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Kellia Ramares is a freelance journalist, poet and baseball blogger from Oakland, CA. Kellia writes (and does some audio work) about baseball, especially the Arizona Diamondbacks, on her blog, Down The Left Field Line: Life, Baseball & Eric Byrnes. (http://byrnesblog.azsportshub.com), under the name ByrnesBlogger1. She expects to expand her sports journalism from baseball fandom to stories on social issues in a sports context in a website she is building in the fourth quarter of 2007 to be an annex to the "Byrnesblog". Contact: ByrnesBlogger1[at]azsportshub.com
For more from ByrnesBlogger1, please visit: http://byrnesblog.azsportshub.com
I am rooting for whomever comes out of the Chicago-Tampa Bay playoff. Right now I’d like to see TB win. I like their worst-to-first story and their ability to come from behind in the late innings. But the White Sox winning gets Junior Griffey deeper into the post season, and that, as Mychael Urban would [...]
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Loading ...I console myself by thinking that the playoffs would not have been that much fun without Byrnesie anyway, and that it would have been terrible to see Orlando Hudson sidelined for the second October in a row. But the bottom line is that the Diamondbacks would have won the division going away if they’d played [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...as in wins for Webby. 2008 National League Cy Young Award to Brandon Webb. Yes, Tim Lincecum will win it someday. But not this year. ByrnesBlogger1
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(Rate this post) Loading ...is almost over as I write this. Hoooray! I had never heard of Yankee Stadium being a cathedral before this year and I hope I won’t hear it again after this year. Yes, you will not be able to say “Ruth played here” at the new stadium. But it is not as if the Yankees, [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...Eric Byrnes did his radio interview and LV appearance today instead of the usual Friday because of scheduling conflicts. He reported himself well on the mend, having recently run a 4:40 mile on a special kind of treadmill. He is going to use his full no-trade clause to stay in Arizona for the remainder of [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...for pitching your first shut-out. (Diamondbacks 2 - Giants 0). ‘Bout damned time you threw a complete game! And Happy Birthday! BoMel, thank you for sticking with Dan even though he gave up two singles in the ninth. Sometimes ya gotta let the young’uns clean up they own mess. While I am on the subject of [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...the Diamondbacks drop two of three to the Reds–who are about as bad as the Giants–at home, in extra innings. The starting pitching has straightened itself out; Randy Johnson had a good outing Saturday, but at this rate, he’ll have to pitch ’til he’s 50 to get to 300. Rookie Max Scherzer struck out nine [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...Bad enough to be swept by the Dodgers, but to be swept by the Giants, a team that went into the series 18 games below .500, is terrible. Especially when the last two of the three were Giants walk-offs. There was so much wrong with that. Doug Davis did about as well as could be [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...After Brandon Lyon’s latest spate of ineffectivenees nearly cost Brandon Webb his 20th win, Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin named Chad Qualls the closer. Qualls has had 3 saves in 11 opportunities this year. The Dodgers have activated closer Takashi Saito. This year’s NL Wild Card will come out of the East or the Central. Houston, [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...Finally! Brandon Webb has become only the third pitcher in Diamondbacks’ history to win 20 games in a season. (Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling are the others). He threw 8 innings of shut-out ball, 98 pitches total, at the Cincinnati Reds. I would have liked to have seen him complete the effort, but as the [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...And it wasn’t even that close. The Diamondbacks did not score until the ninth inning and only because the Giants could not turn a game-ending double play. Looking at this game from the larger perspective of the playoff race, the problem wasn’t so much that Giants’ starter Tim Lincecum was lights out for 8.1 innings (9 [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...It wasn’t that long ago that you were 4.5 games up the the Dodgers. Now they are 1.5 games up on you as you face the Giants Cy Young candidate, Tim Lincecum tonight. It’s like you are learning to juggle and you keep dropping a ball. Just when the bullpen seemed to get its act [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...I saw Eric Byrnes online this morning on livevideo.com. He said the doctor was pleased with the latest MRI of his hamstring. The leg is healing very well. But EB has been advised to not push it. So Byrnesie won’t be coming back in ‘08. The doctor has recommended that Byrnesie treat his leg as [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...Stephen Drew was sick in both senses of the word yesterday. He was physically ill, reportedly having fever that hit 102 degrees before the game. And he had a career day at the plate, going 5-5 including hitting for Chase Field’s first-ever cycle, and only the third one in Diamondbacks history. The Diamondbacks beat the Cardinals [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...Outfielder takes swings on field, to have MRI next week By Steve Gilbert / MLB.com SAN DIEGO — Eric Byrnes took batting practice on the field Tuesday for the first time since suffering a torn hamstring almost two months ago…. Byrnes said he will have an MRI taken next week to determine if his left hamstring has healed sufficiently [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...I’m going to be off this blog for two weeks to do some work. Those of you who enjoy politics almost as much as you do baseball–nothing could be as fun as baseball, right?–can catch me and some of my colleagues blogging at Pacifica Radio’s unConventional Coverage website during both the Democratic and Republican conventions. [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...Well, at least the Diamondbacks got Randy Johnson some runs this time. Two in the second inning, in fact. But by the fifth inning, the Fishies had tied it and when Johnson called it quits after 7 innings, 116 pitches, and 13 strikeouts–Florida’s a great team with which to pad one’s strikeout totals–he had given [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...On this day in 2000, Eric Byrnes made his major league debut with the Oakland Athletics. He hit a single his first time up. In a radio interview in Phoenix this morning, Byrnesie said that he was among 50 prospects who were brought together just after his first year in pro baseball. The coach addressing [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...Brandon Webb won his 19th game of the year yesterday, as the Diamondbacks beat the Padres 4-1. He allowed only 3 hits in 7 shut out innings. He struck out 8 while walking three. The question now is not will Webb win 20, the gold standard of starters, but how many more than 20 he [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...The Diamondbacks almost blew a7-3 lead in the ninth inning last night against the Padres. Keyword: Almost. The final score was 7-6. But that was scary. The Dodgers lost, so the D’backs are back to a game up in the NL Worst. The Snakes are now 5 games over .500 (65-60). Their record would be good [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...The Diamondbacks scored a combined 23 runs in their first two games against the Houston Astros, but were shut out today. The final score was 3-0. The blanking left starter Randy Johnson still sitting on 294 victories. A couple of starts ago, the Pittsburgh Pirates shut out the D’Backs when their starter took a perfect game [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...…one by Miguel Montero and the other by the Houston-born Chris Young, made it an easy outing for Yusmeiro Petit as the D’Backs again bit Houston in the Astro 11- 5. That’s 23 runs in 2 games, and no fun for the Astros and their fans on the day before they retired the great Craig [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...won his 18th game of the year as the Diamondbacks shellacked the Astros 12-2 yesterday. Webby now has a chance to win 20 games by the end of August! Houstonians Chris Snyder and Chris Young, and former Astro Chris Burke — you have a good chance of finding a place with the Diamondbacks if your name [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...are cut to shoulder length. They no longer obscure his name on the back of his uniform. I think that’s reasonable. Now will the Dodgers organization, which allegedly has a hair policy, and Joe Torre, who is allegedly trying to enforcing it, kindly go back to the business of finding a way to lose the [...]
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(Rate this post) Loading ...Who plays where when Justin Upton comes back in about a week? Where the Diamondbacks are going to play Adam Dunn when J-Up returns has been a source of speculation since the trade was made. Some of the guess work involves moving Mark Reynolds to second, so that Chad Tracy can go back to third, [...]
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