June 22, 2012; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Arizona Diamondbacks left fielder Jason Kubel (13) celebrates with Justin Upton after hitting a two run home run against the Chicago Cubs at Chase Field. Image: Matt Kartozian-US PRESSWIRE

Record Notes: With the series sweep, the Diamondbacks improved to 37-35. It is the first time they sit two games over .500 since they were 13-11 on May 1^st. They have swept two of the last three visitors to Chase Field and finished their second straight homestand at 5-1. They are now 13-3 in their last 16 home games scoring an average just short of eight runs a game. With a 14-7 record, the Dbacks hold the best record in the National League in the month of June and have cut the division race to 5.5 games.

GOOD: Team Offense. This offense has been absolutely on fire over the last week. But compared to who you ask? Well- in the last seven days the Dbacks are first in runs, triples, homeruns, RBI’s, team average and OPS in all of baseball. They lead the majors in nearly every one of these stats for the entire month of June as well (the A’s have scored one more run than the Dbacks to date). Pretty incredible when considering the team was shutout in four of their twenty-one games in June.

Notable Players: Nearly all players helped contribute to the weekend sweep but Jason Kubel, Paul Goldschmidt, and Aaron Hill continue to hit the ball very well. Add in five hits each from Miguel Montero and Willie Bloomquist and six hits from a surging Justin Upton and the 1-6 hitters batted a smooth .400 for the series.

*Wade Miley completed his fourth straight start going at least seven innings while allowing just one earned run. He collected his ninth victory tying him with Yu Darvish among all rookies in the big leagues. His ERA is actually getting lower and now sits at 2.19 on the year. He is tied for the third best ERA in the game and has an all-star worthy ERA in June of 1.89.

What has made Miley so impressive to this point is his ability to minimize damage. With no one on, hitters are batting .239; with runners on they’re hitting .182; and with runners in scoring position Miley has held opposing hitters to an impressive .145 average. Also causing problems for opposing managers when filling out their lineup card has been Miley’s success when facing right handed hitters as he’s held them to an average of just .204- nearly 45 points lower than that of left handed hitters.

*Bullpen. The bullpen was probably the MVP of this series if there was one to give out. They battled through 10 2/3 innings without allowing a single earned run over the weekend and striking out 11 on their way to two victories and one save. You could argue that Josh Collmenter’s start could be considered ‘bullpen’ work but his four innings on Friday in place of the injured Joe Saunders was a spot start. Still, Collmenter was again excellent allowing just one earned run over four innings. Since moving to the bullpen, Collmenter sports a 1.62 ERA and has walked just five batters while striking out 24 in his 22 2/3 innings of relief work.

BAD. Ian Kennedy struggled through 4 1/3 innings of work on Saturday giving up ten hits and five earned runs while striking out just two. It took the floundering ace 108 pitches to get into the fifth inning and watched a 7-2 lead slowly disappear before being pulled with one out in the fifth. He has now allowed 26 hits and 13 earned runs in his last 18 innings pitched (6.50 ERA).

*Base Stealing. They haven’t been stealing many bases as of late with their recent offensive explosion but Upton was AGAIN picked off from first and was caught stealing for the sixth time this year. The team continues to sit in the basement in stolen base percentage at 62% and Upton continues to look lackadaisical on the base paths.

UGLY. Chris Young unfortunately takes the cake in this category again as he was just 1 for 9 with five strikeouts in the Cubs series before being given a day off Sunday. He is 2 for his last 19 with zero walks and his OPS in June is an abysmal .460. His last four hits have been doubles and he is hitting at a .141 clip in June. Personally- as I’ve mentioned before- I think they should remove Young from the lineup. He is not helping the team and Gerardo Parra can step in at any time and play center field at a very high level. I do remember how poorly Goldie was hitting through April (.198) and there were times when I probably said the same thing, but bear in mind that Young is a .236 career hitter. Center field has taken over the spot from third base with the least amount of production over the last six weeks.

*Ryan Roberts was just 2 for 12 against the Cubs and is now 4 for his last 21 (.190). His OBP for the season is below .300 (.288) and his average is hovering around .240. While personally it’d be nice to have both of these players stay with Arizona through the season and beyond- business would say otherwise and frankly, these two are not producing.

NOTES: With an attendance of 38,542 on Saturday, the club surpassed the million mark- six games earlier than in 2011.

*On Friday both Brad Ziegler and David Hernandez recorded their first major league hits.

*Upton did not strike out in the Cubs series. It is only the third series all season in which he did not record a strikeout and the first since the Brewers were in town from May 25-27^th.

*Chris Young Homerun Watch officially takes over for Upton now and he currently sits at 29 games without a ding dong. He also hasn’t recorded an RBI in 14 games. C’mon CY let’s have one!!

*The Dbacks travel to Atlanta to take on the Braves Tuesday. Stephen Drew is expected to join the team on Wednesday after missing the last 11 months due to his ankle injury. The Braves are 4-6 in their last ten and have lost two straight.

Now bring on the Braves!!

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*The Rockies may be in fourth place in the N.L. West but when they shutout the Dbacks in Phoenix on Monday they had won seven of their last eight and were on a roll. Enter the Dbacks ace Ian Kennedy who always seems to be called on to pick the team back up- something he hadn’t really been able to do until Tuesday.

GOOD: Starting Pitching. For the third consecutive series the starting pitching was great. On Monday, Joe Saunders got hit around early-giving up three runs in the first two innings-but settled down to pitch into the seventh. Saunders continues to struggle to put together a complete start but does a great job of battling and burns through innings allowing the bullpen to rest. Still, with Kennedy and Miley throwing exceptionally well, it appears the starting rotation is back in control and this is evident in how the team has been playing lately.

*Ian Kennedy is rolling right now. The right hander tied a career high in strikeouts mowing down twelve Rockies through six innings of work on Tuesday. It was only the second time in Dbacks history a pitcher tallied 12 or more K’s in six innings. The other? Randy Johnson who did it twice. After losing five consecutive starts Kennedy has bounced back with two strong outings allowing just one earned run over his last 13 2/3 innings. He has also struck out seven or more hitters in three consecutive starts for the first time in his career.

*Wade Miley has come out of nowhere to make a serious name for himself in major league baseball. The rookie left hander is now tied with Yu Darvish for the major league lead in wins by a rookie (7) and has the lowest ERA of rookie starters by nearly a run (2.53). Miley worked eight innings of three hit ball on Wednesday to help the Dbacks win their second straight series. He didn’t allow a base runner until the fifth inning when he surrendered a double to Jason Giambi who would eventually score Colorado’s only run.

*Team Offense. Following their abysmal effort on Monday, the offense exploded for 16 runs over the next two games and posted a season high 17 hits in Tuesday’s 10-0 win. It was fun to watch guys up and down the lineup contributing and encouraging to see multiple guys getting hot at the same time. Jason Kubel, Aaron Hill and Paul Goldschmidt all tore up the Rockies’ pitchers. It was also nice to see A.J. Pollock make a spot start and be able to contribute with an RBI single and record his first career stolen base.

*Paul Goldschmidt is on an absolute tear right now. Quite the turn of events from what we were all saying about the second year player just four weeks ago. During the series he extended his career long hit streak to 14 games. He is hitting .451 with a .492 OBP, 11 runs, 5 homeruns, and 8 RBI’s during the streak and raised his season average to .288. In the Rockies series he was 4 for 8 with a homerun and three doubles. Play this kid every-single-day.

*Aaron Hill & Jason Kubel each finished a double away from the cycle on Tuesday and combined for nine hits in the series- seven of those for extra bases and knocked in eight runs. And this was with Kubel getting the day off on Wednesday- following a five RBI day-why? ‘You just never know around this place…’

BAD: RISP. It seems weird that after all of the positives this offense put forward during this series that they could still be struggling here but they were just 7 for 31(.226) with runners in scoring position.  This was punctuated by an 0 for 8 effort in Monday’s shutout but the offense did have three 2-out RBI’s in Wednesday’s finale.

*Miguel Montero is quietly going through a little slump and is now 7 for his last 35 (.200) with three extra base hits. He was just 1 for 7 against the Rockies and is 4 for 17 in June. While he has allowed a few stolen bases in the last two series, he still has the best ‘stolen base percentage against’ in the N.L. with a .486- he is the only catcher in all of baseball to have more runners ‘caught stealing’ than stolen bases allowed.

UGLY: Chris Young continues to struggle to find his swing that had him on such a tear before heading to the DL. Since coming off the disabled list he is just 8 for 52 (.154) with no homeruns and two doubles. He has been held hitless in five of his last six games. In the series he was just 2 for 9 with a run scored and one RBI. He did contribute four walks as well which means he is still having good at bats at least part of the time.

*Opening Games of Series. This is a bit of an enigma at this point. In the last eight series openers the Diamondbacks are 1-7. They’ve been held to one run or fewer in six of those eight games and were outscored 41-13. Something is happening with this team in the first games lately that clearly shows they’re unprepared and lacking in energy.

NOTES: At 27-30 it is the closest the Dbacks have been to .500 since May 11^th when they were 15-18.

*When Friedrich and his bullpen completed the 4-0 shutout on Monday it was the first time the team was shutout all year. It was the first time being shutout at home since September 6^th, 2010.

*Just about everyone knows by now, but Upton was benched both Tuesday and Wednesday to allow him to ‘find himself’ and to hopefully get him on a roll. The slugger has been struggling mightily lately but seems to have taken the move professionally and sounds as if he just found a little extra motivation to produce for the organization.

*On that same note, general managing partner Ken Kendrick sounded off on XTRA 910 AM before Tuesday’s game calling out both Upton and Stephen Drew stating he was disappointed with the team’s performance thus far. Personally, this type of passion is nice to see an owner and hopefully is the spark the team needed to string together some wins. You can read the transcripts for his interview here….

*Saturday’s matchup at Chase Field includes Trevor Cahill and Jarrod Parker. The two were traded for each other in the offseason and are both coming off their best starts of the young season with Cahill throwing a complete game shutout and Parker taking a no-hitter into the eighth inning against the Texas Rangers.

Now bring on the A’s!!

Follow me on Twitter at @ndougherty313 and our team at @venomstrikes.

Apr 24, 2012; San Diego, CA, USA; Washington Nationals starting pitcher Stephen Strasburg (37) laughs before a game against the San Diego Padres at PETCO Park. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-US PRESSWIRE

Tuesday night’s pitching matchup between Yu Darvish and Hiroki Kuroda illustrated how much starting pitching is worth on the field as well as “at the box office”.  There may not have been as much buzz in this country as there was in Japan, but the rarity of two Japanese-born hurlers squaring off against one another made for a sellout crowd in Texas.   That is part of the beauty of baseball where one player out of 50 in a Major League game can create so much excitement.

There are a handful of pitchers today that can generate a large spike in attendance on the day they are scheduled to throw.  The first guy to come to mind is Stephen Strasburg.   There is no one that can pack a house today quite like the Washington phenom.  Aroldis Chapman can be such a player once the Reds decide to put him in the rotation.   I think Roy Halladay still has little bit of that vibe to his starts; with his rough beginning this season, I am not sure the same can be said of Tim Lincecum.  I would put Felix Hernandez in this group even if others will hold his low career win total against him.

Diamondback fans once had a pitcher like that and his name was Randy Johnson.  It was quite an event whenever The Big Unit went to the hill.  You never knew if you were going to see history being made.  It didn’t hurt that he was 6″10 and threw 95 MPH.   The D-Backs have Trevor Bauer waiting in the wings to join this group.  While no one can top the hype surrounding Strasburg’s debut in 2010, the smart money says Bauer’s first start will be televised by MLB Network or ESPN.  If he can live up to his advance billing,  there is no doubt Bauer can increase the live gate by 10-20% each time he pitches.   More importantly for Arizona, he will also win a lot of ballgames.

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