Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 20, 2008
Praising the Opposition

The Arizona Diamondbacks made Tom Krasovic of the San Diego Union-New a believer:

They are younger than the Padres, faster than the Padres, seemingly more talented than the Padres.

They have rising stars in center and right field, a young slugging third baseman described by scouts as "stupid strong" and a second baseman who is a Gold Glover and bats third in the lineup.

The Arizona Diamondbacks aren't without flaws -- one pitching injury could prove critical -- but they are a red storm rising east of San Diego. The Padres are among the teams eating their dust.

Tom noted the difference between the outfields of the two teams:

A key to San Diego's two defeats going into today's series finale is that Arizona's outfielders ran down balls that Padres outfielders such as Jim Edmonds and Paul McAnulty couldn't quite grab.

"They have three center fielders," Towers said.

...

In this series alone, Arizona's Young has denied the Padres four extra-base hits by running down flyballs. Three of them were hit by counterpart Edmonds, who isn't covering nearly as much ground.

It's a tough ballpark for pitchers. As a measure of that, consider the DBacks team ERA on the road is 1.94, and at home 3.75. Since 3.75 is a great number for a team over a season, it gives you an idea of just how good a pitching and defensive team Arizona assembled.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:23 AM | Team Evaluation | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Scary stat to go along with their great pitching... their offense has scored in the 1st inning in 7 of their past 13 games. Most teams don't even come close to that kind of 1st inning efficiency. So they're getting an early lead, and have the pitching to keep it.

Posted by: Devon Young at April 20, 2008 01:13 PM
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