Each year the Arizona Diamondbacks are scheduled to play one home and one away series with every National League team outside of the Western Division. Then there are the Interleague games which rotate each year so that ultimately the Diamondbacks will play every American League team at some point. Because of the quirks of the 162 game schedule there is always one non-NL West team that the Diamondbacks play more than once. Last season it was the Pittsburgh Pirates whom the Diamondbacks visited twice. This season the team is the Florida Marlins. In many cases that would not be bad since the Marlins always seem to be in some sort of rebuilding mode as they wait for the Florida voters to decide the fate of their new stadium. Unfortunately for the Diamondbacks they never match up well with the Marlins and typically get the lunch eaten.
The Arizona Diamondbacks first faced the Florida Marlins May 20-22 in Miami. That series did not go well for Arizona. Florida swept Arizona in three straight games. It wasn't just that the Marlins beat them but how they beat them. Arizona sent Micah Owings, Brandon Webb, and Dan Haren in consecutive nights and watched as the Marlins beat up on Arizona's best. It was only the second game that Owings had lost and it was the first loss of the season for Webb after going 9-0 to begin the season. In that three games Florida's pitching staff limited the Diamondbacks to only 3 runs.
The second meeting between these two teams occurred June 27-29 and looked very much like the first series. Florida beat Arizona in the first game with Owings again taking the loss. Brandon Webb was fortunate enough to beat the Marlins but then Brandon Lyon blew a save in the third game to give the fish another series win. After six games the Florida Marlins held a 5-1 mark against the Diamondbacks.
This brings us to the present. Now the Marlins have travelled to Arizona to face the Diamondbacks at Chase Field. Game one featured Randy Johnson against Anibel Sanchez. Interestingly enough, it was a match-up against the last two pitchers who have been involved with no-hitters that featured the Arizona Diamondbacks. Randy Johnson threw the perfect game in Atlanta which was the first and only no-hitter in Diamondbacks history. Anibel Sanchez was the next man to throw a no-hitter in the National League when he blanked the Diamondbacks on September 6, 2006.
Florida had come into this series having lost eight of their last 11 games and through the first 7 innings it looked as though they would lose their ninth. Jon Rauch entered the game in the eighth inning and gave up 2 runs on 2 hits including a home run to Cody Ross to give the Marlins a 5-4 win. So once again Randy Johnson was denied his 295th career win thanks to the failure of the bullpen. It is becoming a reoccurring theme especially against the Marlins.
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