azdad1978
Championship!!!!
By Jack Magruder, Tribune
The Diamondbacks will need at least one more game to play through the detritus of the 2004 season.
The first day of the rest of the D-Backs’ life without founder Jerry Colangelo looked suspiciously like the most recent past in a seasonopening 16-6 loss to the Chicago Cubs, who by the middle of the root-root-root-for-thehome-team seventh inning had even engineered a hostile takeover of the 45,539 at Bank One Ballpark.
New No. 1 starter Javier Vazquez made the thirdshortest start of his eight-year major league career in his DBacks debut, giving up hits to 10 of the 15 batters he faced while lasting only 1 2 /3 innings, leaving the D-Backs to wonder if he was tipping his pitches.
"This certainly wasn’t the way he wanted to start. It wasn’t the way we all wanted to start,’’ D-Backs manager Bob Melvin said.
" . . It felt like three losses, but it only counts as one.’’
The Cubs scored two runs in the first inning and five in the second, when Vazquez left to a chorus of boos, while setting a franchise record for runs on opening day. It was 7-0 after the road half of the second inning, 12-3 after six.
Chicago had 23 hits; Derrek Lee had four, including two doubles and a homer. Aramis Ramirez, celebrating a new four-year, $42 million contract, homered and was a triple short of the cycle.
"They had pitchers, catchers, bat boys — everybody was getting hits for them,’’ DBacks left fielder Luis Gonzalez said.
"Things like this happen in baseball. It’s inevitable,’’ said Jose Cruz Jr., one of the players the D-Backs brought in to remake a team that was 51-111 last season.
Cruz homered in his first DBacks at bat, driving a 3-2 pitch into the seats in leftcenter with two outs in the second off Carlos Zambrano, who was removed from the game and then ejected after walking Cruz with the bases loaded to force in another run in the fifth.
Gonzalez drove in a run with a two-out bunt single down the third-base line in the third, an approach he said he might use a little more this season to combat the shift most opponents play against him, when the shortstop lines up on the second base side of second.
"When you have Nomar Garciaparra on the right side of second and the third baseman playing shortstop, I figure with two outs it’s an easy RBI and an easy hit right there,’’ Gonzalez said.
"Hopefully, now it just puts it in the back of their minds and opens up more holes for me, although I’m sure most teams will still play me with the shift anyway, though.’’
Vazquez has made only two shorter starts in his eight-year major league career. The first was in his third career start, when he gave up five hits and six earned runs in 1 1 /3 innings of a 7-4 loss to Milwaukee on April 14,1998.
He pitched the first 1 1 /3 innings of a 22-0 loss to Cleveland on Aug. 31, 2004, giving up six runs on five hits.
"I don’t want to take anything away from them at all, but I was in disbelief with some of the pitches they hit,’’ D-Backs catcher Koyie Hill said.
The Cubs scored twice on four singles in the first inning, then strung together five straight hits with one out in the second to score four more.
After Vazquez struck out Jeromy Burnitz for the second out of the second, Lee lined a two-run double to left to drive in the final run of the inning and drive out Vazquez.
"They hit some well-located pitches in the first inning,’’ Hill said. "We’ll have to go to the video and split-screen it’’ to see if Vazquez was tipping. "Nobody from our side noticed anything.’’
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=39069
The Diamondbacks will need at least one more game to play through the detritus of the 2004 season.
The first day of the rest of the D-Backs’ life without founder Jerry Colangelo looked suspiciously like the most recent past in a seasonopening 16-6 loss to the Chicago Cubs, who by the middle of the root-root-root-for-thehome-team seventh inning had even engineered a hostile takeover of the 45,539 at Bank One Ballpark.
New No. 1 starter Javier Vazquez made the thirdshortest start of his eight-year major league career in his DBacks debut, giving up hits to 10 of the 15 batters he faced while lasting only 1 2 /3 innings, leaving the D-Backs to wonder if he was tipping his pitches.
"This certainly wasn’t the way he wanted to start. It wasn’t the way we all wanted to start,’’ D-Backs manager Bob Melvin said.
" . . It felt like three losses, but it only counts as one.’’
The Cubs scored two runs in the first inning and five in the second, when Vazquez left to a chorus of boos, while setting a franchise record for runs on opening day. It was 7-0 after the road half of the second inning, 12-3 after six.
Chicago had 23 hits; Derrek Lee had four, including two doubles and a homer. Aramis Ramirez, celebrating a new four-year, $42 million contract, homered and was a triple short of the cycle.
"They had pitchers, catchers, bat boys — everybody was getting hits for them,’’ DBacks left fielder Luis Gonzalez said.
"Things like this happen in baseball. It’s inevitable,’’ said Jose Cruz Jr., one of the players the D-Backs brought in to remake a team that was 51-111 last season.
Cruz homered in his first DBacks at bat, driving a 3-2 pitch into the seats in leftcenter with two outs in the second off Carlos Zambrano, who was removed from the game and then ejected after walking Cruz with the bases loaded to force in another run in the fifth.
Gonzalez drove in a run with a two-out bunt single down the third-base line in the third, an approach he said he might use a little more this season to combat the shift most opponents play against him, when the shortstop lines up on the second base side of second.
"When you have Nomar Garciaparra on the right side of second and the third baseman playing shortstop, I figure with two outs it’s an easy RBI and an easy hit right there,’’ Gonzalez said.
"Hopefully, now it just puts it in the back of their minds and opens up more holes for me, although I’m sure most teams will still play me with the shift anyway, though.’’
Vazquez has made only two shorter starts in his eight-year major league career. The first was in his third career start, when he gave up five hits and six earned runs in 1 1 /3 innings of a 7-4 loss to Milwaukee on April 14,1998.
He pitched the first 1 1 /3 innings of a 22-0 loss to Cleveland on Aug. 31, 2004, giving up six runs on five hits.
"I don’t want to take anything away from them at all, but I was in disbelief with some of the pitches they hit,’’ D-Backs catcher Koyie Hill said.
The Cubs scored twice on four singles in the first inning, then strung together five straight hits with one out in the second to score four more.
After Vazquez struck out Jeromy Burnitz for the second out of the second, Lee lined a two-run double to left to drive in the final run of the inning and drive out Vazquez.
"They hit some well-located pitches in the first inning,’’ Hill said. "We’ll have to go to the video and split-screen it’’ to see if Vazquez was tipping. "Nobody from our side noticed anything.’’
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=39069
