Diamondbacks @ Tempe Marketplace Pt. II

Before you say it, yes, I am a little bit crazy when it comes to baseball. Ever since I found out that Fox Sports Arizona has been broadcasting the Qwest Diamondbacks Live Post-Game Show from Tempe Marketplace, I've been out there to participate. Friday, the first night they did this, a decent crowd was out chilling with everyone, and you can read my previous blog post about it. I also, however, went to Saturday's show, Monday's show, and will be hitting up tonight's show as well. On Saturday, there were a few more red-and-black clad people out there cheering for the team - whether that's a result of my call-to-arms on this blog or not, I doubt I'll ever know (I'm guessing it's not!) - and the D-Backs ended up beating the Brewers 4-1, a solid outing for the struggling team. FSNAZ also held a raffle that night, and I ended up winning a pair of tickets to Saturday's game against the Nationals (GOOD seats, too, in Sec. 118 between home plate and 1st base) and a Stephen Drew autographed baseball, which I bought a nice case for this afternoon. The first of hopefully many pieces of memorabilia! Sunday, the crew did not film from Tempe, but yesterday, even though the game ran into the late hours of the night (10:30 or so), they were out there putting the finishing touches on Doug Davis' loss to the Dodgers. That makes my bitter NL rivals in the West Division still unbeaten at home. I would have hoped for a better turnout, seeing as how the defense was able to turn their first triple play since 2000 for Davis, but some clutch hits by Ramirez and the Blue Devils sealed our fate instead. Considering I was the only person who stayed for the postgame filming, I ended up basically winning the raffle by default for tickets to Friday's game, also vs. the Nats. Works for me! It was fun, though, because I also got to talk with some of FSN's crew during the game before filming, and learned some new things about the players, the organization, and the direction the team is taking marketing-wise that are going to hopefully pump up the Arizona fans! Tonight, Max Scherzer of the D-Backs is taking on the Dodgers' Jeff Weaver to try to earn his first career win (yes, sports fans, Scherzer in 11 career starts has not earned a victory yet, despite some brilliant work last year and this year including blanking the Brewers over 6 innings in his last outing). His biggest challenge? His own offense, who absolutely need to step it up and get him some runs so he can settle into his pitching role and maintain some padding for the bullpen, who have struggled of late (to say the least). Manny Ramirez and the Dodgers won't make that easy, though, so it's all the more important to play the "get 'em on, get 'em over, get 'em in" game instead of trying to rely on a couple home runs per game. For those of you that Twitter, I've been trying to get more involved with that, and I like to post tweets from Tempe Marketplace from time-to-time, so please consider following me at www.Twitter.com/DBacks08. Also, FSNAZ at www.Twitter.com/FOXSPORTSAZ does promotions via Twitter every now and then, so if you plan to be at Tempe Marketplace for a post-game show filming or want free DBacks news and updates during the game, I'd follow them as well! Thanks for listening to my shameless plug!