What is it about...

[ljshorty89]

...that ballpark in Arizona that makes everything come together for this team? We have won 14 of our last 15 games there. In 2006, it was the starting point of a road trip in which we went 9-1 at ARZ, LAD, and PHI. We scored multiple runs in the first inning in EVERY game, and we turned it up a notch en route to winning the division. It was also the site of Mike Jacobs' first road series, where he hit 3 HR in his first 2 or 3 games. Now, tonight, we had a dominant offensive showing with both Jose Reyes (The Home Run) and David Wright (The triple) barely missing cycles. And Reyes actually almost had it, had he not been tagged out trying for an inside the park HR (the last cycle with an inside the park HR was in 1940). Both Reyes and Wright also made stellar defensive plays, including Wright's diving over the head back to the infield snag. Moises Alou returned to the lineup and had a hit, and an RBI. Carlos Delgado had 2 hits, a walk, and an RBI. Ryan Church had a Sac Fly, a Double, and a solo HR, as well as 3 RBI. John Maine clearly did not have his best stuff, and yet he still worked through 6 innings, surrendering only 2 runs. The only offensive slouchers were Carlos Beltran who actually walked twice and scored a run, and Luis Castillo and Raul Casanova. We ended up with 2 triples(both by Reyes), 2 HR(Wright, and Church), and 2 SB(Reyes, and Beltran). The team just seems to turn in on down in the desert, and I love it. It shows a lot that we can rebound from a depressing loss against the best team in baseball. Even the bullpen was impressive. Joe Smith went 1.2 scoreless innings. Pedro Feliciano closed out the 8th, with a one pitch/one out appearance. Duaner Sanchez came in in the 9th and on 8 pitches struck out 2, and got a 3rd batter to ground out. Just a terrific all-around game. Anyone have any ideas what is going on down in Phoenix?

[Kingdom]

The dry air

[ljshorty89]

This crossed my mind, but in the past few years, we've seen El Duque and ALAY SOLER pitch complete game shutouts. And Soler's was a 2 hitter. You would think the D-Backs would hit just as well as we do....

[ljshorty89]

Boy, am I a jinx.