Colorado @ Arizona preview
Chase Field
Last Meeting ( May 27, 2010 ) Arizona 2, Colorado 8
Ken Kendrick’s message was pretty simple when he met with the media recently.
The Arizona Diamondbacks managing general partner said no one in the organization is above reproach as the team flounders on the field.
The Diamondbacks had the best record in the National League for the 2007 season and advanced to the NL Championship Series before losing to Colorado.
That was just about the last time this franchise has had been competitive, other than a hot start to the 2008 season.
The Diamondbacks have plummeted so far that they enter this weekend’s series with the Rockies at Chase Field with a 10-game losing streak, the worst bullpen - ERA-wise - in the history of the game and streak of 31 innings without scoring a run.
And Kendrick, much like the fans, has had enough.
“When the team is playing as badly as this team is,” he said, “and we’ve had questionable performance going back into a full season last year and the second half of the 2008 season, you really need to look very broadly at everything and try to objectively determine what kind of changes you really want to make. We’re going to go through that process.”
So there it is. The first indication that the “organizational advocacy” mantra emphasized by general manager Josh Byrnes has come under scrutiny with the higher-ups.
It was Byrnes’ decision in May 2009 to replace veteran manager Bob Melvin with AJ Hinch, a former major league catcher who served as the club’s farm director but had no managerial experience at any level
Hinch and Byrnes are not alone in the blame by any means, for they are not the ones failing to come through in the clutch or close out a game.
The players are in line for criticism as well and the only way to change the focus is to start winning ballgames.
It starts tonight when the Rockies visit to start a 10-game homestand.
One of the few bright spots of the season has been the pitching of Ian Kennedy, who was a bit of an unknown when he came over from the New York Yankees in the offseason.
He had pitched sparingly in the majors the last three seasons for the Yankees so there was no real track record to go on, but the right-hander has calmed those concerns as the team’s best starter.
Kennedy (3-3, 3.38) has six straight quality starts but only has a 2-2 record over that span because of the team’s struggles.
Right-hander Aaron Cook (2-3, 4.97) of the Rockies will be looking to continue the Diamondbacks’ slide and keep Colorado on its hot streak.
Colorado, which also changed managers last year when it replaced Clint Hurdle with Jim Tracy on the way to the postseason, has won eight of its last 11 games, including a three-game sweep of the D’backs, to surge over .500 at 28-25.