R.I.P. Michael Jackson.

Jackson, the pop-cultural icon, who died yesterday at the age of 50 as he was attempting to make a comeback in London starting in July, provided many people, many within my generation, with much entertainment.

We can remember where we were when the biggest songs premiered, and can remember so many things, good and not-so-good, about the eccentric artist.  As I heard Jackson’s songs  being played over the past 24 hours on Sirius Satellite Radio, I thought what current Arizona Diamondbacks players are living Michael Jackson songs?

Dan Haren – “Heaven Can Wait”. The title of this tune from his most recent release Invincible in 2001 says it all.  Dan Haren is a slice of heaven when it comes to pitching.  He is a gift from the pitching gods.  However, maybe he did something bad in a previous life that has him stuck in purgatory with this team.  Always pitches well enough to win, as he has only given up three or more runs twice this season, however his 6-5 kiss-your-sister record leaves a lot to be desired.  Heaven can wait for him though.  He’s one guy that can stick around awhile.

Billy Buckner, Jon Rauch, Juan Gutierrez, Eric Byrnes, Miguel Montero, and Chris Young – “Bad” from the album of the same title, Bad. The name says it all.  These guys have been just plain bad.  All have shown a VERY brief star at one point this season, however, these guys have made a living making fans miserable so far this season.

Justin Upton – “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough”.  This treasure from Off The Wall, keeps reminding me that I may never get enough of this rising superstar.  Upton, after a slow start, has me thinking he may, just may find himself in the mid-summer classic, The Major League Baseball All-Star Game in St. Louis.

Mark Reynolds -“Dangerous” from the album of the same name, Dangerous. He is just that, dangerous.  Just when you want to strangle him for striking out in his first four at-bats, up he comes in his fifth to hit a two or three run homer.  It’s dangerous to fall in love with him because the strike outs will drive you nutty, but when he connects, the balls fly far, far enough to request stewardesses.

What songs can you relate Michael Jackson songs to with current (or even former) Diamondback players?  I’d love to hear from you.

Scott Allen

AZScott

Well,  just falling short of saying I’ve seen it all, I’ve seen ALMOST all of it.

Amazing, just truly amazing.  No, not the fact that the Arizona Diamondbacks just got swept by the Seattle Mariners in Seattle, a series in which the Dbacks could easily have swept themselves.  The fact is the Diamondbacks are finding every which way to lose baseball games and today was no exception.

The Mariners juiced the bases and in came Chad Qualls.  This time, Qualls could not be to blame.  Today’s goat was Tony Clark.  On a slightly more than easy ground ball that would have sent the game to the 10th inning, Mark Reynolds made a nice throw over to Clark at first, who then just plain dropped the ball, allowing the runner at third to score the winning run.  Amazing.

There are so many things wrong with this team right now, I think it is just about time to blow this thing up – including those on and off the field within this organization.  Hitters can’t hit and pitchers can’t pitch, well relief pitchers.  You can’t sit here and blame the starters.  Sure, every starter has had their moments this season where you just want to strangle them.  However, in this series, the starters all deserved better fates.

On Friday, Jon Garland left the game after seven innings, leading 3-0.  The bullpen came in a blew the lead and the game, allowing Seattle to win 4-3 thanks in part to a pinch-hit home run by Ken Griffey Jr.

Yesterday, the Diamondbacks were tied 2-2 in a start by Billy Buckner, who didn’t pitch bad, but could have done better.  However the bullpen came in and couldn’t hold the slight deficit Buckner had when he left the game. The Dbacks lost 7-3.

Today, it was Doug Davis’ turn.  Again, another quality start.  Davis gave up one run, seven hits in seven innings.  Can’t ask much more from the guy.  Yet, in the eighth and ninth innings, the bullepn couldn’t keep baserunners off the bases and they eventually scored an unearned run to win the game.

Tony Clark is about as useful on the field as a swarm of knats.  He can’t hit and now apparently he can’t field.  He should have retired two years ago.  There is no excuse for dropping an routine play, much less on a play that won the game for the opposition.  He’ll be the first to own up to costing the Dbacks this one, however, the next words out of his mouth should be he is stepping aside as a player and allowing someone whose skills have clearly not diminished like his has to come in and take over full time.  If Clark was a stand up guy, that’s what he should do.

However this team’s troubles as we know run much much deeper and really at this point, finger pointing does absolutely no good. What will do some good right now is to start brining up all the young guys and get them prepared for the future.  The current Dback players clearly have give up on this season.  It is time for the front office to do the same.

First move is to replace general manager Josh Byrnes.  Unfortunately, as little as I like part owner Ken Kendrick, he isn’t going anywhere.  Byrnes has made some suspect moves and continues make headlines with the moves he isn’t making.

With pitcher Brandon Webb probably out for the season now, it is rumored he may have pitched his last inning for the Dbacks, as the Dbacks hold the 2010 option on his contract.  Suspicion has it that the Dbacks will decline the option and allow him to become a free agent.  Amazing.  After all that man has done for this organization.  Nothing has been said official on that and you won’t get anyone within the Dbacks organization to admit that, however, that writing is on the clubhouse walls.  Pretty sad that not only is the possibility of losing Webb very real, the possibility of losing him for nothing is real.

So, it’s time to end the experiements on the following:

Jon Rauch – this may have been one of the worst pickups in Josh Byrnes’ tenure.  Sure his ERA has finally crawled under 5.00, however he has not come in and done the job he was traded for to do.  He is a waste of space, something I’ve been lamenting all season long.  No one is listening though.

Chris Young - although he has shown signs of climbing out of his hole over the past two weeks, he still clearly is not consistent enough to get his average above .200.  If you are an everyday player, there is absolutely no excuse to be hitting under .200.  I hate to beat a man while he is down with a groin injury like Young has, but the truth is the truth.  Young is quickly becoming a wasted talent.  I still think the best thing for him is to go to Reno for awhile.

Juan Gutierrez - speaking of waste of space….Gutierrez is almost a sure bet of not getting the job done when called upon now.  He is like a bad movie that gets played over and over and no matter how many times you watch, you know the ending is always the same.  Wherever they dug this guy up from, they need to stick him back there.  We have a better shot of winning with George Lopez than Juan Gutierrez.

Tony Pena – when I saw him warming up in the bullpen today, I really considered just turning it off and this was when he was WARMING UP.  He wasn’t in the game yet.  Just the sight of this guy makes me sick to my stomach these days.  You want to talk about a guy who went from the penthouse to the outhouse overnight, it is this guy.  His current ERA is 3.86 and that is mostly because of a good start to the season.  Just over the past seven days his ERA is 18.00.  That is higher than the number of hits the Dbacks had in this entire series-  16.

Eric Brynes – no, no relation to Josh.  I don’t think.  Seriously though, how does this guy continue to see playing time?  Hitting .220 with an on-base percentage of .261.

There are others who deserve consideration of guys who I can no longer do without.  Stephen Drew comes to mind, however he has shown more consistent improvement, although his 0-4 today does not endear him to me.  Miguel Montero’s defensive catching skills leave much to be desired.  I desire not to see him attempt another throw to second base when trying to throw out a runner stealing second.  It is sad that a major league catcher can’t reach second base on a throw from home plate on a more consistent basis.

As you can see, this team’s trouble run deep.  Very deep.  I could spend a week analyzing every aspect of this team’s weaknesses.  Why do that though?  The Dbacks themselves clearly aren’t doing it, so why should I?  At this rate, the Dbacks will be lucky to avoid 100 losses and that is no exaggeration.

Is it football season yet?

The story seems to be more of the same.  Here is my top ten list of reasons why the Dbacks are not winning.

• Hitting, or lack thereof. Hitting coach Rick Schu needs to go.
• Relief pitching, more specifically Jon Rauch and Doug Slaten
• Poor Baserunning
• Lack of timely hitting.  Can’t get the big hit with runners in scoring position
• Eric Byrnes
• Justin Upton needs to go back to Reno
• An injured ace, Brandon Webb.  One could argue though it may not matter
• Giving up early leads.  It’s a trend that’s developing
• Not re-signing Randy Johnson.  Not as effective tonight, but still has the fire and it shows
• The rest of the NL, minus Washington, is just simply better

The Dbacks fall further and further behind with each Dodgers win.  Please don’t say it’s early.  I’ve always found that to be a ridiculous excuse.  They all count.  If you lose the division by one game (which will not be a worry for this team), then you could look back at one of the leads this team has already given up this season.