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June 11, 2008

On the Beat

The Snaking Road

by John Perrotto

Every team has its share of peaks and valleys over the course of six months and 162 games. Bob Melvin certainly understands that baseball truism. However, he has a hard time explaining the Diamondbacks’ peripatetic performance to this point. “When we hit our peak, it was a really high one,” Melvin said. “And when we hit our valley, it was a really low one. We’ve gone from one extreme to the other this season, that’s for sure and I think anyone in this organization truly understand why it’s happened this way we would try to do something to rectify it.”

Perhaps it is Pythagoras evening things out. The Diamondbacks made the postseason last year despite being outscored 732-712 in the regular season, and in April seemed set to put that past mystery behind them when they went 20-8 and opened a lead in the NL West as high as 6½ games. However, the Diamondbacks have gone a combined 15-22 in May and the first third of June. That has left the defending NL West champions with a 35-30 record, though still holding a 3½-game lead over the Dodgers, thanks to none of the other four teams in the division being over .500.

“It’s been frustrating because I know we’re better than the way we’ve played the last five or six weeks,” Diamondbacks catcher Chris Snyder said. “I don’t think we played over our heads at the beginning of the season. We have a very good team and we’re capable of winning a lot of games. I don’t what it is. It just seems like we’ve been sluggish.”

Melvin has heard that same criticism of his team. However, he attributes the characterization of their play to some more straightforward—the Diamondbacks’ scoring average dropping from 6.4 in April to 4.1 in May and June. Overall, they are fifth in the NL in scoring with a 4.8 average, but have no individuals in the top 20 in the league in Equivalent Average. Any time you don’t score runs, it looks like you’re not putting forth the effort,” Melvin said. “Our guys are playing hard. I don’t see that as our problem. They just haven’t played as well as they did earlier in the season. It’s a matter of execution, not effort.”

The Diamondbacks won the NL West last season then swept the Cubs in the NLDS before being swept by the Rockies in the NLDS. Because of the Diamondbacks’ success in 2007, perhaps expectations were raised too high in 2008. While Melvin stops short of saying that himself, he is quick to remind people that the Diamondbacks still have a very young team. “Even though we were through a pennant race and the playoffs last year, we still have a lot of youth on this club and guys who are still kind of feeling their way at major-leaguers,” Melvin said. “I think our youth could definitely part of the reason we’ve been so up and down this season. There are a lot of ups and downs that come with a 162-game season, and I’m sure some of our guys are still learning to deal with that. I think it could be a case of where we’ve started to struggle and some of the young guys have tried to put too much on their shoulders to be the one to try to turn it around.”