At the conclusion of yesterday's game the Arizona Diamondbacks left Chase Field and began their last scheduled road trip to the east coast for the 2008 regular season. They will be visiting the Washington Nationals and the Philadelphia Phillies. The road trip will end with the beginning of the all-star break followed by the first home stand of the second half when the Los Angeles Dodgers come to town. This means that the current home stand has been completed which means it is time for another rendition of the "State of the Home Stand Address" where I try to recap what was the most recent home stand at Chase Field. Just as a reminder, the viewpoints and opinions expressed within this post are my own and in no way are indicative of how others might view the team or Chase Field. This entry covers the four game series against the Milwaukee Brewers and the three game series against the San Diego Padres.
The home stand started out well enough with Doug Davis facing his former club and beating them 6-3. Davis has been quietly posting great outings each time he pitches giving the Diamondbacks an opportunity to win those games. This is putting less pressure on Dan Haren and Brandon Webb to have to carry the team. Game 2 of the Milwaukee series saw Randy Johnson continue to struggle giving up several home runs and putting the D-backs into a hole they could not recover from. The Diamondbacks bullpen continued to scuffle when Chad Qualls blew his sixth save on Wednesday giving up a run on 2 hits ruining a great outing by stand-in starter Jamiero Petit. Tony Pena followed by giving up another run in the eighth inning putting the Diamondbacks behind. Arizona scored in the bottom of the inning to again tie the game. Brandon Lyon gave up a run on 1 hit to finally lose the game for a second straight night. The final game of the Milwaukee series saw the Diamondbacks spot the Brewers 5 runs in the first 8 innings to head into the ninth inning down 5-0. Brandon Webb looked sloppy in his outing giving up 5 runs on 9 hits and walking 2 in six innings of work. In the bottom of the ninth in what looked like a hopeless game the Diamondbacks put together a string of hits scoring 6 runs off 3 Brewers pitchers to without recording a single out. This had to be the most impressive come from behind victory the Diamondbacks have ever accomplished and I am including Game 7 of the 2001 World Series when I say that. I really thought this would be the game that would bring the Diamondbacks out of their two-month slide and restore their confidence they had in April. I was obviously mistaken in that prediction as the Diamondbacks dropped the first two games to the abysmal San Diego Padres being outscored 9-3 in those contests. The Diamondbacks were able to salvage the final game of the home stand when Randy Johnson carried the Diamondbacks on his back in a vintage Randy start where he recorded 10 strikeouts and 3 hits in 6.1 innings. The lone run he allowed was a lead-off home run by former Diamondbacks outfielder Scott Hairston. Brandon Lyon came in the ninth inning and again allowed a run but was able to close out the win for Johnson which was his 289th of his career.
This home stand saw the crowd sizes a little larger than normal. The Milwaukee series drew an average of 22,736 fans. Interestingly enough the week-day afternoon game was the largest crowd of the series. This was especially surprising since that game was also the day before the Independence Day holiday. The July 4th game was the largest crowd at Chase Field this season when 49,110 fans crowded into the stadium to see the game and the post game fireworks. That was followed by another large crowd on Saturday where the Diamondbacks had 40,976 witness the second loss to the Padres. The lone win against San Diego was also the smallest crowd of the weekend series with 28,248 in attendance.
The build out of flat panel screens continued to occur around Chase Field with more of the wide screen high definition monitors being placed on the concourse both on the main level as well as on the upper deck. Crowd control for the larger attended games went very well. I made the mistake of grabbing the wrong tickets for the July 4 game. Sadly this was the worst possible day since that was the largest crowds. The game staff was very helpful and directed me to ticket window "C" where I was able to have my game tickets reprinted for a nominal fee. This was a life saver as the alternative would have been to drive home and retrieve the tickets. While the Diamondbacks were awesome taking care of things and managing the holiday crowd, I was appalled at the prices the parking vendors were charging to park around the stadium. For 6 of the 7 games this home stand parking ranged from $5 to $10. On July 4 the pricing went to $15 to $40 for the exact same lots and spaces. This makes me nervous as to what we might expect if the Diamondbacks somehow make the play-offs this season.
Overall it was another enjoyable time at Chase Field. The Diamondbacks now set off on a two city road trip back east followed by the All-Star break. They will return home to start the second half against the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 18.
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