Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
July 03, 2008
Little Mistakes, Big Loss

The Diamondbacks fell to the Brewers Wednesday night by a score of 4-3. Base running mistakes early may have cost them the game:

But those were outweighed by the ugly moments. Take the first three innings, in which the Diamondbacks racked up seven hits but scored only two runs against Brewers starter Seth McClung.

"We didn't take advantage of a lot of opportunities," manager Bob Melvin said. "We had a lot of hits early on, good at-bats, we just couldn't push across a crooked number or a couple of guys at a time."

Part of the problem was that they ran into a pair of outs on the bases. In the first, Stephen Drew was thrown out while trying to stretch a double into a triple. An inning later, third-base coach Chip Hale gambled when he sent Young home after a ball kicked off the glove of Brewers second baseman Craig Counsell. But Counsell recovered and fired home to nail Young easily.

Drew and Upton

Stephen Drew and Justin Upton in happier times.
Photo: Icon SMI

The lack of offense hurt an otherwise fine first start of the season by Yusmeiro Petit. He allowed just one run over six innings on two hits, but the bullpen could not hold a 2-1 lead.

The Diamondbacks are in quite a prolonged slump. They have not won three games in a row since May 16 but are still leading the division despite slipping one game under .500.

Worst Records, May 17 - July 2, 2008
TeamRecordWPct
Diamondbacks15-28.349
Indians15-28.349
Nationals16-27.372
Astros16-26.381
Padres17-26.395

The starters have a 4.31 ERA in that time, but it looks like in many games they pitched well enough to win. The pen, although a culprit in last night's game, has a 3.84 ERA during the period.

The offense is making the biggest difference, however. Before the slump, the Diamondbacks were scoring 5.44 per game, 2nd in the NL and the majors. Starting May 17th, Arizona is only putting up runs at a rate of 3.47 per game, third worst in the majors and the NL. As you can see here, there are a number of below .300 OBAs on the team during this period, including what should be three big bats for them, Upton, Young and Drew.

With the Dodgers defeating the Astros 4-1 Wednesday night, the Diamondbacks lead in the NL West is down to 1 1/2 games.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:10 AM | Games | TrackBack (0)
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