D-backs Notebook: The Arizona midseason report card

First, the good news.

The Arizona Diamondbacks have spent the vast majority of the 2008 baseball season on top of the National League West standings.

At the end of the day, clinching a playoff spot is all that matters, regardless of how a team gets there. Anything can happen on October — just ask the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals or 2007 Colorado Rockies.

Now, the bad news.

The Diamondbacks have stumbled badly after their red-hot start to 2008 and appear poised to give up their perch as NL West kingpins.

Since its best-in-the-majors 20-8 performance in April, Arizona has compiled an uninspiring 23-38 record through its last 61 outings. To put that in perspective, the Washington Nationals (owners of the worst record in baseball) have also won 23 games over that same span.

Evaluating this team’s first-half performance is a tough task. Are the Diamondbacks the fun, energetic bunch that took baseball by storm in April or the listless, overwhelmed team that hasn’t won put together a winning streak longer than two since May 17?

With the All-Star Game a little more than a week away, it’s time to take Arizona’s full body of work into account and grade its first-half performance.

The lineup

Earlier this season, it appeared as if Arizona could send as many as four position players to New York. Mark Reynolds, Justin Upton, Conor Jackson and Orlando Hudson were hitting the cover off the ball, and few teams had any success slowing these guys down.

Everyone has fallen off their torrid paces to start the season, obviously, but only Jackson and Hudson have continued to perform somewhat consistently.

Reynolds continues to swing for the fences — leading the D-backs with 17 dingers — but when he misses, he misses badly. Only Ryan Howard has struck out more often than Reynolds this season.

Upton isn’t far behind in the strikeout department. The 20-year-old phenom has more raw talent than anyone in the Arizona organization, but he is still maddeningly inconsistent.

During the month of June, Upton’s strikeout totals (25) tripled his base hits (eight).

Outside of Jackson, Hudson, Chad Tracy and the surprising Augie Ojeda, nobody on this roster is hitting better than .259 — the NL’s league average. Without Jackson and Hudson, this team would be hitting .234.

At .248, the D-backs rank 26th in the majors and have dipped below last season’s unimpressive .250 mark.

Eric Byrnes — last season’s offensive sparkplug — has struggled mightily with injuries this season, leading to an anemic .209 average in 52 games.

Ojeda gets an A for his impressive work off the bench. Jackson and Hudson get A-minuses. The rest of this lineup gets a D.

The starting rotation

It might not be as dominant as it was to start the season, but Arizona’s starting pitching is the only reason this squad hasn’t completely fallen on its face.

The D-backs are still one of only 11 teams in the majors with a team ERA under four.

Staff ace Brandon Webb ranks first in the NL in wins (12), sixth in innings pitched (118) and 10th in strikeouts (100). The hard-throwing sinker-baller seemed invincible to start the season — reeling off nine straight wins before a hard-luck loss in Florida on May 21.

Of course, Webb is far from invincible. It’s unreasonable to expect any hurler — even one with Webb’s talent — to shut down the opposition every time out.

Webb has suffered through a bit of a mini-slump lately, going 3-4 and watching his ERA climb from 1.80 to 3.59. He’s leaving his sinker up in the zone and hitters are taking advantage.

In his last start on Thursday, Webb gave up two home runs to the Milwaukee Brewers, and if it wasn’t for Arizona’s remarkable six-run, ninth-inning comeback, Webb would’ve been charged with his fifth loss of the season.

Webb’s sidekick, Dan Haren, was acquired in a high-profile off-season trade with Oakland and he’s been as good as advertised. In fact, he’s been Arizona’s most consistent pitcher this season, out-perforing Webb as of late.

Even though his 8-5 record doesn’t seem impressive, Haren has fallen victim to some lousy luck, failing to get the necessary run support in a handful of his outings.

Haren’s 2.83 ERA ranks fourth in the NL, and his 103 K’s rank eighth. Like Webb, he’s an innings-eater, throwing 117.2 thus far. Perhaps most impressively, Haren leads the NL in WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) at 0.98.

Elsewhere in the staff, Micah Owings has been his typical up-and-down self this season. Either he’s dominant or he’s terrible, with little in between.

Owings has lost five straight starts and has seen his ERA balloon to 5.15. Lately, Owings has been struggling with a bad back, but he saw some action in Friday’s 5-1 loss to San Diego.

If the D-backs have plans to battle the Los Angeles Dodgers for the NL West crown, they will need Owings to get back on track as soon as possible.

Doug Davis and Randy Johnson fill out the back end of the rotation. Since returning from a scary bout with thyroid cancer, Davis has performed admirably, going into last night’s start with a 3.79 ERA.

Johnson had some strong starts earlier this season, but the 44-year-old future Hall-of-Famer has lost his last six outings, with hitters compiling a .294 batting average against the Big Unit.

Webb and Haren get solid A’s and will likely represent Arizona at the All-Star Game. The rest of the rotation was at a B-plus prior to their struggles. Now, they’re pitching at a D-plus level. Overall, let’s give the staff a B.

The bullpen

How did the D-backs win the NL West last year, despite hitting .250 as a team and sporting a minus-20 run differential? Easy, they had baseball’s best bullpen.

Jose Valverde earned an All-Star berth and led the NL in saves, while Brandon Lyon was recognized as the league’s best set-up man.

With Valverde stomping around the mound in Houston this season, everyone in the D-backs’ bullpen was forced to move up a spot, with mixed results.

Lyon has performed well as the team’s closer, blowing only three of his 20 save opportunities. Of course, in two of his last three appearances, he’s been the man on the mound as the D-backs lost the game.

Most elite closers overpower hitters with high strikeout rates. Lyon has never been that type of pitcher, averaging a modest 6.88 strikeouts per nine innings this season. For the most part, he’s held down the fort admirably in the closer’s role, but ask any Boston Red Sox fan how they felt when Lyon stood on the mound with a crucial save opportunity in the balance during 2003.

Chad Qualls and Tony Pena are this team’s primary set-up men. Typically, they’re reliable arms who can come into any situation and make good pitches, but both men also possess the ability to melt down without warning.

The same can be said for young flame-throwers Juan Cruz and Max Scherzer, but these pitchers have a tremendous amount of upside. When their breaking stuff is finding the strike zone, they can make any big-league hitter look foolish.

Last year’s bullpen would’ve gotten an A-plus. This year, it earns a B.

The manager

Bob Melvin won last season’s Manager of the Year award, due to his ability to somehow coax 90 wins out of a lineup that drove baseball’s stat-heads crazy.

Mark Grace dubbed Melvin “the mad scientist,” because he constantly tinkered with his lineup, often trusting his gut ahead of statistical evaluation.

It doesn’t make sense to put someone like Chris Young (career on-base percentage: .299) in the lead-off spot, but Melvin did it. Somehow, it worked.

This season, Melvin’s experiments have fizzled.

It’s unfair to place all of the blame on Melvin — after all, it’s up to the players to produce. However, Melvin and his coaching staff don’t seem too interested in spicing things up or taking chances.

For example, this team enters play with only 28 stolen bases. With a team struggling to score runs this badly, one would expect to see the manager take more chances on the bases in order to get something going.

In addition, Webb’s mini-slump might be attributed to a heavy work load. It’s up to Melvin to make sure his ace’s arm is healthy going into September.

After last season’s A, Melvin earns a C-plus through the first half of 2008.

Overall, the D-backs went from an A-plus to start the season to a D-minus over the last six weeks. That averages out to a C.

If the D-backs plan on making a repeat appearance in the postseason, a C simply isn’t going to cut it.

Luckily, the NL West appears to be the worst division in baseball, so Arizona should remain in contention through the season’s final day.

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