The Taco Bell Corporation must rue the day it decided to renew its offer of a free chalupa whenever the Diamondbacks score 8 runs in a home game. Last year, it didn’t cost them too much. But the 2008 Diamondbacks are breaking the chalupa bank.

Today, the man with the big bat was Justin Upton. He went 3-3 including a three-run homer, a total of 4 RBI and 2 runs. Stephen Drew, Orlando Hudson and Upton had sacrifice flies, continuing the pattern set by the Diamondbacks last year of good situational hitting. Mark “The Sheriff” Reynolds put other RBI notch in his belt to run his total to 15, and even Chris Snyder joined the party with a hit and an RBI. Conor Jackson and Chris Young accounted for the rest.

That means that in the starting lineup, everybody had at least one RBI except pitcher Dan Haren and Eric Byrnes. But I am not going to get on Byrnesie’s case for that because he came up with the bases empty each time. He went 2-3 and a walk, with a stolen base and two runs. This is Byrnesie’s third consecutive multi-hit game; he has a 9-game hitting streak and his average is up to .311 where it belongs. And his two hits today were doubles. His XBH/H is 8/14.

The one thing I am going to complain about is that everyone’s talking about how this can’t last. Why not? They will definitely lose games and guys will have bad streaks; a 162-game season will do that to you. Being humble in the face of that long season is wise, but being too humble is as bad as being too proud. Don’t talk yourselves out of a good thing, guys. Just ride the wave each day, and see how far it will carry you. And that goes for you too, D’Backs broadcast team!

I don’t see why this team has to go through anything like June of ‘06 or the two weeks before the All-Star Break of ‘07. They are dangerous throughout the lineup. We know Justin Upton will not bat .415 all season, but by the same token we know that Chris Snyder will not bat .111 all season either. They can do it different ways and they pick each other up. The young guns are showing more patience at the plate than they did last year and that has helped. It also has seemed to rub off on Eric Byrnes, who began the season flailing away at pitches in a manner that was giving me terrible flashbacks to Baltimore. Even he is picking his spots more carefully and the results are showing.

Of course, it helps that they have one of the best pitching staffs in the majors. Brandon Webb is now 3-0 and Dan Haren, beneficiary of today’s explosive offense, is now 2-0. In his 6 innings, he have up 1 run on 5 hit, while walking 2 and striking out 7. His ERA is now 2.50. The hitters wouldn’t want to see pitching like that go to waste.

Edgar Gonzalez starts tomorrow and I hope he does well. He’s certainly capable of it. Then the Diamondbacks come to San Francisco, where they have to be very careful about not slacking off against the Giants. (This is a case in which pride could trip them up.) Last April, they were swept here. They returned the favor later that month in Phoenix, but they won only one game in the middle series and took two, finally, in September. If they had taken two out of three each time, the last week of the season would not have been so nerve-wracking.

Randy Johnson is scheduled to make his season’s debut on Monday and the Snakes will miss Cain and Lincecum this time around, so I expect good things. The Giants have no bullpen, as their blowing a five-run lead to St. Louis today will attest.

But first, one more against the Rockies. Who will be the hero/heroes tomorrow? Tony Clark is now in San Diego, but his words are truer than ever in Phoenix: ANYBODY - ANYTIME.

ByrnesBlogger1

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