October 6, 2007
The pitching match-up for game 3 of the National League Divisional Series definitely favored the Chicago Cubs. It’s not that I had no confidence in Livan Hernandez. No wait, it is that I had no confidence in Livan Hernandez. Livan Hernandez is like the Diamondbacks personal Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. You never quite know what you are going to get from a Livo outing on the mound. Will it be the guy who was the most valuable player from the 1997 Florida Marlins World Series team or will it be the guy that couldn’t find the strike zone with a GPS? Lately it has been more of the latter than the former and that scared me just a little. My theory was that the Diamondbacks would need to score early and score often if they hoped to have any chance at winning this game.
Continue reading ‘Taming the Friendly Confines’ »
October 5, 2007
I never quite could understand the scheduling of the baseball play-offs. How is it that teams are expected to play a full month of baseball during the regular season with perhaps two or three days off for the entire month yet when the post season comes there must be a travel day between cities to give the players a rest? When a team has the momentum like the Diamondbacks do, about the last thing they want to do is have an off day. I’m sure most of these guys would much prefer getting back on the field to try and finish this series out. As you can probably surmise I am not much of a fan of the travel day. I’m not much of a fan of any day that doesn’t have a Diamondbacks game scheduled. I’m probably one of the few people in America that think 162 games in a season is too short. It’s not that I don’t believe the players deserve a day off, I think everyone is entitled to a day of rest. But there are 25 guys on the roster so you almost have enough players for three teams. Just give some of the other guys a chance to play. From the looks of the Chicago Cubs during the first two games of this series it might not be such a bad idea to let someone else play since the starters from Game 1 and Game 2 didn’t do much.
Continue reading ‘Travelling Day’ »
October 4, 2007
From the moment that the Arizona Diamondbacks clinched a play-off berth all the talk outside of Arizona was how quickly the Diamondbacks would be eliminated. There was no way a team as young as this one could possibly do well in the post season. Arizona had no business being in the play-offs. They had no experience and their run differential statistics showed that this team was overachieving. It was only a matter of time before these young kids would wake up and realize that they weren’t that good. When the Colorado Rockies became the Wild Card team the Diamondbacks were christened the least likely team to be in the play-offs. That statement resonated throughout the airwaves on radio stations, television, and the printed media. It didn’t seem to matter that this team had the best record in the National League that had to be just a fluke. But not only were the Diamondbacks players being disrespected, so were their fans.
Continue reading ‘Game On Cubs Fans’ »
October 3, 2007
Post season baseball is just so different than during the regular season. That statement confuses a lot of people who do not follow baseball. How can the game be different? It is the same rules and mostly the same players. It doesn’t make sense that it would be different. Some of the difference may be the impending doom of the play-offs. Every decision and every juncture within the game takes on greater importance and is magnified. During the regular season if you happen to make a mistake there is always tomorrow. You just brush yourself off, shrug off the mistake and move on as if it didn’t happen. With a 162-game schedule it is easy and often times advantageous to think that way. In the play-offs the number of tomorrows is greatly condensed making each play seem like it is the most important thing in the world. This importance gets even greater as a series goes on. Prior to tonight’s game the pressure was spread evenly. With the Diamondbacks taking game 1 the pressure increases on the Cubs. They do not want to go back to Chicago facing an elimination game so each play in tomorrow night’s game will be magnified as to whether it helps or hurts the Cubs chances. It’s not just the on the field action that is different between the regular season and the post season. There are differences outside the foul lines as well. Take tonight for example.
Continue reading ‘Regular Season vs. Post Season’ »
October 2, 2007
For the past month the Arizona Diamondbacks like all other teams in Major League Baseball have had the luxury of playing with an expanded roster after the September call-ups. The expanded roster is an interesting concept. For the first 5 months of the season baseball plays with a set of rules that state that a team may have only 25 active players on their roster. Beginning on September 1 the rules change and teams can have up to 40 players available on their active roster. It always struck me as strange that baseball would change the rules when the games matter the most. Adding to the confusion is the fact that once a team enters the post season the rules revert back to allowing only 25 active players on the roster. Teams are required to submit their rosters prior to the first game and this roster remains in effect until that round of the play-offs have completed. A team has the opportunity to change their roster prior to the beginning of each round of the play-offs. For the Arizona Diamondbacks, they must decide which players to identify on their active roster by 10 AM Wednesday October 3. The question becomes, who should the Diamondbacks have active for the five game series with the Chicago Cubs?
Continue reading ‘Just Set It and Forget It’ »
October 1, 2007
For the first time since 2002 the Arizona Diamondbacks find themselves as one of eight play-off teams. A few things have changed since the last time the Diamondbacks played meaningful baseball in October. One of those changes was the introduction of Rally Monday by Major League Baseball. What exactly is “Rally Monday”? It sounds an awful lot like a cross between a rally monkey and Rally Sally which is a pretty scary thought if you ask me. It’s like baseball’s version of the H.G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau. For those of you who may have missed this classic and the later two pathetic attempts of making this into a movie (how could it go wrong when you have a movie starring Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer?) let me explain the plot. A man becomes shipwrecked on an island where he finds a mad scientist who is experimenting with men and animals playing God by turning them into monstrosities of living creatures. I can just see Rally Sally leading the other humanimals in a revolt by waving her flags as the creatures scream, “WHAT IS THE LAW!” Fortunately that is not what Rally Monday is. At least that is not what Rally Monday is while the sun is up. During the witching hours under the watch of a full moon things are not always as they appear. So the question remains, what exactly is Rally Monday?
Continue reading ‘Rally Monday’ »
