2008 Arizona Diamondbacks season
The Arizona Diamondbacks' 2008 season was the 11th season of the franchise in Major League Baseball. Arizona tried to defend their NL West title after winning the division the previous year. But despite a franchise-best 20-8 start in the months of March and April, they couldn't maintain the division lead late in the season and collapsed with many losing streaks and stumbled to an 82-80 record, good enough for a second-place finish, only two games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers. Regular season The 2008 season saw the best start in Diamondbacks history, going 20-8 in March/April and end up being way ahead in first place in the NL West. During the great start, Brandon Webb had his best career start by winning his first 9 decisions. The only low point was that starting pitcher Doug Davis was being diagnosed with thyroid cancer, before he could get his first start. Characteristically, Davis made his first two scheduled starts before undergoing surgery on April 8. Fortunately, his surgery was a success and was able to get back on the mound just 6 weeks later. One of the more shining moments of April was when rookie pitcher Max Scherzer made his major league debut by pitching 4.1 perfect innings of relief, where he struck out 7 Astros. While doing this, Max passed Pete Richert of the 1962 Dodgers for the record for the number of consecutive batters retired (13) for a pitcher making his MLB debut as a reliever. Consequently, Scherzer was immediately promoted to the starting rotation, in the absence of Davis; he was relatively effective; in his four major-league outings (the aforementioned relief role against the Astros as well as three starts in Doug Davis' spot in the rotation), Scherzer had a 2.33 ERA with 23 strikeouts in 19 innings. (Upon Davis' return, Scherzer was returned to the bullpen and optioned back to AAA Tucson in early June, and he eventually spent about a month on the Sidewinders' DL with shoulder inflammation. Davis, for his part, has had a less-than-stellar 2008 season, he is 4-7 with a 4.75 ERA as of late August.) May was a much different month for the D-backs. The team saw a sharp decline in hitting and run production compared to April, and was their first losing month (11-17) since September 2006. The biggest disappointment had to have been the month-long slump right fielder Eric Byrnes fell into, where he hit .195 and had only 8 RBIs. Much speculation about his strained hamstring causing him to not perform well eventually led to him being put on the 15-day DL on May 27. He came back to action only to tear the left hamstring in late June, and was placed on the 60-day DL at that time. The Diamondbacks continued to lead the NL West despite only being 47-48 at the All-Star break. On July 17, 2008, Tony Clark was traded back to the D-backs from the San Diego Padres for a minor league pitcher, Evan Scribner. On