August 8, 2007

BARRY WHO?:

Pirates 8, Diamondbacks 3 (AP, 8/08/07)

Justin Upton was terrific. His Arizona Diamondbacks were terrible.

The 19-year-old sensation fell a single shy of the cycle in his home debut but it was nowhere near enough to beat Tom Gorzelanny and the Pittsburgh Pirates on Tuesday night. [...]

Upton tripled in the second, homered in the fourth and doubled in the seventh. He grounded out to second to end the game.

"I'll tell you right now,'' Arizona's Orlando Hudson said. "You might want to start rewriting the records and putting his name right below A-Rod and Griffey when they were 19.''


His brother has been no slouch for the Devil Rays this year either.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 8, 2007 8:50 AM
Comments

Weren't you just two weeks ago rubbishing the notion that bringing Justin Upton up this year would be a good thing for the Diamondbacks?

Besides, he's probably only up until Carlos Quentin gets off the DL.

Posted by: Brandon at August 8, 2007 11:05 AM

Of course it's bad for the D'backs. It's fun if you own him in a rotisserie league (and his brother).

Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's going to be as good as 19 year old Ken Griffey was and that he can get 150-200 at-bats over the remainder of the season. How does a .260 hitter with 6-8 homeruns solve any of AZ's offensive problems?

Posted by: oj at August 8, 2007 11:27 AM

It'd be better than Carlos Quentin (.208, 5 HRs in 208 at bats).

Posted by: Brandon at August 8, 2007 12:46 PM

It's good for Justin, gets his service time started. Why not be nice to him?

Posted by: pj at August 8, 2007 3:29 PM

Oddly enough, that's quite wrong. By bringing up your own phenom just because he's "better than" you stop yourself from actually fixing the problem.

Posted by: oj at August 8, 2007 4:03 PM

Strange, I thought the way to make a team better was to have better players. How do you "fix" Quentin's inability to hit?

Posted by: Brandon at August 8, 2007 6:51 PM

By merely getting a better player than one who sucks you've prevented yourself from improving significantly. You fix Quentin by trading him for Jermaine Dye.

Posted by: oj at August 8, 2007 10:02 PM
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