2007 Post Season: October 2007 Archives

With the Arizona Diamondbacks down 0-3 in this series it would take quite an effort for them to come back especially against a team who has lost only once in the past month. It was even more of a reach considering that the Arizona Diamondbacks would send a rookie to the mound who has not pitched in a game situation for nearly 2 weeks. There was just no telling what would happen. At the end of the evening the story would go one of two ways. Either the headlines would read that the Diamondbacks still had life and had forced a game 5 or we would be reading how the Rockies were a team of destiny heading to their first World Series in franchise history. Diamondbacks fans everywhere were hoping for the former rather than the latter.

You just have to love Eric Byrnes. Whether it is his all-out play running into walls chasing down fly balls or his head first slides into the bases where he comes up with his uniform a complete mess. The guy is just a fun dude to watch. He is one of those players who wears his heart on his sleeve. You always know exactly how Eric is doing based upon his mannerisms and actions. Some people resent that like the lovable Milton Bradley (the crummy outfielder for the San Diego Padres not the maker of fun board games) who thinks Byrnes practices “fake hussle” which is a Milton-ism for being a “show boat”. Of course no one puts much credence into anything that Milton Bradley says except maybe umpire Mike Winters.

Game 1 of the National League Championship was still very fresh on everyone’s mind when the gates to Chase Field opened for Game 2. The Diamondbacks fans were still steaming over the questionable call by Larry “the lizard” Vanover on the slide by Justin Upton. No one is arguing that Upton was out, he clearly was. The frustrating part remains that Vanover made a judgment call that Upton’s intent was to take out the player. I challenge Larry “the lizard” to find me one base runner going from first base to second base who is not intent on breaking up the double play. Normally the umpire whips out Major League Baseball Rules 7.09 (e) and 7.09 (f) when a base runner goes out of his way not going near the base to take out the runner. The problem with this call was that Upton was on the bag when the call was made. It makes you wonder what Larry “the lizard” was daydreaming about when he made that call. That play was just a minor part of the conversation though. The majority of news outlets chose instead to dwell on the few fans that tested their pitching prowess by throwing debris onto the field.

Yesterday I wrote about the dream of being in the National League Championship Series; what I should have said was that it was more of a nightmare. The most troubling part was that the nightmare was not so much about the Diamondbacks losing 5-1 but rather the events that took place in the seventh inning of the game. The bottom half of the seventh inning of this game may just turn out to be the defining moment of this series and could become the “Big Bang” origin of true baseball fans in Arizona. In the ten years of being an Arizona Diamondbacks fan I have never seen events like I saw during that half inning. It all started innocently enough.

It’s 4 AM; I have been tossing and turning for two hours and have finally realized that I am just not going to be able to sleep. You would have thought that I would have crashed right out after not getting to bed until nearly 1 AM but that just has not been the case. My head is filled with thoughts and excitement over the events that will take place in approximately 13 hours. I have been waiting since 2001 for the Arizona Diamondbacks to return to the National League Championship Series and that day has finally arrived. I still remember how excited I was when the 2001 team made it this far. It was like a dream watching Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling dominate the Atlanta Braves taking that series in 5 games and setting up one of the greatest World Series in history. This is definitely not the 2001 team though I am still dreaming.

Before each round of the play-offs teams are allowed to adjust their active roster. I wrote about this on October 2 and gave my predictions of what I thought Bob Melvin and Josh Byrnes would do. In a short 5 game series I thought it would be best for the Diamondbacks to carry an extra position player rather than a pitcher. I also expressed that in a 7 game series that might not make sense and therefore could be changed to eliminate one roster spot for a position player to bolster the bullpen. With the Diamondbacks making it out of the first round and into the NLCS, they have the opportunity to re-assess their roster and make changes to it. The finalized roster is due to Major League Baseball by 10 AM tomorrow. My predictions of who I would put on the roster for the first round were fairly close to what the Diamondbacks actually did. I had a disagreement on two players. I had chosen Brandon Medders over Dustin Nippert in the bullpen and I had selected Carlos Quentin over Robby Hammock for position players. What changes would I make (if any) for this round of the play-offs?

Sunday September 16 seemed like an ordinary day by all accounts. The Arizona Diamondbacks were in Los Angeles playing the Dodgers. The Diamondbacks had been struggling as always against the Dodgers and had dropped the first two games of the series. The Dodgers were breathing down the Diamondbacks neck in the standings and it looked plausible that Los Angeles or San Diego could overtake Arizona. Northeast of Los Angeles the Colorado Rockies were playing host to the Florida Marlins. Like the Diamondbacks the Rockies too were struggling in their series having lost the first two games to the scrappy Marlins. I don’t think anyone could have imagined that on this fall Sunday afternoon two franchises would take a step forward that would lead them to meet in the play-offs for the right to represent the National League in the World Series.

The National League Championship Series is set with the Arizona Diamondbacks hosting the Colorado Rockies beginning on Thursday. The American League Championship Series had one team identified when the Boston Red Sox swept the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in California. The remaining entry into the ALCS was still yet to be decided. The Cleveland Indians who were the American League Central Division champion played host to the New York Yankees. In the first two games of that series the Indians pretty much had their way with the Yankees. Alex Rodriguez continued to struggle in the post season during the first two games hitting a paltry .200 through the first 3 games. Sadly, that batting average was in the middle of the pack of Yankee hitters which is why going into Game 4 the Yankees were in a must win situation or their season was over. As if that were not enough pressure on this star-studded team Yankees owner George Steinbrenner decided to up the ante a little.

So far in the post season the Arizona Diamondbacks have gotten very little respect from the baseball establishment. They have been cast as the underdogs and the talking heads have all fervently stated that the Diamondbacks have no right to be in the position they are in. They are too young and do not have the offense to be successful in the play-offs. The answer to these critics was a three game sweep of the Chicago Cubs and a berth in the National League Championship Series. The only question remained was who would be their next opponent. The answer to that question appeared a few short hours after the Diamondbacks had beaten the Chicago Cubs. A mile above sea level another underdog team demolished the most prolific offense in the National League to earn a spot in the NLCS. That underdog team was the Colorado Rockies who with their latest win stretched their record to 17-1 over the past 3 weeks. So in a strange twist of fate the Arizona Diamondbacks would play host to the Colorado Rockies in a seven game series to determine who will represent the National League in the World Series.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?