If I had realized on Friday, when the monthly email from the Jim comes to confirm my recap duties, that Yusmeiro Petit would be starting today I probably would have tried to find a way to squirm out of it.  No offense to Mr. Petit, but not since Russ Ortiz donned the turquoise, copper, black and purple have I been less excited by a Diamondback starter taking the mound.  No wait, that's a lie - I do hope he takes offense.  At least it means he's reading - or more likely, Miguel Montero is reading and translating it to him.  If that is the case than I would like to interrupt this recap for a moment to officially put my thing down, flip it and el chacarron it.  I heart you, Miggy... even with the Johnny Unitas hair cut.

But back to baseball, I can't quite describe the gut punch in store for me when I came home, fired up the DVR and instead of getting to see an always intriguing Max Scherzer start I was graced with Yusmeiro's presence.  And then imagine my shock as Petit went on to pitch his best game of the season, by a significant margin no less.

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"I missed it, it's a play I should have made."
Are you kidding me?

"I just missed it," he repeated. "It's my fault."
No really, are you kidding me?!?

It's official, we've run out of ways to say that we've run out ways to describe this team's knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Nevertheless, without further adieu...

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You knew the winning streak would have to end some time.  After a 6-2 loss at the hands of Josh Outman the more cynical fans might say call this a return to the normalcy of a losing team.  Sure, they have a good chance of being right, but the biggest thing to take from this game is that, for the first time in a long time, you can shrug your shoulders and proclaim with confidence that it's just one game in a long season.  Lady luck can be a cruel mistress and today, for reasons only she knows, she simply wan't on the Diamondbacks side.  In other words, the story here is that there is no story. 

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Record: 7-11. Pace: 63-99. Change on last season: -6

In case you didn't hear, today's game *spoiler alert* went to extra innings *end spoiler alert*.  I bring it up now to apologize for my brevity in the recap because the extra time forced me to shelve my ambitious plans to Auto-tune the Diamondbacks Broadcast. Yeah, that's the reason I didn't do it… *spoiler alert*extra innings*end spoiler alert*… the reason...

First things first: here at the Snakepit we firmly believe in writing each recap the right way.  We like to think that we do the little things right.   We never take an inning off.  We'll even lean into one every now and then to get on base.  Occasionally that desire to inform comes into conflict with the fact that for the first seven innings this game just wasn't very fun to watch.  I love me a good pitcher's duel, but as any NL West fan can tell you, when the Giants and Diamondbacks combine to score two runs over seven innings, odds are that "good pitching" isn't the only reason.

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Record: 30-25. Pace: 89-73. Change on last season: -2

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:  That one hurt. In the first two games, we were never really in them, so the defeat was more inevitable than anything too disturbing or shocking. This one, however, was looking pretty good into the seventh inning, as we kept the game even, and Micah Owings continued to make his case for being the best number three starter in the continental U.S.  (take that Shaun Marcum – USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!).  But then it got worse…

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if the front six innings were stellar baseball.  But I was honestly beginning to geek myself up with the hope that my first ever Snakepit recap would be about the Diamondbacks finally snapping their four-game losing streak.  The defense may have been a bit shaky:  in the second inning Chris Young misplayed a shallow pop-up into a single that turned into one of two runs and four innings later Orlando Hudson joined him by botching two ground balls that allowed Christan Guzman to score on a sac fly.  The offense may have underwhelmed us: in the fifth inning they managed to load the bases with one out and score only one run – over all they managed two solo home runs, four singles, five walks and only four runs.  But by god, this game had promise.

The offense and defense were only supposed to be footnotes in this recap, because for six innings Micah was outstanding.  Owings started off the game allowing only five hits (three of which should have been outs), no walks, six strikeouts and one hit batsmen.  He announced his presence with authority as he attacked the strike zone throwing only 66 pitches through the first six innings.  With the bat in his hand he finally broke his out of his 0-11 slide as he drew a walk and contributed a rally-extending single.  The stars looked to be aligning themselves to give this team an emotional victory off of a dominant starting pitching performance and just enough offense.  Then the seventh inning came and the wheels fell off for Owings…

After inducing a fly-out, Owings hit his second batter of the game.  Another single put runners on and first and second and returned doubt to the newly tied game.  Then, in a feat of game-altering improbability not seen since July 24, 2005, Wee Willie Harris hit a three-run home run to blow the game open and assure all the Diamondbacks fans watching that no, this would not be the night the streak comes to an end.  Ladies and gentleman that is not a typo.  Willie Harris, he with the career OPS+ of 68, he with the .169/.300/.305 batting line coming into tonight’s game, and he with all of eight home runs in 1302 career at bats took Micah Owings long with a three run homer that put the final dagger into this team’s heart.

If you continued watching the game after that point, I commend you, but I wouldn’t blame you if you turned the t.v. off.  Nevertheless, there were at least some positives.  Tracy got a couple hits and his first home run of the season, Hudson continues his offensive tear and Scherzer pitched a dominant inning and two-thirds before struggling some.  While the team was only down two runs in the bottom of the ninth, one could not help but get the feeling that Melvin was already conceding the game.  In that inning Max allowed a walk, a ground out, a single and another walk to load the bases.  37 pitches had been thrown, but there was nary a rustle to be heard from the left field bullpen.  While Scherzer managed to work out of the inning allowing only one run (his first run allowed as a reliever this season), the fight was gone as the team went down in order in the ninth.

The positives are becoming harder to find and I know that there are many that went to jump of the bus, but I just want to remind you that it could be worse.  Specifically, we could have last year’s offense.  This team’s  107 OPS+ is thirteen points higher than last year’s 93 OPS+.  Moreover, as hard as it may be to believe, this team has still been rather fortuitous hitting with runners in scoring position; the team’s OPS is 14 percent higher with RISP than with base empty.  Hard as it may be to believe at the moment, this team can and will score more runs. 

The true difference between this year and last is luck.  As Jim has noted, this team has yet to win a game scoring three runs or less.  In 2007, we won 16 such games.  That was with a worse pitching staff and a defense that was only marginally better.  I know it was cliché here last year to bag on the predictive powers of Pythagoras, but what we’re looking at here is good old-fashioned regression to the mean.  The 2007 Diamondbacks that "just knew how to win" were a fluke.  If we want to do the same this year we’ll have to it the old fashioned way – by hitting more and allowing fewer runs.  Hopefully, that comes sooner rather than later.

Of course, when you combine a lackluster game with a Friday night the net result is one of the shorter Gameday threads of the season.  I'll leave it to Jim to fill out the names, but there wasn't much of conversation of interest to be found.  Tomorrow sees us send Brandon Webb (9-2, 3.01) to the mound to face Jason Bergman (1-1 4.50).  Normally this would be seen as a dawn's first ray of hope, but I have to admit that it's even getting difficult for me to get all that enthused.  If you are going to the game (and why wouldn't you?) remember that it's a 5:10 start.  You'll also be able to see the first use of the new Chase Field weekend roof management plan.  Apparently they plan to close the roof for the beginning of the game and open it three innings later once the sun has gone down.  It seems like a reasonable compromise to fight the hot, desert sun, but more importantly, who doesn't enjoy watching the roof open and close?  At the very least, it will provide a nice distraction from the performance on the field.

[Click to enlarge in new window]
Master of his domain: Chad Tracy, +13.8%
Honorable Mention: Orlando Hudson, +12.1%
God-emperor of suck: Micah Owings, -47.3%
Dishonorable mention: Conor Jackson, -14.1%

You know it's a bad evening in the Gameday Thread when even 'skins can't reach 100 posts. :-) Harris's homer basically turned the faucet off on everyone's interest, mine included, and what was looking fairly robust at that point, rapidly gurgled down the plughole of forgettability. Thanks to those who took part: we deserve better than this team, folks. Present were unnamedDBacksfan, snakecharmer, dahlian, DbacksSkins, foulpole, srdmad, IndyDBack, emilylovesthedbacks [welcome!], RAMJB [officially warned, after a number of comments teetering towards trollishness], Muu, kishi, TwinnerA and  soco.

Thanks also to dahlian for the recap; you'll notice from the footer that he has now formally joined the rotation, giving him the ability to...well, I'm not quite sure what it lets him do. I think post stuff on the front-page mostly. Welcome, anyway!

I brought up this topic a bit in yesterday's gameday thread, but I just wanted to make another post fleshing the details out a bit when I talk about what the Diamondbacks could learn from their philosophy.

First of all, to cut out the chorus of knee jerk responses, this isn't a bullpen by committee.  The A's have a set closer in Huston Street who is their best pitcher.  They use him in the most important situations.  The biggest difference is that they have an organizational philosophy that all of their players can recite about what a "save" is to their team.

I first noticed then when I was watching a post game interview with Eric Chavez.  He said something to the effect of " We had the lead going into the 8th inning when the 3,4,5 hitters were coming  up so that was the save."

Don't you see the elegance in this approach?  I think even Foulpole would agree that saves are a wonky stat - all saves are valued the same whether it's a one-run lead a three-run lead or if you're facing the bottom of the order compared to the bottom of the order.  If you save your closer for strict "save" situations, most of the time that means they won't be used in the situations with the highest leverage.  Also, the great thing about this approach that many "sabr" bullpen approaches lack is that it still provides that routine and predictability that most relievers cite as an important facet of success.  You can see the "save" coming from an inning away and you aren't forced to have your number one reliever constantly get up and down adding to their fatigue.

As a young organization with a strong farm system, it wouldn't be that hard to implement this philosophy.  Lyon, too, should be able to adjust to this approach given that it was less than a year ago that he filled that eighth inning role.  We shouldn't be losing these close games with our best reliever never getting off the bench.

A few days ago I was wondering if there was a reason for the Diamondbacks' dominance of the NL West that goes above and beyond simply pointing to the weakness of the rest of the division.  One of the things that came was the adjustment period that broadcasters always bring up when teams face new pitcher.  My thought was that for a young offense such as this one, they would have a faster learning curve again the pitchers in their division than they would against the out of division pitchers that they rarely see.

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The Diamondbacks are young and good and seemingly getting better. In charge of keeping that happening is director of scouting Tom Allison, who takes some time between scouting two games to talk with Will Carroll. Allison discusses some of his more notable picks, like the recently-promoted Max Scherzer and last year's #1 pick Jarrod Parker, as well as the philosophy that the D'backs use in selecting and developing talent.

Find it here.

I haven't listened to it yet, but I'm told it's very good.

/Kornheiser 

In case anyone was looking for new sign material at this weekend's series.

"St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Rick Ankiel, baseball's feel-good story of the season, received a 12-month supply of human growth hormone in 2004 from a Florida pharmacy that was part of a national illegal prescription drug-distribution operation, the Daily News has learned."

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/2007/09/06/2007-09-06_ankiel_received_12month_supply_of_h gh_ne.html

I know it's not at all DBacks related but I was just listening to Vin Scully's ninth inning call of Sandy Koufax's no-hitter.  Thought that may be something that you people here would get a kick out of.

http://www.doubledogmusic.com/baseball/Scully_Koufax_Perfect.mp3

"29,000 fans, and a million butterflies..." - gets me every time.

I'm sure by now we've all seen the highlights of tonight's games.  The one thing that bothered me and my friend about tonight's game is how poor a job they did of hyping the achievement.  I'm sure there's a bit of a buzkill from the fact that Clemens will soon be returning to the majors that has led to this not receiving the coverage it otherwise would.  Nevertheless,I consider myself to be a pretty knowledgeable, I read a few blogs, check out most hot topics at BTF and watch virtually every telecast and it wasn't until the billboard lit up marking the occasion that I realized that it was finally tonight that he had broke Clemens' mark.  A few inning earlier I had even made the comment to my friend that it was a bummer that they no longer had the RJ strikeout scoreboard up in left because I knew that he was coming up on a milestone.  I just had no idea he was that close.

Was I just grossly ignorant in this instance or was there an almost negligent downplaying of this historic event by the team and local sports media?

P.S. Don't even get me started on the refusal of the stadium people to show a replay of Lyon's tag at third.  Thankfully, our tickets were about 20 rows up right by third base we got to see it as it was happening.  It just would have been nice had they given the fans the opportunity to see such an instrumental (and unusual) play a second time.  They didn't even give it defensive play of the game honors during their post game video recap.

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060822&content_id=1623233&vkey=news_mlb &fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

No details given, excepts that a minor leaguer is involved and it's needing commisioner aproval which means a sizable chunk of change is involved.  But really, does it matter?  Green is gone!!!11oneone!

Hopefully Robert S. will finally step down from the ledge.

He's gone, it's like Christmas in April: http://arizona.diamondbacks.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060424&content_id=1416815& amp;vkey=news_ari&fext=.jsp&c_id=ari

I don't have much to add above and beyond what I posted on Primer.  Suffice it to say, I think we can all agree that this is a good thing for the team.  But also interesting are its implications about the level of control Byrnes has over the team.  For now I believe this to be a good thing, but does anyone here have potential worries about a single GM with too much sway in the organization.  Questions to ponder.

And a note for those who do read my Primer post: yes I strongly dislike Ortiz, no I wouldn't intentionally run over him with my car as some people have taken that post to mean.

Josh Byrnes has a 7 minute or so interview on today's Baseball Prospectus radio.  The Podcast RSS feed can be found here: http://baseballprospectus.com/rss/bpr_podcast.xml

It's a fairly standard interview, touching on all the topics you would expect (offseason trades, top prospects, injuries, bullpen &c.) without going into a great amount of detail with any of them.  One interesting topic they bring up was the effect of Ken Krenshaw's (sic?) signing as trainer, a man who I believe Will Carrol has deep, unrequited feelings for that don't necessarily come through in this interview.