The only race that involves the Dbacks is a mad race among the relievers to see who can finish with the most blown saves and losses by the end of the season. Slaten did his best tonight, god bless that useless sack of intestines.

Webb won his 21st game. He's got 2 more starts, and he needs to win both of them to have a shot at the Cy Young. And even then, I think it's a done deal, most likely. Unless the Dbacks score 12 runs off Lincecum tomorrow.

Lev, you and I are alike in that we're thinking the worst of our teams.
Frankly, I won't be confident until this is Capital-C Clinched. Otherwise, they'll always have another 8-game losing streak in them.

There's no way Webb deserves the Cy Young. Lincecum has been the best pitcher by some margin - christ, even in the simplistic stats (lowest ERA, highest K's, highest K rate).

Heck, my ballot would be 1) Lincecum 2) Santana and 3) Hamels.

The only race that involves the Dbacks is a mad race among the relievers to see who can finish with the most blown saves and losses by the end of the season.

What happened to all those Dbacks relievers who pitched so well last year in all those close games?

[Checking]

Valverde is in Houston, tho BBRef has no record of any trade or signing...
Tony Pena simply had a BABIP regression...
Brandon Lyon, ditto...
Doug Slaten saw many more of his baserunners score this year...
Juan Cruz, despite an insane K/9 rate, has nary a single save this year...
Chad Qualls has pitched well (came from Houston, hmm swapped for Valverde in a challenge trade?).

Valverde is in Houston, tho BBRef has no record of any trade or signing...

BBRef updates that transaction list on a player's page, seemingly only in the next season after a guy gets traded. The DBacks traded Valverde for Qualls and Chris Burke.

It was Qualls, Burke and Juan Gutierrez. The Dbacks party line is that they traded Valverde to free up payroll for Haren... you know, they had already signed Eric Byrnes to below market rate of $10m/year for 3 years...

Pena is just inconsistent. Even last year he had ups and downs. Lyon just sucks, last year he gave up just a couple of home runs, which is unsustainable with his fly ball rate. He also stopped using his slider and changeup, being more of a fastball/curveball guy, and guys are just ignoring his curveball and creaming his fastball. Slaten blows, Schlereth can't get to the majors fast enough... and I really can't wait to see what Clay Zavada does in AA next year. Melvin just doesn't like Cruz so he doesn't use him in high leverage situations... really stupid. And Qualls is plain inconsistent, when he loses his slider, he gets creamed.

Check out Cruz on this PRI Report, relievers K/9

Of course, unfortunately, check out where he also ranks on the BB/9 Report

Huge win by LA today vs. Pittsburgh. If they lose that game, and the D Backs find a way to beat Lincecum tonight, the D Backs might start believing and the Dodgers might start pressing.

Oh well...at least their bullpen got another workout.