NLDS

I promised i would be back today with a more complete write-up on the Diamondbacks NLDS sweep of the Chicago Cubs last night, and here I am. It's really a struggle though, to figure out how and what to write about this team, as it is a struggle to explain how this team keeps winning games. The Diamondbacks defy all traditional measures of statistically judging how a team is performing, but all they do is win. After the series sweep of the Cubs, the Dbacks showed the entire country exactly why you throw out the numbers when it comes to the Dbacks.

Chris Young got the game started on the very first pitch, serving a Rich Hill fastball to the rabid Wrigley Field Bleacher crowd in left field, immediately taking the Cubs fans out of the game and setting the tone for the game. In a must win situation for the Cubs, for Young to homer on the first pitch was incredibly deflating. The timing of it was perfect if you're a Dbacks fan, and terrible if you're a Cubs fan. And really, in that one pitch and one moment, was a microcosm of the entire series. The Cubs showed an amazing ineptitude to come up big when they needed to, while the Dbacks absolutely thrived in those situations.

Livan Hernandez was in trouble all night long, not getting a 1-2-3 inning until the 6th, his last. However, he was always able to work himself out of it. Three times in the first five innings Hernandez induced inning ending double plays, including one in a bases loaded situation. Each time, the Cubs fans at Wrigley Field were ready to explode at any hint of success at the plate; each time the Dbacks make the key pitch or defensive play. Their sense of timing was epic, their fearlessness of the situation grandiose. For all the talk about how young these Dbacks were, maybe their really were too young to know any better. Ignorance is bliss.

Or maybe, just maybe, Josh Byrnes and the rest of the Arizona front office knew exactly what they were doing when they put this team together, with these guys, in this situation. There was Stephen Drew, who struggled all year long at the plate, getting 7 hits, with one triple, one double, and two home runs. There was Chris Young, the first rookie in MLB history to have 30 home runs and 25+ stolen bases, continuing his season into the playoffs with two home runs, both at critical times. There were Mark Reynolds and Drew, absolutely locking down the left side of the infield on defense throughout the series. And then there was Justin Upton, the just-turned-20 phenom who started the year in Single A ball. In just two games, he had three hits, an RBI, a stolen base, scored 2 runs, and drew three walks. For a rookie in his first postseason experience, Upton showed maturity beyond his years.

And i still have not gotten to the pitching staff. I'm not sure what else i can say at this point. They were lights out, starting with Webb in Game 1 showing why he won the Cy Young last year. The Cubs scored just 6 runs in the entire series, including both Game 1 and the decisive Game 3 in which they put up just one run in each. The Dbacks bullpen had an ERA of .108. Chicago posted a team Batting Average of .194 for the series, including .87 with runners in scoring position. They struck out 35 times, more than 11 a game. They stranded 9 runners in each of the three games. They had just one home run, from a team who was known as a power team. The Cubs top four hitters went 9-36, with 14 K's and just one RBI between them.

I could go on and on, but again, with the Dbacks the numbers don't mean anything. They just win. They just win. And as Eric Byrnes put it after the series clinching win, "We won this series. The Cubs didn't lose it."

I couldn't agree more.