Long night in San Diego

And, a couple days later, we're back to second.

Again, I didn't get to watch the game tonight, but I listened to a lot of it on the radio. The entire evening seemed to have a sense of inevitability- even when we got our breaks, like a tying run in the ninth, I just couldn't shake the feeling that we were going to miss an opportunity and end up dropping the game. Brandon Webb didn't seem to be on top of his game, and we just weren't connecting with the ball. When you only get 8 hits to the other team's 20, it's not surprising if you don't win it. Plus we ran out a hefty portion of our bullpen- it's frustrating, knowing that tomorrow, they'll be looking at a short roster of pitchers, and thinking we didn't even get the win for it.

But, on the other hand, some bright spots. Our pitching had nine innings of scoreless ball, keeping the Padres from scoring in the sixth through fourteenth innings. If we could have only made those the opening nine, we would be having a different conversation. Really, though, the bullpen did a good job keeping the game close, and the 9th inning RBI was nice, particularly since it was off Hoffman. I feel any time you can rattle a team's closer, even if you don't win in the end, it's still a victory of sorts. Meanwhile, Troy Glaus got his seventh home run, tying for the lead of the NL. And Eric Gagne has managed to earn a two game suspension even before he's off the DL. Way to go, man. I always knew you were class.


Fact of the Day: Shea Hillenbrand is batting .396 in Toronto.
"Fact" of the Day: That's .396 Canadian. With the conversion, that's only .315 American. I can't find a conversion ratio for Canadian to National League.

Stat nerdery

My friends are nerds. I am too, but I am, at times, a sports nerd. I have a friend who is rather anti-sports, and he once questioned me about that, generally claiming it was an impossibility. Oncer I got him to understand a fraction of the stats available for a sport like baseball, he stopped questioning it. Or he stopped for fear I'd toss more statistics at him. One way or the other.

I think baseball, more than almost any other sport, is ideal for the sports nerd. At 162 games in a season, it offers a much larger sample to base statistics off of, and the situation isn't quite as variable as in other sports. A batter is always going to be facing a pitcher with nine guys in the field, and once the ball is in play, that's the play that's going to happen. There's no fast break where he's suddenly hitting to a three man infield. He's not called back to bat again because the runner started towards home too early. It all happens in the play. It's somewhat more simple, less chaotic, than in most popular sports.

Anyway, the whole point of this post came about to today when I was reading a post over at Random Fandom. The point was made that the Diamondbacks have given up more runs this year than they've scored, 105 to 100, and are still six games over .500. I pointed out that if you scratch out Opening Day and the series where the Nationals swept us (combined scores of 37 to 15) we're ahead by 85 to 68. But the theory is suspect, since you can't pick and choose games, etc. So, I decided to look at the numbers a little deeper.

First off, one of the encouraging things, I think, is the offensive production. Win or lose, we're averaging about four and a half runs a game. Where we seem to be having a bit more of a problem is in our pitching. When we win? The other team is averaging 2.78 runs. In a loss? They're pulling in 8.625 runs on average. Even taking out the blowout of Opening Day, they still average over seven and a half. An interesting skew.

But if the pitching keeps us in the game, we've got a good chance. When we hold the opposing team to five runs or fewer, we have a fairly nice 13-2 record, the only two losses being at Washington (5-3) and at San Francisco (4-3). When we let them get six runs or more, though, we're a dismal 1-6, the only exception being an 8-6 victory over the Padres.

So, what does it mean? It's somewhat encouraging, I think. Past few years, we've been scraping wins together, it seems, and only winning with either an exceptional pitching performance, or a stellar offensive explosion. So far, though, we've been able to hold it together, as long as the pitching keeps us in the game. If we can keep this up, we'll have a good season ahead.

But it's that "if" that is the point. What this all really means is not much. The season could, and probably will, shake out much more differently than what the numbers over 20+ games show us. But that's what makes the game interesting.

As a sidenote, I'm annoyed with the Arizona Republic. For the past few games, they've said that the Diamondbacks games ended too late for them to report on it. This includes Wednesday night's game, which, according to the official time, ended around a quarter after 10. Yet, we've got a front page report on the Suns playoff win. When did they finish? About five after 10. Was that ten minutes really such a major difference?

Remember what first place feels like?

A sweep of the Dodgers later, and we're in first place. My mom and I discussed this very possibility three games ago, and came to the conclusion- it's possible, but not likely. And now, a few days later, we're at that surprising turn of events. I admit, I was going to be happy taking 2 out of 3, but a sweep? In Los Angeles? Definitely a nice turn of events, and could be a nice morale boost when the Dodgers come back to Bank One in a month.

Work once again made it so I couldn't watch the game, but I listened to some of it and kept track through the ESPN gametracker or whatever. Pretty solid baseball from what I saw- which, granted, wasn't much. I was a bit surprised to see them moving Clayton down to the 8th spot but given the number of times I remember seeing him come to bat, and then getting annoyed at him, I suppose I should be happier. He's only batting .233, which isn't going to do it when Counsell's got an OBP of .425. Maybe he'll end up more comfortable there. But, all in all, they're looking good.

Our boys have an off day on Thursday, then head down to San Diego for a three game weekend series. We just swept the Padres in Phoenix before we went to LA. If we can take at least a couple there, we'll have some pretty nice momentum going. The opener is projected to be another battle between Brandon Webb and Jake Peavy, so not a good day to be a slugger. But Brandon's been excellent thus far, and I have hopes that he can shut down the Padres again.

Early season report

This is going to be my forum for random and potentially unnecessary comments on the Diamondbacks this season. I've been a baseball fan since I was little, following at first the Cubs, then the Rockies for a bit, and cheering for the Diamondbacks from their first game. As much as I do like other teams, the D-backs are my favorite. I've followed them closer than any other baseball team, so I'm more attached. While I did enjoy the 2001 World Series (who doesn't love seeing the Yankees lose? If you said "I don't," then you should probably read something else) I also did suffer through the 2003 and 2004 seasons. And suffer I did. You don't leave in the seventh inning, no matter how many runs you're down. If you do, you miss things like seeing Mark Grace pitch an inning.

So, check in sporadically. We're almost a month in to the season, have a record of 13-8, and a win tonight puts us in first place for- what, two years or so? Not bad for a team that only won 51 games last year. We've already passed a quarter of our wins this season. We're producing some runs, starting pitching seems pretty solid, and Brandon Lyons looks like he might be the closer we hoped Kim and Mantei were going to be. All in all, a promising first month of the season.