Is Cole Hamels just getting unlucky? Or is it something else?

Unlucky.  Cole has had plenty of issues with run support before, and with bad luck, so combined with a slow start, he’s been pretty ineffective.  Especially for a guy we made such a big deal about signing for six more years.

The stuff’s in there.  We could just really use some more blatant examples of it recently, with so much less potent of a rotation backing him up.

Should Ryan Howard scare opposing fans anymore?

Absolutely.  Have you seen that contract?  They tell stories about it around the bonfire at training camp.

What’s the upside of this team? The downside?

The upside is that we have Cole locked up, Freddy Galvis is youthful and full of vigor, Chase seems to be hitting okay, and Cliff Lee is here.  The downside is that Chooch, Doc, and Chase are all up for reassignment, the team in general is not very good, Ben Revere looks more and more like a complete bust, the parts of the bullpen that work are wastes of money if the other parts of the bullpen that aren’t working continue to not work, and everybody’s only getting older.

Also, it’s all Charlie Manuel or Ruben Amaro‘s fault, depending on the day.

Why do the Phillies’ brass seem perplexed as to why their lineup doesn’t take walks? 

Related, have they heard of baseball reference before?

I’d say probably no.  Ruben Amaro shows a staggering absence of intelligence at times, for a guy who seems to have it all figured out.  His lack of belief in walks and the organizations disbelief in modern stats is sickening at times, and probably why some players (AHEM Dom Brown) have been mishandled in the recent past.

How mad are you at Kevin Towers for giving your divisional rival a christmas present of Justin Upton?

I would be pretty mad, but honestly, we’ve got about 1,000 problems to worry about before we can fathom taking on the Braves, let alone Upton.  Then again, he is an individual example of the Braves as a whole – lot of home runs, lot of strike outs.  They’re gonna hack.  And it’s already bringing them back down to earth.

Is Michael Young as classy as everyone says he is?

I’ll say sure.  But I was never worried about that.

If he could convince a ground ball to hop into his glove using that keen sense of clubhouse leadership, that’d be great.  But they’re usually moving too fast.

His questions and my answers:

So is Ian Kennedy going to be a problem or can we depend on his location sputtering out again?

This, sadly, is what we can expect from Kennedy. He’s been pretty mediocre for the past 12 months. And that’s mostly been tied to his lack of command with the fastball. While he isn’t walking a ton of people, he also grooves way too many to be effective.

J.J. Putz has decided to take some time off to be injured.  How reliable is the Dbacks bullpen now?  Express in terms of Chad Durbins.

I believe I saw that Putz was heading to the Dominican for a couple of months. I can’t confirm that, but nonetheless, it’s a weird time to take a vaca. However, I believe the bullpen should still be (just a tad) better than one Chad Durbin. David Hernandez has had a couple of shaky outings but has been pretty good and should get better. And outside of Heath Bell‘s first appearance, he’s been (stunningly) pretty good. Combined with Brad Ziegler and Matt Reynolds, the pen should be in decent shape still.

Is it correct to say Paul Goldschmidt is “becoming a star?”  And if so, what kind of a star; one that shines brightly for a long time, or when that grows too big and kills a lot of people?

He’s a star that’s going to kill a lot of people. Just not in the way you were meaning. I think he singlehandedly murdered Tim Lincecum‘s career and is in the process of burying the corpse of Chris Capuano now. He’s been a revelation. He’s improved his walk and strikeout rate, chase percentage and his fielding immensely over the past couple of seasons. He’s approaching top three first baseman in the league quickly.

Lie to me.  What do you think of this team without Roy Halladay?

They’re great. One of the best staffs that can’t pitch and one of the best lineups that can’t walk (or score) I’ve ever seen.

Is there a young prospect with a better name than “Didi Gregorius” in baseball right now?

Xander Bogaerts is a pretty dang good name. Adeiny Hechavarria? Basically all shortstops in baseball it looks like.

Contrarily, the D’backs (15-13) are coming off being swept at the hands of the Giants, thanks in large part to the bullpen, who accounted for all three losses. Brad Ziegler picked up the loss on Monday, J.J. Putz on Tuesday and David Hernandez on Wednesday. It was an all-around rough series for the pen, adding to the now 10 blown saves on the season. The interesting part, though, is that the D’backs’ pen still owns a 3.08 ERA on the season, good enough for 11th-best in the league. The runs they have given up have come in the worst time of the game it seems. Law of averages say that would turn around at some point, but who knows when.

In the series with the Friars, the D’backs probably have their three best guys on the hill to try to give the pen a break and get back on track.

This will be the first series of the year between the Pads and the Snakes. The Friars got the best of the D’backs in 2012, though, winning 11-of-18.

Game 1 (Friday): Wade Miley (2-0, 2.37 ERA) vs. Jason Marquis (2-2, 4.20 ERA)

Miley is coming off, by far, his worst start of the season. It was also the only start that Miley did not allow a single run. Miley walked seven guys in only 4.1 innings against the Rockies on April 27. That doubled his season total in walks allowed – he had walked only seven in his four previous starts. Miraculously, Miley did not allow any of those seven walks to score, mostly due to three ground-ball double plays the infield turned. Miley will be all out of miracles if he repeats that performance. Marquis also only has one really poor start on the season. Unfortuantely for him, that bad start resulted in seven more runs scoring than Mileys. Marquis allowed seven in only 4.2 innings against the Brewers on April 22. Outsides of that, Marquis has been solid for the Padres.

Game 2 (Saturday): Patrick Corbin (3-0, 1.91) vs. Clayton Richard (0-3, 7.94)

Corbin has been a revelation this season. I’ve written about him several times this season and there’s not much more I can say. He’s been superb and there’s nothing to suggest he won’t keep it up. Obviously, he won’t have a 1.91 ERA all season long, and his HR/FB rate is unsustainable at 2.1 percent, but even if it regresses to last year’s number of eight percent, Corbin will be just fine. And that rate probably won’t make a big jump in this start in Petco, even with their fences moved in. On the flip side, Richard has been hit hard and often so far this season. He’s had one good start, a shutout six-inning affair against the Rockies on April 14. In his last appearance he was knocked around for five runs in five innings against the Cubs on April 29.

Game 3 (Sunday): Ian Kennedy (1-2, 4.78) vs. Edinson Volquez (2-3, 6.39)

Unfortunately for the D’backs, this is probably the type of pitcher they can expect from Kennedy now. All of his peripherals show that Kennedy is prone to give up a lot of fly balls, and in Chase Field, many times those fly balls fly on out, including in his last start against the Giants on April 29, where he gave up four runs in seven innings. In addition, this year, his walk rate has increased while his strikeout rate has decreased. That’s not a good sign for a pitcher with fringy stuff to begin with. However, Kennedy is also better than his 4.78 ERA so far. Expect him to get much closer to 4 soon, and an outing at pitcher friendly Petco may just be the start he needs. Volquez, like Richard, has only had one good start this season. He threw seven shutout innings on April 24 against the Brewers, striking out three and only allowing five hits. However, in his last start, he gave up four runs in only 5.2 innings against the Cubs.

Image: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports

Spring isn’t all sunshine when it comes to battling for a spot on a 25-man roster for players, either.

The D’backs starting lineup is pretty much set heading into 2013 meaning the battles will be in the back end of the rotation, the bullpen and on the bench.

Miguel Montero, Paul Goldschmidt, Aaron Hill, Martin Prado, Chad Pennington, Gerardo Parra, Jason Kubel, Adam Eaton, Cody Ross and Willie Bloomquist are locks along with Ian Kennedy, Trevor Cahill, Brandon McCarthy and Wade Miley in the rotation. In the bullpen, JJ Putz, Heath Bell, David Hernandez and Brad Ziegler are also pretty much assured spots.

With the D’backs likely to carry 12 pitchers that leaves one starter, three reliever spots and three bench spots open.

Starting spot battle: Tyler Skaggs vs. Randall Delgado

Delgado was acquired in the Justin Upton trade along with Martin Prado. Delgado is probably projected for a back-end starter for his career and has solid stretches throughout his career so far. He owns a career 3.95 ERA over 127.2 innings in the majors. Skaggs has been a top-tier pitching prospect for a few years and appears to be ready to pitch a full season in the bigs. Skaggs owns a career 2.98 minor-league ERA. He did struggle a bit in his brief appearance with the D’backs last season with a 5.83 ERA over 29.1 innings.

Edge: Skaggs

Three bullpen spots: Patrick Corbin vs. Tony Sipp vs. Matt Reynolds vs. Josh Collmenter

Sipp and Reynolds have each spent quality time in the majors with solid results. Sipp has thrown 220.1 innings over the past four seasons with a 3.68 ERA and Reynolds has thrown 126 innings over the past three seasons with a 3.93 ERA. Reynolds and Sipp, both lefties, are solid bets to make the bullpen.

That leaves the final spot for Corbin and Collmenter to battle it out. Corbin is also a leftie and was effective over long stretches in the beginning of last season but then struggled down the stretch. Collmenter on the other hand, struggled mightily early and then picked it up as the season progressed. Edge: Collmenter

Bench Spots:

Back up catcher – Wil Nieves vs. Rod Barajas

Nieves was productive in limited time with both the D’backs and Rockies last season, hitting .301/.330/.410 over 89 plate appearances. On the other hand, Barajas was pretty awful in 321 plate appearances for the Pirates in 2012. He hit .206/.283/.343 for the season.

Edge: Nieves

With an outfielder and a utility player in Bloomquist on the bench already, the D’backs have some flexibility in the two remaining bench spots: Eric Chavez vs. John McDonald vs. Tony Campana vs. A.J. Pollock vs. Matthew Davidson

Edge: Chavez and McDonald