So much for Dan Haren/Ricky Nolasco pitching duel

When a baseball fans watches a baseball game, announcers will overhype a starting pitching matchup between two great pitchers. Most of the time, the supposed pitching duel never materializes. It's like someone telling that a movie is going to be great yet it becomes disappointing.

In last night's game between the Marlins and the Diamondbacks, it was Ricky Nolasco facing Dan Haren on the mound so this was a game that a baseball fan could be interested in seeing with the two of them pitching well. This matchup did not live up to the proverbial hype.

It was over in the fourth inning when the Diamondbacks tagged Ricky Nolasco by scoring five runs in that inning to extend their lead to 7-0. There was not going to be a similar comeback like Thursday night with Haren pitching well from the outset.

Nolasco had a good first inning, but then he was not the same after that. He was throwing pitches that were easy to hit, and the Diamondbacks happily took advantage of it by swinging at those pitches, and it resulted to them getting couple of triples and home runs.

He was skittish for most of the night, and maybe that was because of him pitching in front of his family, who was in attendance for his start. Sometimes, the pressure is even higher to go out and do well in front of friends and family.

The only good thing Nolasco did was pitching six innings, and that saved the bullpen from being overworked in this one.

As for Haren, he is certainly pitching well as his trade value continues to skyrocket. Rumors are circulating the Diamondbacks are willing to trade Haren so they can get young guys to build around.

It will be interesting what Arizona does here because they still have a shot to win the wild card race if they can get off on a roll to start the post-All-Star break. Do they give up the season with many more games to go? That's something Diamondbacks general manager Josh Brynes has to think of.

Whoever gets Haren will help themselves get to October and do well in October? He is a great No. 2 pitcher based on his body of work in recent years.

He is one of those powers pitchers that can dominate the hitters with his fastball, and that is a great thing to have for his team. He definitely did that against the Marlins by striking out 10.

Should he start in the All-Star Game? That's a good question, but the right answer would be Tim Lincecum. He is the best pitcher in the NL, and he rarely ever loses on the mound because he single handily leads the Giants to victories by not letting the other teams get hits off him, which makes it easy for the Giants hitters knowing they will get their hits.

It would have been really nice to see both starters dueling it out and throwing zeroes on the board for eight innings. That's what makes baseball so fun to watch, and it's great for the eyes when starters are doing a great job, and it makes the game faster.

Who wants to sit through watching baseball for a long four hours?

It's strange to see why the great pitching matchup rarely ever works out considering how good the starters are. Maybe it's the pressure of competition in a game or guys trying to hard to one-up each other.

Often times, No. 2 or No. 3 starters tend to have pitching duels with their fellow starter than aces facing each other.

Count this writer as one of the baseball fans that was disappointed to see Nolasco/Haren squaring off as a mismatch.