11Oct/079:41 AM

Diamondbacks’ Post-season Week in Review

By Jim McLennan

Despite Arizona having the best record in the National League over the regular season, eight out of ten ESPN “experts” picked the Chicago Cubs to beat the Diamondbacks in the NL Division Series. Well, wouldn’t you know it: eight out of ten experts were emphatically wrong, as Arizona swept Chicago out of the playoffs, winning three straight, and ensuring the Cubs’ wait for a World Series will roll over to at least a century. The much-vaunted Cubs offense imploded, with the heart of their order, Lee, Ramirez and Soriano [together, earning as much as the entire D-backs post-season roster], going a collective 6-for-38 with no extra-base hits or RBI, and the D-backs staff restricted them to six runs over the three games.

AZ 3, Cubs 1 It was important for Brandon Webb to give the D-backs the start to the post-season that they needed, and our ace came up strong, pitching seven innings and restricting the Cubs to just one earned run. That came in the sixth, with the score 1-0 to Arizona, and was about the only time the reigning Cy Young winner struggled. A pair of two-out walks loaded the bases, and Theriot hit a chopper just over the fingers of Mark Reynolds at third. Drew did keep the ball in the infield, but the tying run scampered home. Webb, though, was overall a master, striking out nine and allowing only four hits in those seven innings.

Lou Piniella found himself second-guessed tremendously, pulling his ace, Carlos Zambrano, after only six innings and 85 pitches - he allowed only one run too, a solo homer to Stephen Drew, to lead off the fourth. However, Pinella’s plan was to use Zambrano again, on short rest, in game four, hence the decision to give him a short leash. Unfortunately for Piniella, Zambrano will now be [em]really[/em] well rested for Opening Day, 2008. Because four pitches after he left the game, Carlos Marmol - who had been one of the best relievers in the league - was taken deep by one of Arizona’s rookies, Mark Reynolds, giving the D-backs a lead they would hang on to.

Snyder walked one out later, and former Cub Augie Ojeda punished his old team with a double down the right-field line. Conor Jackson brought Snyder home with a sacrifice fly to give Arizona an insurance run and a 3-1 lead. The bullpen, in the shape of Brandon Lyon and Jose Valverde, took things from there, though with an inevitable sense of drama, Valverde brought the Cubs’ top home-run hitter, Soriano, to the plate as the tying run. But he grounded out, to give Arizona their first post-season victory since Game Seven of the 2001 World Series.

AZ 8, Cubs 4 The next night, Chase was Sedona Red again: the expected hostile takeover by Chicago fans never quite materialized, though their team’s sorry performance perhaps kept them quiet and subdued. They did briefly poke their heads out in the second, when rookie catcher Soto gave them the lead for the only time with a two-run homer in the top of the second. However, they were silenced utterly in the bottom half of the inning: with Snyder and Upton aboard, Chris Young cranked a fastball from Ted Lilly into the left-field bleachers to give Arizona the lead once again.

That was, perhaps, the crucial point of the series. The Cubs’ hitters started to press, trying to hit homers in every at-bat, and Doug Davis exploited this aggressiveness very well. Soto’s blast were the only runs he allowed until after he’d left the game: a tiring Davis walked two hitters with two outs in the sixth, and Juan Cruz allowed both to score on a double off the outfield wall. However, by that stage, Arizona had extended their lead to 8-2, so there was some room for error. Tony PeÃ±a, Lyon and Valverde followed Cruz, combining to strike out five in 3.1 scoreless innings of work, with three hits and one walk.

As noted, the offense picked up the pace in this one: after Young’s homer, a triple by Eric Byrnes scored another run, and Drew tripled home two in the fourth to make it 6-2 to Arizona. Ojeda added a seventh in the next inning, and a beautifully-executed safety squeeze by Doug Davis, sent Upton scurrying home from third in the fifth,and finished off the D-backs scoring for the night. Drew and Ojeda had two hits each, and Young walked twice, in addition to supplying the long-ball that cemented Arizona’s hold on the series, and with hindsight, drove a stake deep into the heart of the opposition.

AZ 5, Cubs 1 The Cubs were delighted to return to Chicago, where a vociferous crowd would surely boost them to victory in Game Three. That would allow them to turn the ball to Zambrano in Game Four, then take their chances with Webb in a Game Five, back in Phoenix. Chris Young, however, had other ideas and for the second game in a row proved a Cub-killer, homering on the first pitch of the game, to silence the raucous crowd. That gave Arizona a lead they’d never surrender, until Soriano flew out weakly to right-field off Jose Valverde, ending the series in a chorus of boos from the Wrigley faithful.

Livan Hernandez saved his most…Livan-esque performance of the year for his first post-season outing since 2002. The Cubs had runners in scoring position every inning until the sixth, but as he’s done throughout the season, Hernandez wiggled out of trouble. The killer blow was in the fifth: the D-backs had a two-run lead, but he walked the bases loaded with one out, and Wrigley Field was alive for the first time in the game. Even though he fell behind Mark DeRosa 3-1, Livan wouldn’t back down and got the hitter to ground weakly into a double-play. That ended the inning and sucked the last signs of life from Chicago: they sent up only one batter over the minimum the rest of the way.

The offense was solid enough. After Young’s homer, Upton singled home Drew in the first, and Eric Byrnes added to the lead in the fourth, just legging it out to avoid a double-play and drive in a run. He added a solo homer in the sixth, and Drew has his second long-ball of the series in the ninth. Drew ended with three hits - his third multi-hit game in a row, and eighth in ten including the regular season - while Byrnes and Upton had two each.

News and Notes
Soaring: Stephen Drew (7-for-14, 2 HR); Augie Ojeda (4-for-9); Brandon Webb (7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER); the bullpen (8.1 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 8 K). Falling: Conor Jackson + Tony Clark (1-for-14 combined); Chris Snyder (1-for-7); Doug Davis (5.2 IP, 5 H, 4 BB, 4 ER).

Roster Report: Six players didn’t see any action during the Division Series, but there doesn’t look likely to be any wholesale changes in the roster for the Championship Series. The speedy Emilio Bonifacio might be added as a pinch-running threat, and there’s always the possibility of an additional arm joining the bullpen, because Coors Field can be rough on pitching staffs.

The Week Ahead. The Championship Series starts this evening for Arizona, facing the Colorado Rockies - between them, the teams have only been this far in the post-season once before, during the D-backs’ 2001 run, of course. Here are the pitching match-ups for the first four games:

Game 1 (today, Phoenix): Colorado LHP Jeff Francis (17-9, 4.22) vs. Arizona RHP Brandon Webb (18-10, 3.01)

Game 2 (Friday, Phoenix): Colorado RHP Ubaldo Jimenez (4-4, 4.28) vs. Arizona LHP Doug Davis (13-12, 4.25)

Game 3 (Sunday, Colorado): Colorado RHP Josh Fogg (10-9, 4.94) vs. Arizona RHP Livan Hernandez (11-11, 4.93)

Game 4 (Monday, Colorado): Colorado LHP Franklin Morales (3-2, 3.43) vs. Arizona RHP Micah Owings (8-8, 4.30)

Once again, the Diamondbacks are being selected to fail: the majority of the ESPN experts are picking Colorado, though after what happened to the Cubs, that should not be of any concern to the team. It’s probably crucial that we get off to a good start this evening, with our ace on the mound: there’s no doubt he is the best pitcher on either roster but, particularly early this year, the Rockies owned him., His final start, in the last series of the regular season, was much better, and he needs to repeat that tonight.

The Rockies are, however, winners in seventeen of their last eighteen games, so have a lot of momentum coming in, and their lineup is fearsome. It’s perhaps worth nothing though, that the eighteenth game was against Brandon Webb… It’s possible Melvin could use Webb on short rest in Game Four, and then regular rest in Game Seven, but that would be a last desperate throw of the dice, and I doubt that will happen. The series promises to be much closer than the Cubs one, and I can’t see either team getting a sweep: I think whoever takes Game One will have a crucial edge. Both sides play very well at home, and with an extra game at Chase, I think Arizona will win in six. I certainly hope so, because the prospect of Hernandez pitching a winner-take-all Game Seven…well, let’s just not go there, shall we!