Since Marc won't be home to do the recap for awhile, Jim asked for a quick postgame discussion thread. So...here you are.

Ian Kennedy wasn't his usually sharp self, giving up 4 runs. Bryan Shaw gets the loss, wasting John McDonald's game-tying home run in the bottom of the 8th. Chris Young left the game with a right shoulder contusion, Justin Upton did not play, and there's speculation that 2009 1st rounder AJ Pollock may make his MLB debut tomorrow.

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Name: Wade Miley
Age on Opening Day: 24
Salary: $414,000
2011 MLB stats: 8 games, 40.0 IP, 4.50 ERA, 4-2, 25:18 K:BB
2010 MLB stats: N/A

Drafted in the sandwich round in 2008, rookie lefty Wade Miley made an effective debut in 2011 as the Diamondbacks' 5th starter down the stretch. While not possessing the same top of rotation upside as some of the other Diamondbacks pitching prospects, Miley rode a low-90s fastball and ground balls to a 4-2 record with a 4.50 ERA through 7 Major League starts and one relief appearance.

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Hello,

I just wanted to stop by and congratulate you Arizona State football fans on the successful coaching hire of Todd Graham away from Pittsburgh. While I will, of course, be rooting against ASU, both the Pac-12 and the Territorial Cup rivalry are improved by good ASU and U of A teams. Good luck next season and beyond, and I hope the rivalry is as fiery as ever next year!

Signed,

A friendly visiting Wildcat fan

Name: David Hernandez
Age on opening day: 25
Salary: $423,500
2011 stats: 5-3, 3.38 ERA, 77K, 30BB, 69.1 IP, 11 Saves, 23 Holds, 1.139 WHIP, 117 ERA+,
2010 stats: 8-8, 4.31 ERA, 72K, 42BB, 79.1 IP, 2 Saves, 2 Holds, 1.437 WHIP, 97 ERA+

David Hernandez arrived in Arizona during the 2010-2011 offseason as part of the Mark Reynolds trade, and played a pivotal role in strengthening a bullpen that posted an abysmally bad 5.74 ERA in relief during the 2010 season. Though Kam Mickolio, the other return in that trade contributed little to Arizona's NL West-winning 2011, both tangible production along with intangibles such as confidence and stability in the latter innings combine to make that trade, in my mind, a win for Arizona.

Deets, as always, after the jump.

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Still Brewers' lead, both Ian Kennedy and Yovani Gallardo still pitching. Brew Crew just made it 2-0 on a Yuniesky Betancourt triple and Jonathan Lucroy bloop single.

RALLY THREAD!!

Record: 91-66 Pace: 94-68 Change on last season: +27 Magic Number: No

In case you hadn't heard, the Arizona Diamondbacks clinched their 5th NL West title tonight. Joe Saunders pitched 7 strong innings, only giving up 1 earned run on a solo home run by Orlando Cabrera (WHAT?!!??), and the offense rallied to score just enough late to give Matt Cain a rare loss against Arizona. Details after the jump.

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Record: 84-61 Pace: 94-68 Change on last season: +26 Magic Number: 10 Games behind Milwaukee: 0.5

The Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres traded blows tonight, Mat Latos and Daniel Hudson going toe to toe for 7 innings. In the end, another Gibson lineup decision paid off, as Lyle Overbay clutchness ended up being the deciding factor, and Huddy finished the complete game for his 16th win of the year.

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Record: 69-53 Pace: 92-70 Change on last season: +21

It's a shame that SBN doesn't allow formatting in its story titles, otherwise the title of this recap would be: The Roy Halladay Lyle Overbay Show. Seriously. I was all ready to call this "The Roy Halladay Show", until the Dbacks came back to shock the baseball world in the top of the 9th.

Obviously, you've seen the score, so I'm not spoiling anything by telling you upfront that the Diamondbacks won. What's fascinating is not only THAT they did it, but HOW they did it.

Details after the jump!

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Record: 66-53  Pace: 90-72 Change on last season: +19

Fun fact #1: This is actually jinnah ... if you couldn't tell from the title.

Fun fact #2: Before tonight, the only player on the Mets roster I could name was Jason Bay. And, let's face it, that's only because he was a Red Sox.

Fun fact #3: Considering he was pretty much the only Mets player doing anything noteworthy tonight, I don't think I'll bother learning the rest of them. Read on to learn why Jason Bay will be the target of many, many taunts at tomorrow's Snakepitfest 4.2 ... (erm, not just because he's the left fielder).

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Record: 61-49 Pace: 90-72 Change on last season: +19

In the beginning Kevin Towers brought in Nady and Miranda.

And 1B for the Diamondbacks was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the position in the lineup. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the minors.

And God said, Let there be Goldschmidt: and there was Goldschmidt.

And God saw Paul Goldschmidt, and he was good.

I'm trying not to get too excited about Paul Goldschmidt, and, as such, I've booked my ticket to Cooperstown on Southwest, so I can forgo the change fee if he misses out on the Hall of Fame.

That hyperbole out of the way, although Goldy made his debut yesterday, he really announced his arrival tonight, sending a bomb into the left field seats to give the Diamondbacks all the runs they'd need to beat Tim Lincecum and the Giants, because Dan Hudson brought his A-game. Details of the Dbacks' return to first place after the jump.

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In case you've had your head under a rock lately, there's a raging debate going on right now at this site about pitcher performance and how to measure it.

Let's start with an assumption. At the end of the day, "performance" for a pitcher is measured in runs allowed. That's the only stat that actually affects the team. Nobody would give a crap about Yusmeiro Petit's outrageous HR rate if it didn't affect runs.

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(Ed.'s note: Zavada's Moustache is still being held for ransom by pirates or something like that, so jinnah guest wrote the preview this week.)

I know what you’re all thinking - a series preview for the Dodgers? Didn’t we just play them? Yep, we did, a mere two weeks ago at home, where we took two of the three games from them. So I propose we do to them what we unfortunately couldn’t do against the Padres, and go for the sweep. You never know, the Dodgers front office might actually like a bunch of Diamondback fans walking around the stadium with their brooms, considering they can hardly afford to pay their players, much less their custodians.

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As part of the launch event for Pepsi MAX's Field Of Dreams promotion, (details here) Tim and I were invited to interview Diamondbacks outfielder Justin Upton. In case you missed it, that interview can be found here, and it's definitely worth a read. However, although we were only promised time with Justin, we ended up unexpectedly spending a few hours with some other baseball legends as well, and will be posting a couple more transcripts in the weeks ahead. Former Cincinnati Reds shortstop and probable future Hall Of Famer Barry Larkin came in the room towards the end of the Upton interview, and chatted with us for about 20 minutes.

As before, we were joined by Roberto Payne of Bleacher Report.

Barry played shortstop for the Reds between 1986 and 2004, winning the World Series in 1990, the NL MVP award in 1995, 3 Gold Gloves, 9 Silver Sluggers, and appeared in the All Star Game 12 times. He is currently an analyst on ESPN's Baseball Tonight.

He spoke with us about, among other things, young talent, the NL West, pitching, the importance of coaching, and Kirk Gibson.

Click through the jump for a heaping helping of the old skool.

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Back to back games at Chase Field? That was a first. I've never been to Chase Field for a Dbacks double header, but, then again, I'm pretty sure there's never been a double header like this at Chase Field before. Jenna and I have tickets to all All-Star events in row 35 of section 304, but with the sparse crowd, were able to sit in about row 12 of section 303 with soco and mrssoco -- not nearly tickets as nice as Jim's and mrssnakepit's, but among upper deck spots, noticeably better than our actual seats.

Some comments and pictures (lots and lots of lousy pictures... fair warning!!) after the jump. Sorry about the poor quality; my camera's a 5 or so year old point-and-shoot.

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Record: 47-40 Pace: 88-74 Change on last season: +14

Who's afraid of Randy Wolf? If you're a Dbacks fan or player, it's not an unreasonable fear. In his career, Wolf has more wins against the Diamondbacks (10) than almost any other team. (12 vs. the Mets, 10 vs. the Reds) The Dbacks' offense, however, provided some leftover fireworks on July 5th by scoring 7 runs in the first 3 innings. On the heels of yesterday's outburst, apparently, the Dbacks decided to forgo the comeback and go straight to the win. Details after the jump.

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Record: 40-34 Pace: 88-74 Change on last season: +11

The Arizona Diamondbacks took the win tonight in their first game in an AL ballpark in the 2011 season, beating Frenchy and the Kansas City Royals 7-2. Joe Saunders, free from the confines of having to hit for himself, pitched another effective outing, going 7 innings and yielding just 2 runs. Recently-promoted Wily Mo Peña put the "hit" back in "designated hitter" and blasted his first MLB hit since 2008. Peña sent the first pitch of his second plate appearance back in the big leagues into the cheap seats to left center at Kauffman Stadium. Pending the outcome of the Giants-Twins game, the Dbacks are back in first place in the NL West. Details after the jump.

(Update: With the Giants' loss, the Diamondbacks take sole possession of 1st by a half game)

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Note: If numbers make your eyes glaze over, feel free to skip down to the conclusions.

I like the idea of platooning Parra

According to baseball reference, Parra’s career OPS+ against RHP is 110, against LHP is 62. As said above, he would still get 75% of the starts. Willy Mo, or Cowgill, get the other starts. If it’s Willy Mo, you can always put Parra in as a defensive replacement late in the game.

It seems that platooning has gone out of fashion in the big leagues. I grew up a Royals fan in Kansas, and they platooned players all the time. They took a lot of mediocre ballplayers and turned them into a decent L/R platoon team.

by Craig from Az on Jun 15, 2011 9:23 AM MST

"Platooning" generally involves switching certain players in or out of the lineup based on a particular split -- usually involving benching left-handed players against a lefty starter, or righty players against RHPs. That's what we're going to be discussing here.

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Record: 34-29 Pace: 87-75 Change on last year: +9

The Diamondbacks and Pirates engaged in a true pitcher's duel today, and as so often seems to happen, neither offense could accomplish much until both starters had left. Rookie tomahawker Josh Collmenter continued his awesome streak, though the offense came too late to give him the win. Kirk Gibson made a few changes from last night's game; but Melvin Mora continues to singlehandedly attempt to sink this season's ship. (Still on the Rockies' payroll, perhaps?)

Very nice to prevent a Pittsburgh sweep and snap our 3 game losing streak, though. Details after the jump.

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Record: 33-28 Pace: 88-74 Change On Last Season: +9

Fresh off a 2-2 split home series against the Nationals, the Diamondbacks came into Pittsburgh looking to stay competitive with the Giants for the division lead. After an offday of excitement featuring the first day of the MLB draft, (well...excitement for some, anyway) the Dbacks sent their #2 starter to the mound.

How did it go? Find out... above, obviously. Can't you read?

Oh? You want details? Fine. Click through the jump...

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Record: 26-24 Pace: 84-78 Change on last season: +6

Micah Owings pitched 5 solid innings against the team that once drafted him, the Diamondbacks scored enough runs for tacos, and the bullpen held on enough to win. And then, just for good measure, when the bullpen faltered, the offense scored a few runs more.

Details after the jump.

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Record: 15-19 Pace: 71-91 Change on last year: +1

Tim Lincecum took a no-hitter into the 6th inning and Ian Kennedy shut out the Giants for 8 in a total pitcher's duel. Clearly, neither pitcher gave their team a chance to win, because both got a no-decision, despite pitching nearly-identical shutouts. More tales of awesome pitching, or horrific offense, (depending on how you look at it) after the jump.

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Delightful details after the jump.

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Dear Snakepitters, would anybody else like to attend this AFL game? Jenna and I will be in Scottsdale that day (Friday, October 22nd) and were planning on hitting the game. We could possibly make it a Snakepit g2g? Unlike most Fall League games, it starts at 6:35PM, rather than 12:35PM, so people who have to work that day may still be good to go. Last year, we had a Snakepit AFL game get-together and it was a lot of fun, from heckling Buster Posey and Tuffy "The Cat" Gosewisch to Brandon "Nice Strikeout" Allen. Oh yeah, and I will be doing my famous Superfan Susan impression. (But not within earshot of her)

Anyone down?

UPDATE: We will be meeting out in front of the box office at 6PM Friday. I posted my # below in the comments.