2008 Arizona Diamondbacks season
| 2008 Arizona Diamondbacks | |
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| Major League affiliations | |
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| Owner(s) |
Ken Kendrick Jeff Moorad |
| General manager(s) | Josh Byrnes |
| Manager(s) | Bob Melvin |
| Local television |
FSN Arizona (Daron Sutton, Mark Grace, Greg Schulte, Joe Garagiola, Matt Williams) |
| Local radio |
KTAR (620 AM) (Greg Schulte, Jeff Munn, Tom Candiotti) KSUN (Spanish) |
| < Previous season Next 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 & 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.
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 1⁄3 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.)
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Wikipedia