Kuzul

Well that was short.

By my count, first time All-Star outfielder Chris Young had five singles and one double in Anaheim Monday.  

Unfortunately for the Diamondback, it was not the well-placed-line-drive-derby. 

Eliminated in the first round in last place, Young hit just one ball out of the park while frequently voicing his displeasure with himself aloud.

“In the long run, I’d much rather have my line-drive swing than my home run swing,” Young told azcentral.com.

“Nobody has to worry about my getting turned around. It was line drives the entire time.”

That’s all fine and dandy, but he might want to rethink his stance before entering another home run derby. 

In the end, the young resurgent player seemed to enjoy his short-lived experience at the event and garnered high praise from the ESPN announcers. 

It would have been nice to see a Diamondback go further however, since the team rarely gets any national audience.

The only Arizona player to win the derby was Luis Gonzalez in 2001. 

Hopefully next season, when Chase Field plays host to the Mid-Summer Classic, a real home run hitter will be chosen from the team. 

Cough, Mark Reynolds, cough.

He might swing and miss ten times, but at least he will put on a show when he connects.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The Major League Baseball All-Star Break began today. This means we are at the halfway point in the season.

Already this season, we have had several controversial calls, four managerial firings, two perfect games, and a lot of close games.

With all the talk being about who will make the playoffs, I decided to go off-topic and look at the worst teams in the league. I only looked at the last place team in each division, although I’m sure there are arguments for other teams as the worst team.

Here are some statistics and interesting facts about each team. You make the call: who is the worst MLB team this season?

Arizona Diamondbacks

What team fires their manager and General Manager in the same season? Better yet, what team does it less than halfway through the season? The Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Dbacks fired AJ Hinch and Josh Byrnes. Hinch had an 89-123 record in 14 months.

Arizona just went 2-2 against the Florida Marlins at home to lead in to the All-Star Break.

Their pitchers are currently worst in the league, boasting a 5.27 ERA.

Baltimore Orioles

Here is another team that fired their manager before the halfway point. The Orioles fired Dave Trembley on June 4. The team has gone 14-19 since he left.

The Orioles have decent hitting numbers, with .258 batting average as a team and 784 hits.

Their pitching, on the other hand, needs a lot of work. They are third-worst in the league in ERA with 4.99, and second-worst giving up 863 hits and only striking out 516.

On the plus side, the Orioles went 4-0 against the Texas Rangers before the break.

Cleveland Indians

With Lebron James departing, the city of Cleveland rests their hopes on the Indians. Well, let’s hope not. The Indians went 1-3 against Tampa Bay before the much-needed break.

They have lost three hitters to injury this season. Their leadoff hitter, Asdrubal Cabrera, went down, followed by their No. 2 hitter Grady Sizemore. Just this week, their No. 3 hitter Shin-Soo Choo went down.

The only category the Indians are last in is striking out their opponents. The bullpen has only struck out 487 batters this season.

With all those injuries, they are in trouble.

Pittsburgh Pirates

What would this list be without the Pittsburgh Pirates?

They have extended GM Neal Huntington and manager John Russell’s contracts through the 2011 season. This duo has been there three years and has yet to produce a 70-win season.

I guess that’s why Pittsburgh have the Steelers.

The Pirates have lost six in a row against Milwaukee and Houston and needed this all-star break to regroup.

They are not having good luck at the plate, only scoring 284 runs this season (good for last place). They also have the league’s worst batting average as a team at .235.

Seattle Mariners

The Seattle Mariners had a big six-player deal recently in which they acquired 1B Justin Smoak and sent P Cliff Lee to Texas. The Mariners are trying to add some sort of spark to the team.

They went 1-3 against the New York Yankees their last four games.

The Mariners have one of the worst hitting teams in the league. They are last in homeruns with 57 and last in slugging percentage with .346 average.

They also only have 697 hits on the season (second-worst), and an abysmal .238 batting average (second-worst).

They do have decent pitching, so that is why their record is not as bad as it could be.

Washington Nationals

The city of Washington D.C. likes to rely on their young players. We have seen this with Jason Campbell of the Redskins and Alexander Ovechkin of the Capitals. Enter Stephen Strausburg.

Similar to his two counterparts, Strausburg is doing fairly well, but his team is not.

The Nationals went 1-2 against San Francisco before the break.

They do not have horrible numbers, boasting a .259 batting average, a .404 slugging percentage, and 79 homeruns.

They have also given up 836 hits, 282 walks, and only struck out 536 (good for fourth-worst).

Hopefully, Strausburg can boost the team up for the second half of the season.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

With the Mets having lost the Cliff Lee sweepstakes, they still are in need of another starting pitcher.

Losing the last two games to the Braves and falling to five games out of first place and two back in the wild card race have made this need even more obvious.

Names that have recently come up in connection with the Mets include Ted Lilly , Fausto Carmona , Jake Westbrook, and Dan Haren . However, all of these players come at a price.

A popular name that is being thrown around as a player who the Mets would need to include in a deal is Josh Thole.

At just age 22, Thole was able to achieve success in his short stint in the major leagues last season.

After starting the season in the minors, Thole has worked his way back up to the big league club.

He struggled in the minors this year posting just a .267 batting average and a .353 on-base percentage.

Many wondered if Thole had truly merited his promotion. Others wondered if it was an attempt to showcase him for a trade.

It appears to be the latter.

Thole would be a key piece in a deal for any of the aforementioned pitchers.

The Cubs appear to have no need for Thole, yet they have requested that he be included in a deal for Ted Lilly. This speaks volumes about the confidence the Cubs have in Geovany Soto.

Thole would…(to read the rest of the article click on the link below)

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

First off, I’d like to apologize to train wrecks everywhere for comparing them to Chad Qualls. 

Even watching two steamers crash in slow motion isn’t as painful as watching the D-Backs’ “closer” try to actually close out a game. 

The 31-year-old righty has an 8.60 ERA in 2010 thus far, but that doesn’t even begin to explain just how bad he has been. 

Even in the games he actually does save, it’s never a 1-2-3 inning (hence his 2.11 WHIP). 

I refuse to let my grandmother watch an Arizona ninth inning anymore, for fear that her little heart just can’t take the gruesome sights.

It’s like a bad crime show, you know who the bad guy is, but it still takes till the last five minutes of the show for everyone else to figure it out. 

Duh, AJ Hinch and Kirk Gibson, how do you not realize that this guy is just downright ineffective?

Last time I checked, fastballs and cement-mixing sliders haven’t fooled anyone since Little League. 

For me, I choose to take the Happy Gilmore approach and simply go to my happy place (I’ll give you a hint, it involves Jennie Finch and a Gatorade bath). 

In order to become a relevant team again around baseball, the D-Backs are going to have trade away some of their few good players (aka Dan Haren) in order to reload their bullpen. 

Until then, you know where to find me. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Welcome to the Arizona Diamondbacks garage sale.

Everything must go.

Seriously, everything.

Currently last place in the National League West and over twenty games under .500, the Diamondbacks need to start rebuilding.

This team just isn’t going to win. Ever.

With the July 31 trade deadline looming, these five players are the most likely to be sent off.

Begin Slideshow

When pinch-hitter Rusty Ryal struck out to end last night’s game, it seemed rather appropriate. After all, the Arizona Diamondbacks lead the planet in strike outs. Looking at the latest season statistics on MLB.com, the Diamondbacks have five position players in the top 20 for strikeouts in the National League.

Mark Reynolds of course leads everyone with 115 punch outs in 276 at-bats. In second place is Justin Upton with 108 strikeouts. First baseman Adam LaRoche is in seventh with 88. The other two Diamondbacks in the top 20 are second baseman Kelly Johnson and center fielder Chris Young, each with 74 and tied for 18th place. These five players account for 459 strikeouts in just 84 games. To put this into perspective, reigning NL MVP Albert Pujols has just 611 strikeouts in his 10-year career.

Shortly after Kirk Gibson was named manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks, he expressed his desire to reduce the number of strikeouts his team was putting up. Gibson is not the first manager to voice this desire. Bob Melvin and AJ Hinch also expressed a concern of their team’s propensity to strike out.

It used to be that striking out had a negative connotation in baseball. It was almost embarrassing to be punched out rather than putting the ball in play. This new generation of players seems to accept striking out as a logical outcome from an at bat. They shrug and explain that striking out is just a byproduct of being a power hitter.

They are willing to exchange a strike out for the opportunity to hit a homerun, putting their team back in the game. The concept of a productive at-bat that moves a runner from base to base is as foreign as stirrup socks and bases filled with sawdust.

We are living in a time of immediate gratification and these younger players are willing to sacrifice a few strikeouts for the chance to win the game on a 3-run home run. While they may not admit it, their actions show them to be less team oriented than their counterparts from previous generations.

The fans likewise are at fault. Nightly, I hear shouts rooting a player to “hit one out of the park” when all that is really needed is to get on base and extend the inning. The strategy of taking a walk, stealing second, being sacrificed to third and scoring on a fly ball to the outfield has given way to getting on base striking out and making it to first on a wild pitch then waiting for the next guy to hit a home run.

I applaud Gibson for making this a priority; I just wonder whether he will be able to convince these young players of the value of playing under control and exhibiting some plate discipline. During last night’s Diamondbacks-Cubs game, the Arizona Diamondbacks last five outs of the game came via strikeout, killing any opportunity they might have had to get back into the game.

This is not just an Arizona Diamondbacks problem. Going into the All-Star break, the National League could see six players with over 100 strikeouts. While we are seeing a resurgence in pitching, it is hard to believe pitchers have gotten that much better this season. It may just be that pitchers have developed a comprehensive plan to take advantage of the free-swinging hitters that proliferate the game these days.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Coming into the series with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Chicago Cubs had lost seven of their last ten games. They had not been losing close games either, they were getting blown out. The pitching staff had struggled and the drama of the Carlos Zambrano saga was obviously a distraction to a team that was struggling.

It wasn’t just the pitching though, the offense would show up one game then be non-existent for days. Clearly the Cubs were reeling like only the Cubs can do. From a Diamondbacks fan’s perspective, this is the best time to welcome the Cubbies to Chase Field.

Maybe this is just what the Diamondbacks need to jump-start their season. With just seven games remaining before the All-Star break, it would be the perfect time to run off a few victories and begin climbing back into being relevant.

Of course the same holds true for the Cubs. A visit to Chase Field to face a pitching staff that leads the league in giving up home runs might just be what the doctor ordered.

Arizona sent a well-rested Ian Kennedy to the mound hoping some extra rest would be good for Kennedy. From the looks of his pitch selection, that was not the case. The Cubs scored early and often ultimately recording a 9-4 victory over the home team.

This was exciting for the many Cubs fans who seemed to outnumber the Diamondbacks faithful both in bodies and enthusiasm. Throughout the game there were chants of “Let’s Go Cubbies ” and fanatical cheering for any play the visiting team completed.

In the end, the Diamondbacks fans sat rejected as they watched the opposing team giving each other high fives on the infield celebrating a victory. Chicago fans were walking through the concourse smiling and cheering for one another singing the Cubs victory song.

On the other side, Arizona fans walked dejectedly through the stadium trying not to make eye contact with anyone. In the off-chance that they did come in contact with a Cubs fan they would mutter under their breath, “Wait until next year”.

Are the Diamondbacks becoming the new Chicago Cubs? The inconsistent play on the field, the offense that disappears for weeks at a time, the pitching staff that seems to implode whenever the game is on the line; all of these have been used to describe the 2010 Diamondbacks.

I shudder to think how horrible that would be. It’s only been nine years since the Diamondbacks World Series win against the New York Yankees, yet it seems like an eternity. I cannot even imagine what it would be like to go 103 years without a championship. No wonder beer sales are so brisk at Wrigley Field. I wonder if the Diamondbacks are likewise seeing an increase in beer consumption this year and last?

About all we are lacking are a goat curse and an inebriated Hall of Fame announcer and the transformation will be complete. This is definitely not good.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

So how did we get here?

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

A quick post here before I head out for the weekend.

One of my favorite Gorilla Monsoon sayings from back in the 80’s was when he said someone was “cleaning house” in the ring. It usually happened during a tag-team match or a battle royal when the fan favorite made a comeback.

My friend Justin and I have adopted the term and use it when someone completely cleans off their plate during a meal. Now I think the Arizona Diamondbacks can adopt the term “cleaning house” as well.

The Diamondbacks cleaned house on Thursday night as they dismissed manager AJ Hinch and GM Josh Byrnes. The Hinch move I can understand, but the Byrnes decision? Not so much.

When the Diamondbacks hired Hinch back in the spring of 2009, I wrote that “There will be no gray area with this move. Either the Diamondbacks will fall flat on their faces and lose 95 games or rise up and win 88-90 games under Hinch.”

The Diamondbacks fell flat on their faces with Hinch as their manager. Arizona was 31-48 this year and were 89-123 with Hinch leading the way. The Diamondbacks took a gamble on Hinch, and it just didn’t work.

Hinch had zero managerial experience before he was handed the job. He didn’t coach in the Majors or minors—I am not even sure he ever coach little league.

It’s very hard to ask a rookie manager to coach a young team. Very rarely does that work out.

As for Byrnes, I was really surprised he was let go. We have head some conflicting reports that Byrnes was let go because because he wouldn’t fire Hinch or because he didn’t get along with CEO Derrick Hall. Whatever the reason was, letting go one of the brighter minds in the game is a mistake.

Former World Series hero and Diamondbacks’ bench coach Kirk Gibson will take over for Hinch. No successor to Byrnes has been named as of yet.

Have a great Fourth of July weekend everyone!!!

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostomflg

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

A.J. Hinch had no business being an MLB manager.

He would have driven the 1927 Yankees into the cellar (okay, maybe not).

But a 31-47 record in 2010 with a team that didn’t respect him as far as they could throw him marked the end of his tenure in Arizona.

Now the D-Backs are left with three possible options for the team’s next skipper: hire a coaching veteran, a former player, or an in-house assistant.

Begin Slideshow