Last year, I posed a pretty interesting question to readers that I had heard on a generic sports radio station while driving, essentially wondering what type of team fans would prefer to root for or call their own. Only two choices were given and we got a slew of fantastic responses. The question, ultimately, is whether you would prefer to root for a team that would consistently win between 83-93 games over an eight-year stretch, making the playoffs quite a bit but never winning a championship, or a team that would win 1-2 championships in that same timespan but stink in the other 6-7 seasons, winning 72 or fewer games?

Really, this boils down to how much emphasis we place on both the regular season and the playoffs. Your fair weather fan or Average Joe is unlikely to care much about the regular season, making his answer obvious, but the more dedicated fans will often view 140+ games in a season. Heck, I know I’ve watched 95% of the Phillies games since 1999 and a slightly lower percentage the few post-strike seasons prior. It is very difficult to watch that many games for a crappy team while simultaneously staying interested. I know I sure struggled when the Phillies were throwing out Mike Grace, Carlton Loewer and Garret Stephenson.

My perspective on this question has shifted since a year ago, given the World Series title won by the Phillies last season. Back then, I was unsure of my answer, leaning towards the championship side strictly because I was yet to experience a championship in any sport. Having experienced it, though, without suggesting in any way that the feeling was less than great, I am now leaning towards the regular season team. I really do feel that watching a team with a .550+ winning percentage on a nightly basis, given how much I dedicate to the sport, would be my preference. The regular season lasts six months. The playoffs last about three weeks.

As important as those October games are, I love the grind of a regular season and being able to watch, and enjoy, games each night. If my team lost all the time, I fear that, even with my level of dedication, I might tune into other channels as the 6th and 7th innings rolled around. Then again, Braves fans can attest to the fact that winning all the time but failing in the playoffs can grow tiresome, which throws another wrench into these gears. Regardless, I’ll pose the question once more: do you care more about the regular season or the post-season? And would you prefer a team that wins 2 championships but goes 72-90 or worse in the other six seasons, or one that averages, say, 86-76 over that stretch, making the playoffs most of the seasons but never winning it all?

Last week, we took a break from our regularly scheduled programming of reliving an exciting game to recap some of the best games that had gone unnoticed. While this tactic may be employed in future weekly recaps, this week boasted an incredible game worthy of the top spot all by its lonesome. Interestingly enough, it actually took place on Monday, at the beginning of the week, as opposed to the end of the week, when games seem to resonate much more. On Monday, the Indians and Brewers engaged in an epic interleague battle capped by a pretty remarkable comeback.

At two different junctures, the Indians had a probability of winning greater than 93 percent. In the fourth inning, with an 8-3 lead, the Tribe had a 93.2 percent shot at being victorious. At the end of the sixth frame, leading 12-7, their win expectancy stood pat at 96.5 percent. There was only a 3.5 percent chance the Indians would lose this game. If it were to be repeated 99 more times, the Brewers would win, given the circumstances of the sixth inning, under four times. This would be one of those four games.

Carl Pavano and Dave Bush squared off in a battle of underachievers, and after a two-run homer off the bat of Victor Martinez, a third of the game had been finished with the Indians on top, 4-3. Bush struggled in the fourth and would not stay in to see it to its end. After walking Luis Valbuena he beaned Kelly Shoppach. Valbuena advanced to third on a wild pitch with Jamey Carroll at the dish, and then scored on Carroll’s single, increasing the lead to 5-3.

Mark DeRosa then singled in Shoppach, and thanks to an error on the part of Ryan Braun, Carroll advanced to third with DeRosa moving up to second. V-Mart promptly singled them in and the fourth inning ended with an 8-3 lead for the Tribe.

A two-run triple off the bat of Braun and a sac fly from Prince Fielder brought the Brewers within two, and another sac fly from Craig Counsell in the sixth lessened the margin to one run. The Indians did not stand pat in their half of the sixth, however, tacking on four more runs on a solo shot from DeRosa and a three-run dinger from Travis Hafner.

In the seventh, Corey Hart added to the Brewers runs total with a (shocker!) sac fly. After seven innings, the Indians led 12-8, and would rely on Luiz Vizcaino to start the bullpen party. After J.J. Hardy flied out, Vizcaino issued free passes to Counsell and Mike Rivera. Matt Herges came in and walked Casey McGehee. Braun hit an RBI single, keeping the bases loaded with one out and the score 12-9. Rafael Perez came in for Herges but fared no better, as Prince Fielder launched a grand slam, putting the Brewers ahead 13-12.

After Corey Hart singled and Mike Cameron walked, Mat Gamel knocked Hart in to increase the new found lead to 14-12. Todd Coffey and Mitch Stetter easily handled the Tribe in the seventh and eighth frames, and despite the outing being a tad rocky, Trevor Hoffman successfully converted the save to cap an incredible comeback.

The Blue Jays got off to a very hot start this season, in spite of pitching injuries, thanks largely to the performances of both Aaron Hill and Marco Scutaro. The latter is an average hitter at best while the former is known more for glovework than offensive contribution. Absent from much of their success were the two hitters considered to be the cream of the Blue Jays crop: Vernon Wells and Alex Rios. To date, Wells has posted a Jimmy Rollins-esque .241/.299/.367 line while Rios sits at .278/.336/.454. Granted, Rios’s line still produces a .350 wOBA but this slash line seems quite low for a player expected to break out into MVP-level production before each and every season.

Last year, Rios added 5.5 wins above replacement primarily due to incredible defensive work accrued in both right- and centerfield. Playing centerfield helped reduce the number of runs docked in his positional adjustment, all told making Rios around a +20 run fielder. A .350 wOBA coupled with defensive marks like that makes for one heck of a player, but UZR hasn’t been as sunny on Rios this season and his offense has not improved. The .337/.461 OBP/SLG from a year ago is virtually identical to the .336/.454 on his page as we speak. Though +2.3 runs is a solid UZR mark, Rios is not going to have the benefit of seeing his positional adjustment lessened from playing centerfield, meaning he is on pace for around 3 wins above replacement as opposed to the 5-6 expected of him.

If this is what type of player Rios is going to be, fine, he is still putting up pretty solid numbers, but let’s all can it with the breakout talk, expecting him to be something out of his realm. Wells, on the other hand, is perplexing. I wrote in this space last year about how his reputation led to ignorance about his numbers, with many thinking Wells is a perennial 25-25 player with incredible centerfield defense. In actuality, Wells hasn’t surpassed a .900 OPS since 2003, the only season in which he reached that plateau. For his career, Wells has a .281/.330/.473 line, which would be really great for a guy like Shane Victorino, but not a former all-star thought of as highly as Wells.

ZiPS doesn’t see Wells improving all that much this season with the bat, ultimately finishing with a .254/.310/.400 line. The projected 15 HR and 18 SB help elevate the wOBA to .316, but a below average rate like that coupled with a UZR perhaps on pace to be worse than -15 runs makes Wells a replacement player. In a full season in 2007, Wells produced just 1.2 wins. He added another 0.8 more last year albeit in just 108 games. This year: -1.0 wins. Rios is proving that he can be a good, not fantastic player, while Wells is showing that he does not deserve a starting spot in the big leagues, let alone one at such an important position.

It will be tough for the Jays to continue to compete in such a tough division, especially with their entire pre-season starting rotation on the shelf, but productivity increases from both Wells and Rios will be needed to have any hope whatsoever.

When I told the writing staff here of my desire to write a post on regression to the mean, using Matt Cain as the proxy of sorts, Dave replied: “Admit it, you just want to write about Cain again…”. He wasn’t really wrong, as many of you know that Cain happens to be my favorite non-Greg Maddux pitcher, but his 2009 season has been so interesting to date that he seems like the perfect subject for a discussion of regression. I have seen it happen countless times, but fans interested in developing their statistical knowledge tend to go through a few stages with regards to the evolution of a particular metric.

First, they are very skeptical, wary to accept something new as meaningful. Next, they grasp the underlying meaning and begin to incorporate the stat into analysis. Finally, basking in the fact that they understand the benefits of the stat, it gets tossed around whenever possible and treated like the gospel. Unfortunately, when this last part occurs, the true understanding is not fully developed and definitive claims are often a bit off course. This is in no way a criticism, as I myself have gone through the same stages at one time or another, but rather an observation.

With regards to Cain, I have seen way too many analyses discussing his ERA-FIP disconnect and how an ugly regression causing his ERA to balloon was inevitable. I profiled this over at Baseball Prospectus, begging for those making such claims to dig deeper and find out what pitchers are doing differently, if anything, before jumping to conclusions. After all, not everyone regresses, and not all regressions are bad. The problem is that the term regression takes on such negative connotations these days that it seems odd for it to portend anything positive. Regression is in fact a two-way road, though, and deserves to be treated that way.

No, Matt Cain is not very likely to sustain an 88% strand rate, but he is also unlikely to post walk and strikeout rates that drastically stray from his true talent level. A pitcher with strikeout rates ranging from 7.4-8.4 has a pretty low likelihood of suddenly whiffing hitters at a rate closer to 6.0 per nine innings; likewise, one with an established unintentional walk rate around 3.5 probably will not finish the next season closer to 4.3 barring unforeseen circumstances. Despite these assertions, after Cain’s 8th start, when his 2.65 ERA supremely bested an FIP built upon a 4.24 UBB/9 and 6.0 K/9, nobody really thought to suggest that those rates would regress (in this case a positive regression). The moral here I suppose is that even though his strand rate will not stay that high, he is going to allow fewer baserunners that need to be stranded.

Five starts later, Cain has reduced his UBB/9 to 3.44 and increased his strikeout rate to 7.10. The ERA is still quite low thanks to the extraordinary strand rate, but his FIP is regressing itself towards levels of the recent past. If I had to bet money on it, I would agree that Cain’s ERA is more likely to increase than his FIP is to decrease, but regression does not occur in just one metric. If his strikeout rate continues to regress and his walk rate either improves or holds true, combined with a regression in stranding runners, Cain could conceivably have an ERA around 3.25 with an FIP at the 3.70 mark. At that point, the disconnect between the two stats isn’t that vast.

In fact, ZiPS sees Cain finishing the season in a similar fashion to the aforementioned numbers, with a 3.28 ERA and 3.83 FIP. An FIP of 3.83 is certainly very solid, as is a 3.28 ERA, and the main reasons the disconnect would reduce involve regression towards established talent levels in walks and strikeouts, that have not yet been experienced this season.

These are certainly big “if’s” but I really just wanted to hammer home two points: the numbers beneath the numbers really need to be analyzed in order to find out why certain rates are where they are, and that regression works both ways, meaning we should not ignore the areas bound to experience a positive regression, which in turn could reduce the amount of negative regression inherent in a dataset.

Choosing a game this week proved to be a very difficult task as certain games stood out for the wrong reasons and other solid ones were not really indistinguishable from games glossed over earlier in the season. The Phillies fan in me would love to choose the pop-up heard ’round the world but was that game really anything remarkable save for a routine play gone wrong at the end? Color me unimpressed otherwise. I mean, it might have been fun to watch but I’d much rather highlight some games we may have missed. With that in mind, let’s instead shake things up a bit and look at each day, Monday-Sunday, and highlight a game that stood out.

Monday: Pirates 6 @ Braves 7
Not three days after settling in his new digs in Atlanta, Nate McLouth had to host his former employer. He didn’t shy away, either, going 3-7 with a homer and a steal. Those seven plate appearances were amassed over the course of 15 innings, as both teams decided to play bonus baseball. In the bottom of the fifteenth, David Ross hit a walkoff single with the bases loaded and one out to end the game.

Tuesday: Cardinals 3 @ Marlins 4
The double quality start was in full effect as Chris Carpenter took on Josh Johnson. Johnson lasted one inning longer, but both of their efforts were largely for naught, as the game was decided on a Jeremy Hermida walkoff home run in the bottom of the ninth.

Wednesday: Reds 4 @ Nationals 2
Even when they manage to come back, the Nationals struggle to hold on. Shairon Martis allows just two runs over seven solid frames and back to back RBI singles from Josh Bard and Alberto Gonzalez tie the game in the bottom of the ninth off of Francisco Cordero. The Nats bullpen coughs up two more in the top of the 12th and David Weather prevents a second comeback.

Thursday: Blue Jays 0 @ Rangers 1
Marlon Byrd knocks in a run on a sac fly in the bottom of the second and nothing happens for the next seven frames. Ricky Romero leaves after 6.1 truly effective innings and Kevin Millwood keeps the Blue Jays off the scoreboard for 7.2 innings. The Rangers are known predominantly for their offense but their pitching really came through here.

Friday: Mariners 4 @ Rockies 6
After finding himself down 3-0 early in the game, Ubaldo Jimenez bounces back, logging a complete game with rather odd numbers (4 BB/3 K and 4 ER) and knocking in the tying run with a single in the sixth. Rockies are rolling.

Saturday: White Sox 7 @ Brewers 1
The recently called up Jose Contreras continues his resurgence, scattering two hits and two walks over eight shutout innings while fanning eight. Since returning on June 8, Contreras has pitched 16 shutout innings while allowing just three hits and three walks, earning Player of the Week honors in the process.

Sunday: Cardinals 0 @ Indians 3
Cliff Lee continues to show that last season was no fluke by tossing a complete game shutout against the Cardinals. After 9 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, Lee now has a 2.88 ERA and 3.01 FIP in 97 innings of work. With his groundball and flyball rates virtually identical to those posted last season (becoming a groundball pitcher was a big key to his success), and minimal regression in his walk and strikeout rates, this incarnation of Lee really looks like the real deal.

There are a few aspects of baseball broadcasting that really irk me, including the presentation of data for a player against a specific team in his career, batter-pitcher matchups being treated as gospel (especially with under 10 such occurrences), and definitive claims based on small sample sizes. I mean, does it matter that Jamie Moyer has an XXX ERA vs. the Milwaukee Brewers over his 400-year career, when there were dozens of different iterations of the Brewers lineup? Does Alfonso Soriano going 4-7 off of Doug Davis mean anything at all if the seven plate appearances are spread over five seasons? The one that bothers me the most, though, is the idea that every event in a baseball game is isolated, and therefore guaranteed to occur regardless of the preceding circumstances.

Consider this example: Jimmy Rollins on first, Ryan Howard up to bat. Rollins gets caught stealing, Howard hits a homer. The announcers are bound to say something like – “Well, if Rollins stayed put, the Phillies would have scored two on the Howard homer.” Fans do it all the time as well, buying into this idea that Rollins being caught seemingly had nothing to do with the subsequent pitch selection, location, or anything else along these lines.

Forgive me for going all Butterfly Effect, but Rollins being caught in this example changes everything. For starters, the pitcher is throwing out of the windup rather than the stretch. With nobody on, he might be able to concentrate more on the hitter. He may decide to throw a steady supply of heaters as opposed to breaking pitches. We could go on and on about the different types of strategy inherent when such a situation shifts, but the point is that the situation DOES shift. I don’t care if Howard has a better or worse chance of hitting a homer if Rollins does/does not get caught in this hypothetical because the point remains that the situation has changed. The plate appearance is not the same, and Howard is in no way, shape or form, guaranteed to hit the home run if Rollins was not caught on the bases.

The worst part is that this is not even a tough concept to grasp, yet it gets ignored by almost everyone. It is way too easy to fall into this trap, thinking that events are not tied together, but they are, and need to be treated as such. This isn’t like trying to get announcers to use wOBA instead of BA, but rather trying to get them to understand simple logic. Events in a game are not isolated. They might not be completely, 100 percent, dependent on surrounding circumstances but they are certainly not isolated and guaranteed to occur no matter what.

Ultimate Zone Rating, created by Mitchel Lichtman several years ago and available free of charge on this very site, is a fantastic achievement in the world of baseball analytics, quantifying the logical intuition of what constitutes good or bad fielding by measuring the BIP-outs conversion rate in various different zones for each position. The data even breaks down into several different components, evaluating a player’s arm, ability to turn double plays, his ability to prevent runs by not making errors, as well as his range. One area of the data that gets overlooked far too frequently, though, that deserves to be mentioned more often, is that UZR calculates fielding abilities relative to the league average.

Sure, many of us know and understand that a +5 UZR means five runs better than the average player at that position, but grasping that the data is relative should force us to ask a secondary question upon glancing at a player’s results: did the league itself get better?

For instance, if a player turned 50% of the balls hit his way in a particular zone into outs in Year #1, when the league converted 40%, and then held stagnant at 50% in Year #2, when the league increased its conversion rate to 50%, the player didn’t change but his UZR would decrease. His actual overall ability to convert outs in that zone did not erode in any way, shape or form, per se, but his skills no longer looked as shiny because the talent level of the league at this specific position increased.

I like to refer to this as The Jimmy Rollins Conundrum, when his UZR marks hovered right around the league average in 2002 and 2005 despite playing a very, very solid shortstop. It could very well be that the eyes of myself and many other Phillies fans deceived us, with our scouting overrating Rollins’ fielding, but it seems that very few ever wonder if the fluctuations for a player in a given season are direct results of an improved league. Looking at Rollins in 2005, it is a bit tough to tell why the UZR fell to 0.8 from 4-5 runs above average the previous two years, before increasing to 6-7 runs over the next two seasons.

His double play runs were down as were his runs prevented by not making errors, but his overall number of errors in opportunities were consistent with the sandwiching seasons. Add in that his range was identical and that he would revert back to previously established norms in the double play and error runs departments and it stands to reason that perhaps one major reason for the lower UZR dealt with shortstops across the league improving in this area. I’m not suggesting this is the only reason, as we have seen fielders have down years before for one reason or another, but rather shedding light on a question we should be asking when looking at these numbers.

SO, moral of the story: don’t always assume that an increase or decrease in UZR is solely on the player, as the skill level of the league may have something to do with fluctuations as well.

When Pablo Sandoval made his major league debut last season, three days after turning 22 years old, Giants fans held their collective breaths, holding out hope that Sandoval’s gaudy minor league numbers would translate into solid success at the big league level. Everyone knew the guy could rake but did not necessarily have confidence that the skillset could surpass the Quad-A plateau. Prior to the callup, Sandoval had posted a composite wOBA right around .415 in 112 games between Single- and Double-A. The team was not that high on developing Pablo as a catcher, especially with Buster Posey in the system, but his numbers suggested that his bat could play at one of the infield corners.

In 41 major league games last season, Sandoval hit .345/.357/.490, with a .361 wOBA. A regression seemed inevitable for his .367 BABIP, especially given his nutty plate discipline marks; in a 25.4% league, Sandoval swung at 53.4% of his pitches out of the zone. He swung at 77% of his pitches in the zone, again above the league average of 65%, but also made an inordinate amount of contact. Pablo didn’t walk all that much but he did not fall prey to the strikeout that frequently either. One of the most curious aspects of his season involved defense. At 5’11”, 246 lbs, Sandoval looks like he could never succeed with the glove, but a +2.1 UZR at 1B and +1.8 UZR at 3B helped raise Pablo’s overall production level to +1.3 wins.

Sandoval has played 52 more games this season, and it seems that last year’s offensive output was no fluke. In 208 plate appearances, Sandoval has a .318 BA, but an almost identical .356/.497 OBP/SLG and .363 wOBA. His BABIP has dropped subtly to .350, which helps explains the lower batting average (less singles) but also signals that he could be one of those hitters with consistently high marks in this area. Again, I’m not basing any definitive conclusions here with just 93 games of data, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least, given what we have seen, if this hypothesis ends up correct.

The defense has trailed off a bit, but at worst portends league average ability at the corners. If we assume that Sandoval will average around 145 games/season, then he has played the equivalent of 65% of a full season, amassing +2.4 wins in the process.

ZiPS projects a .340 wOBA from here on out, putting his bottom line right around .301/.334/.479, with a .351 wOBA, similar in the OBP/SLG departments to Torii Hunter, JJ Hardy and Mike Cameron from a year ago. He will never win a gold glove (although he might if his offensive production remains this high) or be lauded for defensive ability, but league average glovework at a corner coupled with a well above average bat for a 22-yr old with 2.4 wins to his name in under a full season is pretty remarkable.

In the early part of this decade, Cristian Guzman was known more for his inclusion in the Chuck Knoblauch trade than anything else. Debuting as a 21-yr old in 1999 and throughout his sophomore season, Guzman rarely walked, struck out too often especially relative to the walks, and thus fell well below average in the wOBA department.

In 2001, however, everything seemed to come together as Guzman put up a .302/.337/.477 line, good for a .352 wOBA and 11 batting runs above average. His success would be short lived as the next very season saw a severe regression, with Guzman producing a paltry .287 wOBA, 23 runs below average. His +2.5 UZR and playing time certainly helped, but this was definitely a massive step back.

From 2003-05, things stayed particularly stagnant, with Guzman putting up wOBAs of .297, .300, and .247. His defense hovered around the league average mark, deviating each season, making it difficult to peg down his talent level. It seems safe to assume he was playing league average or slightly worse defense, though, based on the all data we have.

Guzman then missed the entire 2006 season with injuries, and upon returning, looks like a completely different player. It is really confusing, because his offensive surge came out of nowhere. Sure, he only played 46 games in 2007, and has only taken part in 42 more this season, sandwiching the 138 games last season, but he does seem to have established a new talent level on offense.

The walks are still absent but Guzman is whiffing a lot less often, and has apparently started hitting the ball harder and where the defense is not positioned. After several seasons of BABIPs around the .280-.305 range, Guzman has been at .364, .339, .374 since returning in 2007. Because of this massive uptick, his wOBA marks have settled around the .340 range. No, it isn’t necessarily lighting the world on fire, but he has transformed into a legitimate threat in a lineup, as opposed to the kind of hitter that fans feel confident their pitcher can easily retire.

The biggest change can be found in his production against fastballs. From 2002-05, Guzman averaged around 15 runs below average against heaters. Since his return: +5.6, +17.0, +3.6, and keep in mind that the sandwiching seasons have only comprised about one-third of a full year. His defense negates some of the offensive value, but Guzman is almost unrecognizable from his pre-injury self, save for the lack of patience.

I’m not sure what happened between 2005 and 2007, or if Guzman had been hurt for quite some time before missing the entire 2006 season, but he is certainly serving as an example of a player whose past results really do not help all that much given the missed time, the injury, and the apparent newly found abilities. Anyone have any other ideas as to how this offensive turnaround occurred?

I’m not sure if major league teams are purposely playing great games on Sunday or if it is nothing more than a coincidence, but our top game from this past week once again took place on the final day before the work week begins. For those that happened to miss it, the Padres and Diamondbacks engaged in an 18-inning affair yesterday that featured several unlikely events. The Diamondbacks would ultimately win by a score of 9-6, but how they got there is much more interesting. Observe the swings in win expectancy:

Dan Haren started for the DBacks, opposed by replacement level extraordinaire Josh Geer. Both pitchers started off strong, keeping the opposition scoreless for four frames. In the fifth, Geer walked Mark Reynolds and surrendered a double to Miguel Montero, placing two runners in scoring position with nobody out. Chris Young walked to load the bases, but didn’t stay put for very long, as Josh Whitesell quickly plated all three runners with a bases clearing double. Haren sacrificed Whitesell to third, and Felipe Lopez brought him in with a sacrifice fly. This would be the last inning for Geer, who left trailing 4-0.

With Haren on the mound, the game seemed to be in the bag. When the DBacks added two more runs in the sixth off of Joe Thatcher, increasing their lead to 6-0, against an offense like the Padres, the game seemed completely out of reach. In the bottom of the seventh, Kevin Kouzmanoff smacked a solo homer off of Haren, the only run the ace would allow. He departed after the frame, turning in another stellar start. Tony Pena pitched a scoreless eighth, meaning the Padres had but a 1.6% chance of winning the game as the bottom of the ninth rolled around.

Juan Gutierrez toed the rubber for the Diamondbacks and promptly gave up a double to Adrian Gonzalez. Chase Headley singled Gonzo in one batter later. 6-2, still no big deal. Brian Giles then walked (shocker) and Headley advanced to third on the subsequent Kouzmanoff flyout. One out, down four runs, runners on first and third, with Chad Qualls now in the game and the likes of Nick Hundley, Chris Burke, David Eckstein, and Tony Gwynn, Jr., due up.

Hundley singled in Headley, making the score 6-3 with just one out. Chris Burke grounded into a fielder’s choice, with Hundley being forced out at second. First and third, down three runs, with two outs and a solid closer on the mound, and perhaps the weakest power hitter in baseball at the plate. And Eckstein launches a three-run homer to tie the game! Eckstein! That homer was totally the byproduct of clutchiness and grittiness.

If only that was where the unusual events stopped. No, following the home run to tie the game, the Diamondbacks and Padres would play the equivalent of an entire game without scoring. In fact, the Diamondbacks relievers threw a no-hitter in this second game. Literally, a no-hitter. Jon Rauch, Esmerling Vasquez, Clay Zavada, and Leo Rosales combined for nine no-hit innings from the 10th-18th. The DBacks would pull ahead in the top of the 18th on a Mark Reynolds three-run blast, but an extremely unlikely comeback from an anemic offense fueled by one of the least powerful hitters ever, and followed by a no-hitter is certainly a solid recipe for game of the week honors.