Rookie of the Year:

Gerardo Parra – clear winner here.  He hit a home run in his first at bat against Cincinnati in May and has hovered around .300 all season.  Look for even better things in 2010.  Wait, didn’t we say that about Chris Young in 2007?  Oh, and 2008?

Apologies to:  No one, although Trent Oeltjen and Rusty Ryal might have competed had they had more of an opportunity to play.

Offensive Player of the Year:

Miguel Montero – Imagine if he had hit from the start of the season like he has been since June?  He’d probably be in the leaders of most offensive categories.  He is hitting for average and power.  A rarity for a catcher these days.

Apologies to:  Mark Reynolds, Justin Upton.  Reynolds had the power numbers, but he has seen his batting average slip in late August/ early September.  Upton started off poorly, came on strong to be the talk of the town in May and June, and has had few memorable offensive moments since.  He’s had more memorable negative moments lately.

MVP Pitcher:

Dan Haren. Even with his poor second half of the season, he gets it hands down.

Apologies to:  Are you kidding?  The pitchers should be apologizing to me for making me pay to watch their crap.

Best Home Game:

Hmmm…tough one.  I’ll go with opening day.  It was the only time the Dbacks were over .500 all season.  They defeated the Colorado Rockies 9-8 on Brandon Webb’s only start of the year.

Worst Home Game:

Take your pick.  I went to several bad games.  They went 1-5 in games I attended this season.  Take either one of the losses at home to Washington in May.  No one should lose to that team.  No one.  A bunch of circus clowns should be able to beat them.  Then again, this season has been nothing short of a circus.

Worst personnel move:

Hiring AJ Hinch as manager.  He’s a nice guy, but let’s be honest, the Dbacks were drawing at straws.  Bob Melvin needed to go, but he wasn’t the only reason the Dbacks couldn’t win.  You could throw Joe Torre on the bench and this team would still under achieve.

Best mustache:

Clay Zavada.  At least we got some entertainment out of that.  Besides, he was a great story coming out of the Independent League and ready to quit baseball to run the family farm.  Gotta love the stache!

Love the stache! (Courtesy spikesnstars.com)

The “Closing the Barn Door After the Horse Has Left” Award:

Take your pick of the Tony’s : The trade of Tony Pena or the release of Tony Clark. Pena was awful, blew several games, but yet it took till mid-summer to move him.  Clark is a great mentor and motivator, but his best playing days were clearly behind him.  He did nothing as a bench player.  Why did it take so long for General Manager Josh Byrnes so long to move him.  It was just before the All-Star break.  The Dbacks were already clearly out of it by then.  It would have been nice to see Brandon Allen get an opportunity earlier in the season.

So…that’s what I got.  This is the most time I’ve paid attention to the Dbacks in quite sometime.  By the way, anyone know the score of the Padres-Dbacks game?  I’m involved in the Chargers-Raiders football game!

Scott Allen

CF Chris Young was FINALLY demoted to AAA Reno. You know the old saying “closing the barn door after the horse has left”?  Well that applies here.  I know the Dbacks were reluctant to send the third year player to Reno given his contract and trying to do everything humanely possible to get him to right the ship, but enough was enough.  It was enough two months ago really.  Manager A.J. Hinch said he could be called back up in September, but that will mean he has to perform in Reno.  It’s just not a given he will be called up when the roster expands.  Is that enough time to right an entire season of struggles though?  Well, we’ll see.

Reliever Scott Schoeneweis has taken an indefinite leave of absense from the team.  He was rocked in Washington the other day for four runs and four hits in one inning of work.  Let’s remember the guy did lose a wife just less than three months ago.  God speed Scott.

Did you know three Dbacks players have gotten a hit in their first major league at-bat this season?  Gerardo Parra, Trent Oeltjen, and now Rusty Ryal.

Third baseman Mark Reynolds was name NL Player of the week.  Who else was it going to be.  He is seeing the ball really well right now and is tied with the Cardinals Albert Pujols for the MLB lead in home runs with 36.

First baseman Conor Jackson starts a rehab assignment in Class A Visalia tomorrow.  Good for him.  Hopefully he will be strong enough to find a roster spot sometime in September.

Tonight the Dbacks face the New York Mets in game two of a three game series at Chase Field.  They defeated the Mets 7-4 last night.

Scott Allen

AZScott

There is one difference though – Bernie Madoff deserved every minute he got and then some.  He swindled millions out of investors and left many pennieless.  I am glad to see he got the maximum he could have received. 

As a Diamondback fan, I am feeling like I’ve been sentenced though to 150 years of bad baseball.  This season has been that rough!  The Dbacks are 1-8 in their last nine games, including sweeps by the Seattle Mariners and Los Angeles Angels.  I found it interesting today that before their 12-8 loss to the Angels, manager A.J. Hinch had a team meeting about the lack of concentration, all the errors and mental mistakes, and the overall team attitude.  How do they follow that meeting up?  With a four error game.  Amazing.  Just truly amazing.  I’m running out of words to describe the lowness this team is reaching. 

Word is Hinch has had to break up some in-house scuffles.  I mentioned to my buddy Josh this morning that Hinch has lost this team.  He made a great point by saying, “no he hasn’t, he never had it.”  Exactly. 

The Dbacks continue to drag their fans through this mess.  ABC 15′s Craig Fouhy said this team is playing AA Ball.  Couldn’t have been said much better.  It is going to be a long season and I see no way this team avoids 100 losses.  At least it won’t make 150 losses, right?  Give this team 200 games though and it might have happened.