Throwback Thursday: Diamondbacks have colorful history on Aug. 10

According to Baseball Reference, the Arizona Diamondbacks have played 17 total games on August 10 over the team’s 20-year history.

I was hoping to pick one moment about those 17 games to focus on, but there was a myriad of colorful details, so I picked a few.

Arizona’s Famous Pitchers

One could easily argue that Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson put Diamondbacks baseball on the map.

Schilling threw a complete game shutout on this day in 1998 against the Diamondbacks en route to a career-high 15 complete games in that season.

The Diamondbacks must have liked what he was serving, because he was traded two years later to the team in his home state.

He also earned a win against the Braves in 2001, contributing to the team’s only World Series appearance and win.

Johnson, however, pitched on the same day in three consecutive years from 2002-2004. He combined for 20 innings pitched, eight earned runs and 23 strikeouts over those three games. Johnson won two games on this day, including in the 2002 and 2003 seasons.

The Cycle That Wasn’t

On August 10, 2002, Johnson was supported by an almost-cycle off the bat of Greg Colbrunn.

Colbrunn went 3-for-5 with a double, a triple and a homerun – a single short of the cycle. He grounded out in the second inning and the fourth.

Had the Diamondbacks needed to bat in the bottom of the ninth, the Florida Marlins would have faced Luis Gonzalez, Chad Moeller and Matt Mantei. Colbrunn would have needed two of them to reach base safely in order to bat again.

With a 9-2 lead, that was not necessary and Colbrunn.

The first baseman became the second (of five) Diamondbacks player to ever hit for the cycle, with his rare feat coming on September 18, 2002 against the San Diego Padres.

Diamondbacks Had A Little Lamb

Fast forward a little bit and August gave the Diamondbacks the gift of Jacob Ryan Lamb. Lamb debuted on August 7, 2014, earning both his first and his first RBI.

However, on August 10, 2014, Lamb scored his first run as a Diamondback. Since then, he has scored 200 runs and driven in 226 RBI.

Over the last three seasons, Lamb has gone 4-for-14 on this day, batting .286, just higher than his .255 career average.

In the short time that Lamb has been in a Diamondbacks uniform, the 26-year-old third baseman has earned a 6.5 WAR. Over three years, he has proven himself an invaluable part of the Diamondbacks lineup.

As a team, the Diamondbacks are 11-6 on this day. They will be looking to add one more win to that total on Thursday as they take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in a series-determining night game.