When the D’Back’s pitching staff isn’t giving the opposition a big head start, the bulllpen is giving away the store. Sometimes Arizona pitchers do both.

Consider the just concluded sweep of the D’Backs by the Mariners. On Tuesday, the D’Backs were down 5 runs before their first at-bats. And that was with ace Brandon Webb starting. The bullpen gave up 4 runs in the ninth and the D’Backs lost 11-7.

In the second game, the score was 3 – 2 Seattle when the 8th inning began, the Arizona gave up 3 in the 8th and 4 in the 9th. Final score: Seattle 10 – Arizona 3.

Tonight, rookie starter Enrique Gonzalez pitched a gem, giving up only 1 run in 7 innings. The Snakes entered the 9th leading 2-1. They left the 9th having lost 3-2.

That’s 13 runs the Snakes have given up in the late innings of the last three games.

Jorge Julio, the one reliever who was doing well lately, finally succumbed to the bad pitching virus that has afflicted the rest of the staff.

Both Diamondback runs were scored by pitcher Enrique Gonzalez, the first time when Seattle’s GIl Meche balked with Gonzalez on 3rd. The second time when he was batted in by an Eric Byrnes single in the 5th.

The Eric Byrnes line tonight: 2-4 (a triple and a single), and 1 RBI. That’s True Elation 11. The RBI came with 2 out. He had 2 two-out RBI in the first game of the series. Thus, Byrnesie is showing improvement in the clutch-hitting department.

BUT: No one drove him in either time he was on base. And he also GIDP (leaving 2 on himself) and he K’d in the 8th inning. (He’s been doing that alot lately. Maybe someone told him that if he wants Phoenix to support him for the All-Star team he has to K as often as Adam Dunn…or at least as often as Chad Tracy!)

So now the D’Backs head to Oakland for the weekend and I’ve been asked if I am going. I can only make the Friday night game because I work the weekends. I am not quite decided yet.

K.R.

Happiness is . . .watching Eric Byrnes have a great day. One hit or defensive gem is cause for good cheer. But True Elation is seeing a multi-hit day with at least 1 RBI.

–Kellia Ramares, Spheroid.

If last Saturday was not the worst night of Eric Byrnes’ major league career, it had to have been darned close. He went 0-6 with 4 K’s. In the field, he missed two of his signature diving catches; and on the second miss Byrnes got a bloody nose for his trouble. He was given Sunday off, a wise move, and the whole team had Monday off before beginning the series with the Mariners. As one of my correspondents put it, "New Week – Clean slate."

So I hoped. It didn’t look that way in the early going. Byrnes was 0-3 (K, pop out, K) to start. Put that together with Saturday and he was 0-9 with 6 K’s and 2 pop outs. Count back from June 21, the day after True Elation 9, through the first three AB’s of last night (June 27) and Byrnes’ stats are just HORRID! 1-18 with 11 K’s, 3 pop outs and only 1 RBI. UGH! Looking at the replays on video after the game, it seemed to me that on both strike threes last night, Byrnes swung and missed at balls. Judgment and timing looked still way off. And mind you, M’s starter Jarrod Washburn was familiar to Byrnes and he’s done well against him.

But Byrnesie fulfilled my definition of True Elation in his last two AB’s last night by hitting two doubles and getting 2 RBI. Both RBI came on the first double, which he hit in the 7th inning, which tends to be a great inning for him. With two out, and the count 0-2, Byrnes fought back to a full count and then hit the double that drove in runners from 2nd and 3rd. This brought the D’Backs to within 1 run, 7-6. Chad Tracy then hit a double that brought home Byrnes with the tying run. Unfortunately, all the rest of the evening’s scoring was done by Seattle.

Yes, the D’Backs lost again despite Byrnes’ 7th and 9th inning accomplishments and some other good news, especially Luis Gonzalez hitting a three-run homer in the first inning, his first round tripper since April 20. They have now lost 18 of their last 21. Giving the opposition a head start will do that to you. Brandon Webb gave up 5 runs in the first inning. The final score was 11-7. Giving up 11 runs is generally a recipe for disaster.

Before the game, Chad of Charge the Mound gave me a link to an Arizona Republic article by Bob McManaman that quoted Byrnes extensively. Apparently, I am not the only person who has taken some solace in recent Arizona losses that were not blowouts (e.g. June 21 Devil Rays 3, Diamondbacks 2), or in the rare high-scoring win (Diamondbacks 9 – Angels 7 on June 25). Still, Byrnes said:

I’m sick of feeling better about (expletive) losses. There’s no moral victories in the big leagues. This ain’t the minor leagues. We’re not trying to develop players here. We’re trying to win freaking games.

The first step to "win freaking games" is for the Diamondbacks’ pitchers to hold the fort. This will allow the offense to do its work without having to come from behind, and to score so many runs, so often. Scoring 7 runs ought to win you a game, but it can’t if you give up 11. The pitching is going to have to get better, much better, and soon, or the D’Backs’ 2006 campaign is lost.

Even if they don’t bounce back, I am very proud of Eric for caring about winning, for caring about the team’s progress and not just his individual stats. In a team sport, pride in individual stats should be the primary concern of fans like me, or a player’s agent. I know Eric’s going to do everything he can to help his team win. But he’s not a pitcher, and I think the turnaround has to start on the mound.

I really hope the D’Backs can turn things around. Winning is definitely more fun than losing. Being part of a winning team is one of Eric’s goals and I want him to achieve success as he defines it. I also want to see him in the playoffs again. (The last time was game 5 of the 2003 ALDS when he stood on third as the potential tying run in the bottom of the 9th and the A’s couldn’t get him in). But in this era of free agency, frequent trades, and the mobility of the American population, the latter of which has seen me move from New York to Indiana to California, I have chosen to be a player fan first and a team fan second. I’m not going to cry if Byrnes has a career year, but the D’Backs season falls apart because the pitching staff keeps giving away too many runs. I am still going to be truly elated whenever Eric Byrnes has a multi-hit day with an RBI. After all, I’ve been truly bummed by all the strike outs lately.

It’s not having what you want
It’s wanting what you’ve got.

–Sheryl Crow, Soak Up the Sun

K.R.

Claudio Vargas was pitching lights out and the D’Backs were up 4-0 thanks mostly to homers by Orlando Hudson and Craig Counsell of all people. Then Vargas hit a batter and Conor Jackson made a fielding error, Vargas exited with the bases loaded and before you knew it, the score was 4-4.

A two-out, pinch-hit, two-run homer by Robb Quinlan won it. K-Rod got the save. This loss was hideousness exemplified for the following reasons:

Luis Gonzalez’ 7th inning at-bat marked the 200th AB (obviously more than 200 PA’s) since he’s homered.

Jeff DaVanon, one of the few D’Backs who had a decent day, had three singles against his old team (and he made some good fielding plays in right), but in the 9th, with a runner on, he K’d. So mujch for the romantic notion of his beating his old team.

Shawn Green, sent up as a pinch hitter, was robbed by the home plate umpire on the first pitch, which was low, but called a strike. Green K’d, and was tossed for arguing balls and strikes. Greenie is a low-key personality who rarely argues; but he got the heave ho mighty quick, so he must have said one of the magic words.

Then BoMel went out to argue and he got the thumb as well. I thought managers were supposed to argue and risk getting tossed to protect a player from getting tossed. But this happened after Green was ejected. So I guess the D’Backs timing is so bad, even the manager can’t get thrown out at the appropriate moment.

Things got so desperate Damion Easley ended up playing first after going in as a pinch runner for Tony Clark who had hit a broken bat single. Clark was a defensive substitution for Jackson. Easley did well, but he’s not really a first baseman.

It was just a nightmare of a game for Eric Byrnes. Painful figuratively and literally, for him and for me watching it. First of all, it was golden sombrero night. Batting sixth, he went 0-6 with 4 strikeouts. Two looking and two swinging. He’s standing too far away from the plate again. In the last four games he has gone 1-15 with 9 K’s. His batting average, which was climbing back toward .300, is sinking like a stone again.

To make matters worse, he missed two diving catches, the kind we Byrnes fans are used to seeing him make. He bloodied his nose on the second miss and was in obvious pain after hitting the ground. Mark Grace wondered several times if Byrnesie had broken his nose. He played the rest of the inning with blood coming out of his nostrils, but the trainer managed to stop it after the inning ended and he went out again.  To the People who wonder why I like him so much: There’s an answer for you. He’s tough.

But things have been really tough on him in the last four days. Strike three in the 13th inning was a swing and a miss at gas down the middle from K-Rod that he should have put into the seats. I don’t have words for how horrible all the K’s and the missed dives are. It’s like bad timing has just taken Byrnesie over on offense and defense.

The D’Backs are now 2-17. I want to think that tonight was rock bottom for them in general and for Byrnes in particular. But I will admit that I can’t bear to look, right now. Tomorrow, I am brunching with some good out-of-town friends, I am working at KPFA, and I am going to try to forget about baseball for a day or two and leave Byrnesie and the D’Backs to turn things around without my looking. They have a day off Monday. I have a number of things I need to take care of that have nothing to do with baseball. So now would be a good time for me to pull the disappearing act I thought I was going to pull about 5 weeks ago.

Turn it around, Byrnesie. Here’s another consistency test. Relax and don’t stand so far from the plate. As for the missed dives, I don’t get it. It’s as if that computer in your brain that calculates the distance to the ball has developed a glitch. Time to debug and reboot.

Go Byrnesie! Go Snakes! (And I don’t mean to **** in a handbasket!)

K.R.

These blowouts getting so routine it’s becoming a bore to write about them. The D’Backs were down three runs before they had their first AB’s. The geographically-challenged Angels had no trouble finding home; the score was 5-0 before the D’Backs scored their first run in the 4th. Enrique Gonzalez gave up the first 5 runs; Jose Valverde, pitching the 7th, gave up the other three.

But let’s not rag on the Arizona pitchers all day today. If someone told you that one team, in this case the Angels, got 9 hits and 7 walks, while their opponents, in this case the D’Backs, got 10 hits and 6 walks, you would guess that it was a high scoring game, but not a blow out. Not 8-2.

Can you say "Lack of timely hitting"? I know you can.

All the position players were charged with at least 1 LOB. Shawn Green and Johnny Estrada left 5 a piece and Orlando Hudson left 4. One of the two runs scored by the Snakes was Chad Tracy driving himself in with a solo homer in the fourth. It was his 12th of the year, moving him back into a tie with Eric Byrnes for the team lead.

The only other score came when Conor Jackson walked with the bases loaded in the 5th. This brought home Jeff DaVanon from third. DaVanon had walked and moved to third on a Luis Gonzalez single. After Tracy walked to load the bases, Jackson walked to score the run. All this happened with only one out. But then S. Green popped to second (infield fly) and Johnny Estrada flied to center.

So the Snakes got only one run out of a bases-loaded situation and that came because of a bit of wildness by the pitcher, not because of a hit. Can’t win that way unless your pitchers are throwing shutout or near-shutout ball. In June, that has happened only three times: June 1 (D’Backs 2 – Braves 1); June 3 (D’Backs 4 – Braves 2), and June 13 (D’Backs 2 – Giants 1). I’m writing this on the morning of June 24.

This interleague game had no DH because it was played in a National League park. So Jeff DaVanon got the start against his old team at the expense of you know who. This is also getting so routine it’s becoming a bore, an infuriating bore, but a bore to write about, nonetheless. It was another day where the D’Backs starting lineup was complete except for center field.

Byrnesie was called on in the 8th to pinch-hit. As I have said time and again, this is not one of his strengths. He flied out to center, failing to advance a runner on first. Tony Clark and Andy Green, who preceded Byrnes in the game as pinch-hitters, also failed to hit safely.

DaVanon was 0-3 with 2 BB and 1 LOB. (A blip, really, compared to S. Green and Estrada).

Like I said before, can you say "Lack of timely hitting"? I know I can.

K.R.