybe it was ring-rust; he only got in to nine games, but had just one 'clean' full inning. The nadir was obvious: the three-run pinch-hit homer which cost us the game in San Francisco last week.
Max Scherzer - 32 IP, 39 H, 11 BB, 39 K, 23 ER 6.47 ERA

Max's tank looks basically to have reached empty: this is something of a surprise, as he has only just passed his innings pitched last year [including the AFL], but he had only one quality start in six August attempts. While the strikeouts still happen in quantity - 39 is a career high for him - opponents hit .300 off Scherzer last month. Still, better for him to struggle in a year where we aren't in a pennant race.
Chad Tracy - .262/.304/.308 (.612 OPS), 0 HR, 5 RBI

Grim factoid: In the second half, Tracy has a lower slugging percentage than Alex Romero or Augie Ojeda, and sadly, the chances of the Diamondbacks wanting to exercise their 2010 option for Chad appear to be getting slimmer. Since the start of 2008, his OPS+ is only 76, and that isn't worth $7m. August was his first full month (60+ AB) without a single HR in three years.

Poll

Who was the D-backs' player of the month for August?

Miguel Montero

43 votes

Yusmeiro Petit

4 votes

Mark Reynolds

52 votes

Ryan Roberts

12 votes

The B-Bullpen

16 votes

127 votes | Poll has closed

NL West parks: Advantage offense

Poseidon's Fist — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:09:48 -0000

More photos » by Marcio Jose Sanchez - AP

If you thought AT&T Park was a pitcher's park, you would be wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong. Yer wrong!

Browse more photos »

The NL West has gotten a reputation for utilizing the most pitcher-friendly parks in the league. That reputation might not be so well-deserved. Here's a look at Baseball-Reference's park factors for the NL West stadia. Bold indicates the high mark of the data set, and italics indicate the low mark. Also, instead of showing the batting/pitcher park factor splits, I averaged the two for simplicity of presentation.

West	2009	Multi-year
AT&T Park	103.5	102
Chase Field	108	107
Coors Field	105.5	107
Dodger Stadium	94.5	99.5
PetCo Park	88.5	89
Average	100.0	100.9

Given that 100 is deemed neutral, it is interesting to note that the division's parks are playing at exactly neutral this season in spite of the blatantly manipulative ways of PetCo. Looking at multi-year factors, three parks are strongly on the offensive side (including the two most offensive in the league), while Dodger Stadium has historically been pretty neutral, though it has been acting particularly squirrely this season. How about we compare to the other NL divisions:

Central	2009	Multi-year
Busch Stadium	98	99
Great American Ballpark	104.5	104.5
Miller Park	97.5	100
Minute Maid Park	103	98.5
PNC Park	94.5	95.5
Wrigley Field	103	105
Average	100.1	100.42

East	2009	Multi-year
Citi Field	99.5	99.5
Citizens Bank Park	101.5	102.5
Land Shark Stadium	97	99
Nationals Park	101.5	101.5
Turner Field	101	99
Average	100.1	100.30

Check out the multi-year average among all divisions. The NL West favors offense more than the other two divisions. Granted, Coors Field and Chase Field are the top two offensive parks, which skews the numbers a bit, but PetCo does so in the other direction nearly by itself. The NL West may have a greater range of ballparks than the other divisions by double, but overall it favors pitching no more than the other division.

Naturally, regarding the Rockies only, the picture changes slightly. Eliminating Coors Field from the equation, the Rockies maintain the most pitching-friendly road schedule other than the Diamondbacks.

NL West Report

Arizona (59-72, 4th, W4, 19 GB)

Last Week: 4-2. 1-2 @ Giants. 3-0 vs Astros. After winning just one of eight, the Diamondbacks have won four straight, their best streak since taking five straight at the Mets and Pirates in early August.

Pace: 73-88.

Divisional Change: No change.

This Week: 4 game road series @ Dodgers, 3 game home road series @ Rockies. If Colorado still wants the division title, Arizona could help out a lot by extending their win streak to eight before losing three in a row.

News: Luis Gonzalez has officially retired, and now will have a role as the D-backs' new special advisor. His retirement conference was Saturday.

AZ Snakepit includes a video interview in a game thread this weekend.

Conor Jackson's future with Arizona is in doubt. Jackson went from the Diamondbacks' primary cleanup hitter last season to missing nearly the entire season with Valley Fever. Now, he might be non-tendered at the end of the season, forcing his comeback to come with another team via free agency.

Conor Jackson

#34 / Left Field / Arizona Diamondbacks

Height: 6-2

Weight: 215

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: May 07, 1982

	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG
2009 - Conor Jackson	30	99	8	18	4	0	1	14	11	16	5	0	.182	.264	.253

Script is flipped for D-backs catchers. Miguel Montero has made the most of Chris Snyder's injuries as the new starting catcher for Arizona, which is making Snyder expendable. Look for the Diamondbacks to look for a trade opportunity with Snyder, who received a three-year deal in the offseason.

Chris Snyder's injury forced the club to call up catcher-of-the-future John Hester, who responded by homering in first Major League at-bat.

Transactions: Optioned LHP Daniel Schlereth and OF Trent Oeltjen to AAA Reno. Traded RHP Jon Rauch to Minnesota for a PTBNL. Called up C John Hester and OF Chris Young.

Injuries: Activated OF Justin Upton and placed C Chris Snyder (back inflammation) on 15-day DL. RHP Chad Qualls is day-to-day but might miss the rest of the season with a dislocated knee. He will have an MRI in coming days.

Arizona Diamondbacks Injuries

15-Day

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Eric Byrnes	hand	06/26/2009
Chris Snyder	lower-back	08/23/2009
Scott Schoeneweis	other-excused	08/10/2009

60 Day DL / Out for the season

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Conor Jackson	pneumonia	05/12/2009
Brandon Webb	shoulder	04/07/2009

News on the other three divisional teams after the jump.

Los Angeles (78-53, 1st, W2)

Last Week: 4-2. 2-1 @ Rockies. 2-1 @ Reds. Los Angeles overcame an opening game loss to both series but overcame it both time to win both difficult road series as the Rockies dropped 5 of 6, thereby giving the Dodgersa comfortable cushion in the NL West.

Pace: 96-66.

Divisional Change: Gained three games on COL.

This Week: 4 game home series vs Diamondbacks, 3 game home series vs Padres. LA has an opportunity to add to their lead by beating up on the two divisional teams that have been looking to future season for months.

News: Dodgers Regain Control Of NL West. If you're a masochist, check how TrueBlueLA responded to arguably the biggest storyline in the division.

The Nationals traded former Rockie Ronnie Belliard to the Dodgers

Ronnie Belliard

#10 / Second Base / Los Angeles Dodgers

Height: 5-10

Weight: 215

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Apr 07, 1975

	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	K	SB	CS	AVG	OBP	SLG
2009 - Ronnie Belliard	86	187	26	46	7	1	5	22	14	40	2	0	.246	.296	.374

True Blue LA reacts to the trade.

Belliard is not enough though. LA wants to improve their bench with a power threat, preferably from the left side. Kudos to Dan O'Dowd for scooping up Jason Giambi already, who is 7-for-16 wwith 5 BBs and 2 HRs in 5 games with Colorado Springs.

Peter Gammons doesn't like the Dodgers, citing their third starter and a trade deadline reliever as reasons for being a playoff team:

"If it weren’t for Wolf and the trade for George Sherrill, they would not make the playoffs."

Transactions: Optioned IF Tony Abreu to AAA Albuquerque and called up RHP Vicente Padilla. Acquired IF Ronnie Belliard from Washington for minor league pitcher Luis Garcia and a PTBNL.

Injuries: Transferred Jason Schmidt (shoulder) from the 15-day to 60-day DL. LHP Ohman threw an inning in AAA Aug 26 and could return in mid-September. Hiroki Kuroda threw a successful simulated game Saturday and should return within a couple weeks.

Los Angeles Dodgers Injuries

15-Day

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Will Ohman	shoulder	05/28/2009
Hiroki Kuroda	concussion	08/16/2009

60 Day DL / Out for the season

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Doug Mientkiewicz	shoulder	04/17/2009
Xavier Paul	ankle	05/21/2009
Jason Schmidt	shoulder	08/06/2009
Eric Milton	lower-back	06/28/2009

San Diego (56-76, 5th, L2, 22.5 GB)

Last Week: 4-2. 2-1 @ Braves, 2-1 @ Marlins. The Padres at least did their part in helping Colorado by winning both series against a couple Wild Card hopefuls.

Pace: 69-93.

Divisonal change: None.

This Week: 3 game home series vs. Nationals, 3 game road series @ Dodgers.

News: Jake Peavy is having injury problems for the White Sox in AAA. He took a line drive off his elbow August 24. He then pitched Saturday and left after just 68 pitches with elbow soreness.

In related news, MLB.com's Adam Roseberg writes that the Friars reap Rich-ard rewards of trade. Naturally, Richard went and got lit up for six runs in 2.1 IP against Atlanta after Rosenberg's column. That's the nature of the Padre rotation this year.

Clayton Richard

#41 / Pitcher / San Diego Padres

Height: 6-5

Weight: 240

Bats: L

Throws: L

Born: Sep 12, 1983

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Clayton Richard	3-1	6	6	0	0	0	0	29.1	33	17	17	3	20	22	5.22	1.81

A member of GasLampBall, aptly named plunkeveryone, wrote a fanpost noting that Kevin Kouzmanoff tied franchise record Wednesday. He is now the Padres' all-time leader in HBP with just 35.

Here's a Q&A with outfielder Tony Gwynn Jr, who is the only player in MLB with his unique situation.

Transactions: Recalled RHP Adam Russell, LHP Wade LeBlanc, and OF Drew Macias. Optioned RHP Cesar Carillo to AAA Portland.

Injuries: Placed RHP Mike Adams on the 15-day DL (shoulder) retroactive to Aug 22. Adrian Gonzalez is day-to-day with a sore biceps in his throwing arm but singled in a pinch hit AB last night. Kyle Blanks was set on the 15-day DL Saturday with a strained arch in his right foot. He is in a walking boot and is eligible to return Sept 13. I know how that injury feels. It's bizarre and annoying.

San Diego Padres Injuries

15-Day

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Brian Giles	knee	06/19/2009
Edgar Gonzalez	concussion	07/19/2009
Kyle Blanks	foot	08/29/2009
Mike Adams	shoulder	08/22/2009

60 Day DL / Out for the season

Player	Injury Type	Injury Date
Mark Worrell	elbow	03/27/2009
Cha Seung Baek	forearm	03/30/2009
Shawn Hill	elbow	04/26/2009
Chris Young	shoulder	06/15/2009
Cliff Floyd	shoulder	06/18/2009

San Francisco (72-59, t-2nd, W3, 6 GB in Div, t-1st in WC)

Last Week: 5-2. 0-1 vs Rockies. 2-1 vs Diamondbacks. 3-0 vs Rockies. San Francisco took advantage of the first series of the season that Lincecum, Zito and Cain all pitched in to sweep Colorado and pull even for the wild card lead, a very commendable achievement after the gutpunch they received Monday night.

Pace: 88-74.

Divisional Change: Gained 0.5 in NL West (LAD), gained 3 games in WC (COL).

This Week: 3 game road series @ Phillies, 3 game road series @ Brewers. The Giants earned their way to top of Wild Card Mountain, and they'll have to continue to earn staying there. The Rockies get to face two NL creampuffs at home while SF hits the road to face the World Champs and fading but strong Brewers.

News: Jon Heyman tweets the Giants are interested in Brad Penny, along with the Marlins and Yankees.

John Perotto notes that the Giants are one of two favorites to land favorites to land Penny.

Fans cheer as Kent gets Giant honor, being enshrined in the Giant's Wall of Fame. Said Kent:

"The only place I ever cared about and gave my heart to was San Francisco." - Jeff Kent

The Big Unit is willing to return as reliever. After being on the 60-day DL for since July with a trapezius injury, Randy Johnson would be unable to contribute as a starter unless he had a long rehab assignment. The Unit coming out of the pen is a wild card if ever there was one.

Randy Johnson

#51 / Pitcher / San Francisco Giants

Height: 6-10

Weight: 225

Bats: R

Throws: L

Born: Sep 10, 1963

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009 - Randy Johnson	8-6	17	17	0	0	0	0	91.2	90	51	49	18	31	80	4.81	1.32

The Giants claimed Trevor Hoffman on waivers, though some have specualted it was more to prevent a team like the Rockies from claiming him. Regardless, Hoffman appears to be staying with the Brewers.

Transactions: Optioned Joe Martinez to AAA Fresno. Recalled LHP Alex Hinshaw and IF Ryan Rohlinger.

Injuries: Randy Johnson will throw from 90-100 feet Tuesday or Wednesday - the Big Unit hopes to return this season as a reliever. Rich Aurilia is set to come off the 15-day DL but indications are he won't join the big league club when he does. Bengie Molina has been available to pinch hit and will likely return to the lineup at some point in Philadelphia from his torn right quad. Freddy Sanchez will make a couple rehab starts and then return Sept 2.

San Francisco Giants Injuries

15-Day

Player Injury Type Injury Date

Freddy Sanchez shoulder 08/18/2009

Rich Aurilia ankle 08/12/2009

Andres Torres hamstring 07/31/2009

60 Day DL / Out for the season

Player Injury Type Injury Date

Randy Johnson trapezius 07/06/2009

Noah Lowry ribs 03/27/2009

Kelvin Pichardo shoulder 06/28/2009

Henry Sosa shoulder 08/05/2009

Fantasy Baseball: Juan Gutierrez-New Closer In Arizona??

raygu — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:45:08 -0000

More photos » by David Zalubowski - AP

5 months ago: Arizona Diamondbacks relief pitcher Chad Qualls works against the Colorado Rockies in the ninth inning of Arizona's 11-7 victory in a baseball game in Denver on Saturday, July 4, 2009. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Browse more photos »

After closer Chad Qualls dislocated his kneecap on the last out of the game yesterday, it appears Juan Gutierrez will be the new closer in Arizona for the rest of the year. But I wouldn't count out Mark "Stink" Schlereth's son, Daniel Schlereth.

Here are their stats:

Player	INN	W	ERA	WHIP	K/9	BB/9	G/AO	HR/FB
Gutierrez, Juan SP ARI	56.7	3	4.29	1.46	8.74	4.29	0.7	0.03
Schlereth, Daniel RP ARI	8.3	0	7.56	1.92	11.88	8.64	2.5	0.26

Schlereth has the better K/9and GB/FB percentage, but in a very small sample size. Gutierrez was Qualls set up guy before the injury, so I would assume Gutierrez gets the first shot at closing.

But, it would not surprise me to see Schlereth get a few shots, as he is probably a year away from closing for the Diamondbacks. At AA Mobile this year, Schlereth struck out 38 and walked 15 in 25 2/3 innings, with a 1.07 ERA and a 1.15 WHIP.