This morning I heard Eric Byrnes give a radio interview in which he said he had been watching videos of 148 extra base hits he’d hit over the last two years. Yes! Too often when we work to improve something, we focus so much on what we’re doing wrong that we forget what we do right.

Later this night, Byrnesie remembered how to do it right. His fifth inning home run, his first since April 21st, broke the spell Jeremy Bonderman had over the Diamondbacks in the first half of the game. Then in the 7th, he lined a single to left-center, driving home the D’Backs 2nd run. He then scored the third and tying run on a Chris Young opposite field single. Sloppy defense by the Tigers that inning enabled Augie Ojeda to score the winning run.

The Byrnes line 2-3 — he was batting seventh — with 2 RBI and 2 runs scored was classic True Elation: multiple hits and multiple RBI. The first at-bat was a fly out to left after missing a double twice by inches. But in that at-bat, I knew he was very close to breaking out big time. He looked different. More confident and relaxed. I could tell as they showed him trot back to the dugout after the fly out that HE knew he was close.

Mark Grace commented that Eric was keeping his head still. I noticed that he was keeping his shoulders level. He looked like a picture of him from Spring Training 07 that a friend put on a t-shirt for me. He saw me wearing it last September and said he could use 4 swings like that that day. Well, he had two swings like it today and it was good enough to have him named Qwest Player of the Game and although he did not drive in or score the winning run, he made the winning run possible by driving in or scoring the three preceding runs.

And the folks in the stands brought out the supportive Byrnesie signs and the boo-birds had nothing to squawk about.

Dan Haren’s 7-inning effort got him the win and Tony Pena got the save after Juan Cruz pitched a scoreless 8th for the hold. The D’Backs, at least this night, showed that they could come from behind to win a close game against a team outside the NL West. Yes, they got help from the Detroit defense. But the Snakes did what they had to do; Pena faced and shut down the dangerous heart of their batting order in the ninth.

And the real Eric Byrnes stood up. Welcome back! Now the team feels whole again. Keep remembering what you do well. We don’t want anymore 6-65 this season.

A Truly Elated ByrnesBlogger1

P.S. To make things even better, the Angels beat the 2nd place Dodgers tonight to give Arizona a 5.5 game lead in the division.

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