Arizona Diamondbacks First Week Review, 2 Percent of the Season Is in the Books

The Diamondbacks have played their first four games and have shown what was largely expected. 

They’ve been competitive, but they've lost three of the four games. 

They’ve showed some heart—with Justin Upton having a collision at the plate on Opening Day, something that wouldn’t have happened in 2010—and they’ve battled back in a couple games, and that didn’t happened in 2010, either. 

They’ve showed patience at the plate, walking 16 times, tying them for third-most in MLB.  And when they get on base, they’re on the move, stealing seven bases, tying them with Seattle for the second-most in MLB.

The pitching so far has been decent. The starters have been very respectable, and through their first two games, the bullpen had not surrendered a run.

Joe Saunders, who frustrated fans this spring with his inability to get out even Triple-A players, had a good outing on Monday, relieving a lot of fears and anxiety among the fanbase. 

It’s okay to put the aspirin back in the medicine cabinet now. 

Two glaring negatives through the first four games have been strikeouts and runners left in scoring position.  They’ve struck out 29 times through four games, giving them the seventh-most strikeouts in the major leagues.  They’ve also left 40 men on base, the most in baseball.

Although it’s very early, it looks like the team takes the field expecting to compete, which is much more than they did last season—now if they could only get a couple wins it’d be nice.

But although they are 1-3, they are still in better shape than the Brewers, whose season is all but lost if you are a fan of statistics.The Brewers are now eliminated from World Series contention, as no team in MLB history has opened the season 0-4 and won the World Series. 

It looks like all those prospects spent to land Zack Greinke will go to waste, but Diamondbacks fans know all too well about giving away the farm system only to have it backfire.