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Sleeping on it Diamondbacks' bats yet to awaken in postseason
By Stephen Cannella, Sports Illustrated PHOENIX -- In various living rooms, hotel suites and watering holes around Seattle, the members of the Yankees' and Mariners' pitching staffs probably spent Wednesday night watching Game 2 of the NLCS and salivating in their beers. Wouldn't you, if you were a major league pitcher and were faced with the prospect of facing either the Braves' or the Diamondbacks' lineups in the World Series? Superb pitching has been a storyline in every postseason series so far, but one thing became clear in the two games Arizona and Atlanta played at Bank One Ballpark: Both teams, especially the Diamondbacks, pack all of the offensive punch of the Swiss army. Yes, the Braves scored eight runs in winning Game 2, five of them in an eighth inning in which they batted around and at one point had seven straight hitters reach base. But in the seven innings before that, Atlanta managed a mere two hits off starter Miguel Batista, who after a first-inning walk to Chipper Jones retired 13 batters in a row before Rey Sanchez reached on an error. Granted, both of those hits were home runs, but for most of Game 2 the Braves' bats were somnambulant. They only awoke when Batista turned the game over to Arizona's execrable bullpen -- the soft-throwing and aged Mike Morgan and Greg Swindell, to be exact -- which is hardly the strength of the team. After the game, manager Bob Brenly admitted that there's little margin for error when his relievers are called into the game. "Everybody would like to have a Steve Karsay or a John Smoltz who comes in and throws 98 miles an hour, but we don't have that," he said. "We have what we have, guys who rely on movement and location. When they hit their spots they usually get a lot of ground balls. When they miss their spots the ball gets whacked." Diamondbacks hitters have done little whacking of their own in this postseason. Arizona has a scored a total of 13 runs in their seven playoff games. Their production has been even spottier than the numbers suggest: Five of those runs came in one game against the Cardinals. After batting a lowly .237 in the Division Series, the Diamondbacks are hitting .206 against the Braves with one extra-base hit. A double, 12 singles, four walks and zero stolen bases in two games is not a reliable formula for run production. On Wednesday night the Diamondbacks again pointed to another great outing by an opposing pitcher, this time Tom Glavine. "He was every bit as spectacular in his own right as Randy Johnson was last night," Brenly said. "He pitched right to the strength of his defense. He knew where the guys were positioned behind him and he forced hitters to hit the balls to his defense. That's pretty crafty." Brenly has juggled his lineup over and over in an attempt to conjure run support for his pitchers. In Game 2, Steve Finley hit in the cleanup spot, one of four different players Brenly has started there in the postseason. Craig Counsell hit leadoff in place of Tony Womack, who had a calf injury and a history of failure against Glavine. Neither move worked: Finley and Counsell combined to go 0-for-8. Brenly felt awful even before his team's offense was shut down in Game 2. He's suffering from a sinus infection and spent much of Wednesday afternoon sleeping. "I started feeling better there for a while," he said after the game, "but the last few innings I think I had a relapse." His offense is ill too, and getting well won't be any easier in Game 3 against Atlanta starter John Burkett, who had a 3.04 ERA this season. Curt Schilling won his first two starts this postseason with a total of three runs of support from his teammates. He shouldn't expect any more of a cushion on Friday.
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