The Resurgent Dbacks

As my brother and I love to talk about, this years' Dbacks team is an interesting one. Every time we are ready to write them off and declare them done for the season, they go and rip off 6 or 7 wins in a row, giving us hope once again that they might contend for the West title or at least the Wildcard. This last week has been no exception.

After dropping the first game of the series at Wrigley to everyone’s favorite team the Cubs, Arizona cleaned up the next two games, winning 3-2 and 3-0. Then they triumphantly returned home to Chase Field, where they spent four days whipping up on the Marlins. After a close 4-3 win on Monday, they blew out the Marlins the next two days, 9-3 and 7-0. Their last game against Florida was a nail-biter, all the way up to the point where Eric Byrnes blasted a three-run, walk-off home run into the left field seats. Last night was another up and down game, with the Dbacks staking themselves to a 7-0 lead, proceeding to blow it all away, then having Tony Clark save us with another walk-off home run, this time in the 11th.

So what do we owe this resurgence to? Well, first off, let’s look at the hitting. The Dbacks have been getting the bat on the ball, and it’s showing up in the box scores. More than anything I’ve noticed is that the Dbacks appear to be more patient at the plate. They are working the counts more, getting more ‘quality’ at bats. Add in to the mix the fact that the player we sent to AAA (Carlos Quentin) was batting .210, and the player we brought up for him (Augie Ojeda) is batting .311. Also, our big two (Byrnes and Hudson) have been bringing it, as they have been all year. Stephen Drew is finally regaining the power he had last year, getting more extra base hits, and Chris Young is really heating up.

Hitting has not been the only thing helping the Dbacks out as of late however. Brandon Webb has returned to his usual form after a rough June, and the rest of the pitching staff has been solid, with the exceptions of Micah Owings struggles. Livan Hernandez has dropped his ERA by more than two runs this month vs. June, while Doug Davis has dropped his by almost 3 runs in the same span. Yusmeiro Petit, who has replaced Randy Johnson in the rotation, is also throwing well with a 2.53 ERA.

The bullpen has also been fantastic as of late, save for Valverde's mental error and blowing the save last night. The two blow-out wins against Florida allowed us to rest our big three of Pena, Lyon, and Valverde, something which they all deserved. Edgar Gonzalez pitched two perfect innings for us last night in the 10th and 11th, and proved once again how valuable he is coming from the bullpen or starting.

But more than just pitching and hitting, the Dbacks have that look of determination they didn’t show for parts of June and the first part of this month. It is a sense of purpose almost, and they have been coming up big in spots they have struggled in throughout the year. While they have led the Majors in sacrifice fly’s most of the year, they have struggled at fundamental baseball (as my brother will attest to). And while they have hit some home runs, no one will mistake this team for a power team.

Then again, lately things have been coming together for them. As I mentioned earlier, Chris Young is really starting to see the ball, he is hitting home runs, and has the look of a 30 and 30 guy. It’s scary to think he is only a rookie. And while Mark Reynolds has a tendency to strike out too much (about a third of his at-bats), he has a lot of power. If he can continue to stay patient, he will become a great hitter I think. And the fundamentals are coming around. The Dbacks, on this winning streak, have done a great job at two things they have struggled with most of the year: The old ‘get em on, get em over, get em in’ cry, which is fundamental baseball at its roots, and two-out rallies. In the last few games alone they Dbacks have been fantastic at getting hits and scoring runs with two outs.

How does this translate into the rest of the season? Well, we have to see. But the team is finally showing some signs that it knows what it is getting into, and that it knows what it will take to get the team there. If they can cut down on some of their flaws (lead-off walks being my biggest pet-peeve, one the Dbacks have shown a particular ineptitude to avoid recently), and continue improving their pitching and hitting as they have been, I see good things in store for this team. They are only 1 games back going into today, and have been climbing. I see no reason why this team can’t compete for the division title and the playoffs.