azdad1978
Championship!!!!
By Scott Bordow, Tribune Columnist
Three games down, 159 to go. First impressions of your Arizona Diamondbacks:
• Good defense doesn’t show up in a box score but it will win the Diamondbacks several games this year.
Shortstop Royce Clayton secured Tuesday’s 5-4 win over the Chicago Cubs in the ninth inning by stretching out and gloving Neifi Perez’s grounder before it rolled into center field and scored the game-tying run.
Clayton and second baseman Craig Counsell form the best double-play combination in franchise history, and they’ve quickly become the pitching staff’s best friends.
Expect Brandon Webb in particular to benefit from the improved infield defense. Webb walked a major-league high 119 batters last season in part because he had so little confidence in his infield defense he was afraid to throw strikes.
"Brandon is a guy that needs to force contact. In a perfect world that’s his game," said Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin. "When you’re putting the ball in play and you turn around and think it’s going to be a double-play ball and all of a sudden it’s first and third you start to pitch away from contact a little bit."
• Luis Gonzalez is poised to have his best power year since 2001, when he had 57 homers and 142 RBIs.
Gonzalez is able to extend his arms when he swings — something he couldn’t do all of last season because of the torn ligament in his right elbow.
"I lost all my power," Gonzalez said. "They were pitching me away and I couldn’t hit it. But with the situation we had here I tried to run out there every day anyway. Everything suffered, my arm, my numbers."
Gonzalez also will see more fastballs this year because Troy Glaus and Shawn Green follow him in the batting order.
• Melvin said he will rotate catchers Koyie Hill and Chris Snyder, but don’t be surprised to see Snyder emerge as the starter because of his defensive skills.
Melvin compared Snyder to San Francisco Giants catcher Mike Matheny, who is considered the gold standard for defense.
• Clayton is a terrific defensive player but — with the exception of his bunting skills — he’s not a prototypical No. 2 hitter.
If the Diamondbacks want to better set up their Killer G’s — Gonzalez, Glaus and Green — Chad Tracy should bat second.
He’ll hit for a high average, he won’t strike out much, and as a left-handed batter will be able to pull the ball through the right side of the infield should Counsell be on base.
• Fans have yet to buy into the Diamondbacks’ offseason moves.
The crowd of 26,789 at Wednesday’s game was the smallest ever to see a Diamondbacks-Cubs contest at Bank One Ballpark.
Arizona was 7-11 last year when Chicago came to town in late April, yet crowds for the three-game series were 33,564, 33,781 and 34,761.
In addition, only 18 times last year — in the midst of a 51-111 season — did Arizona draw fewer than 27,000 fans.
It’ll be interesting to see what attendance will be like without the thousands of Cubs fans in the ballpark.
• Melvin made two moves in the three-game series that speak to his skill as a manager.
On opening day he used Brad Halsey for four innings rather than exhaust the rest of his bullpen in the 16-6 loss.
Sometimes, a manager needs to sacrifice today for tomorrow, and Melvin understands that. On Tuesday, he benched Counsell rather than Clayton in a double-switch in the eighth inning because he didn’t want to lose Clayton’s glove. It was a risky decision, sacrificing his leadoff hitter, because the Cubs could have sent the game into extra innings by driving home the runner on second.
But the move paid off when Clayton snared Perez’s grounder to end the game. Melvin was widely considered to be the brains behind Bob Brenly’s intuition in 2001. Now we know why.
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=39195
Three games down, 159 to go. First impressions of your Arizona Diamondbacks:
• Good defense doesn’t show up in a box score but it will win the Diamondbacks several games this year.
Shortstop Royce Clayton secured Tuesday’s 5-4 win over the Chicago Cubs in the ninth inning by stretching out and gloving Neifi Perez’s grounder before it rolled into center field and scored the game-tying run.
Clayton and second baseman Craig Counsell form the best double-play combination in franchise history, and they’ve quickly become the pitching staff’s best friends.
Expect Brandon Webb in particular to benefit from the improved infield defense. Webb walked a major-league high 119 batters last season in part because he had so little confidence in his infield defense he was afraid to throw strikes.
"Brandon is a guy that needs to force contact. In a perfect world that’s his game," said Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin. "When you’re putting the ball in play and you turn around and think it’s going to be a double-play ball and all of a sudden it’s first and third you start to pitch away from contact a little bit."
• Luis Gonzalez is poised to have his best power year since 2001, when he had 57 homers and 142 RBIs.
Gonzalez is able to extend his arms when he swings — something he couldn’t do all of last season because of the torn ligament in his right elbow.
"I lost all my power," Gonzalez said. "They were pitching me away and I couldn’t hit it. But with the situation we had here I tried to run out there every day anyway. Everything suffered, my arm, my numbers."
Gonzalez also will see more fastballs this year because Troy Glaus and Shawn Green follow him in the batting order.
• Melvin said he will rotate catchers Koyie Hill and Chris Snyder, but don’t be surprised to see Snyder emerge as the starter because of his defensive skills.
Melvin compared Snyder to San Francisco Giants catcher Mike Matheny, who is considered the gold standard for defense.
• Clayton is a terrific defensive player but — with the exception of his bunting skills — he’s not a prototypical No. 2 hitter.
If the Diamondbacks want to better set up their Killer G’s — Gonzalez, Glaus and Green — Chad Tracy should bat second.
He’ll hit for a high average, he won’t strike out much, and as a left-handed batter will be able to pull the ball through the right side of the infield should Counsell be on base.
• Fans have yet to buy into the Diamondbacks’ offseason moves.
The crowd of 26,789 at Wednesday’s game was the smallest ever to see a Diamondbacks-Cubs contest at Bank One Ballpark.
Arizona was 7-11 last year when Chicago came to town in late April, yet crowds for the three-game series were 33,564, 33,781 and 34,761.
In addition, only 18 times last year — in the midst of a 51-111 season — did Arizona draw fewer than 27,000 fans.
It’ll be interesting to see what attendance will be like without the thousands of Cubs fans in the ballpark.
• Melvin made two moves in the three-game series that speak to his skill as a manager.
On opening day he used Brad Halsey for four innings rather than exhaust the rest of his bullpen in the 16-6 loss.
Sometimes, a manager needs to sacrifice today for tomorrow, and Melvin understands that. On Tuesday, he benched Counsell rather than Clayton in a double-switch in the eighth inning because he didn’t want to lose Clayton’s glove. It was a risky decision, sacrificing his leadoff hitter, because the Cubs could have sent the game into extra innings by driving home the runner on second.
But the move paid off when Clayton snared Perez’s grounder to end the game. Melvin was widely considered to be the brains behind Bob Brenly’s intuition in 2001. Now we know why.
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=39195
