Small details provide big lesson for D'backs

As the Diamondbacks won series after series in April, and their hitters pounded balls over fences and their pitchers turned bats into kindling, it was fair to wonder:

Is Arizona really that good?

Sorry, but no.

The Diamondbacks were never going to win 120 games or clinch the National League West by August. In a sense, then, their red-hot April was a bit of fool's gold.

Consider this statistic: Arizona won 37 games by three runs or more last season. The Diamondbacks already have won 13 games by that margin this year.

Sure, the continued development of kids like Justin Upton, Stephen Drew and Conor Jackson is partly responsible for the surge in runs.

But these aren't the 1927 Yankees we're talking about.

The Diamondbacks will have to do the little things well to win games. And when they don't, they'll have more days like Sunday, when they lost to the New York Mets, 5-2, thanks in part to a base-running mistake by Chris Burke in the eighth inning and a ninth-inning throwing error by Jackson.

"A lot of times, the little things will determine a game like that," manager Bob Melvin said.

Melvin understands that the Diamondbacks aren't going to bash teams over the head all season.

"I tried to impress upon them that we can win in different ways," Melvin said. "To an extent we're not going to stay on the same pace we were early in the season yet we have the ability and we have the resources to be able to win in different ways. ...

"We can do it situationally. We can do it with our bullpen, we can do it with our starters."

In fact, I'd argue the Diamondbacks should have won more converts in their past seven games than they did during their 13-4 start.

Here's why: Mark Reynolds was 3-for-39 before getting two bloop hits Sunday. Eric Byrnes is 2 for his last 29. Chris Young is hitting .236.

Arizona scored two runs or less in three of those seven games but went 4-3.

That's what pitching - and, until Sunday, defense - will do for a team.

The D'backs' offense might wind up leading the NL in slumps and strikeouts. There are too many free swingers in the lineup.

But it's hard to imagine Arizona suffering through a long losing streak with Brandon Webb and Dan Haren at the top of the rotation, and a bullpen that had gone 24 innings without giving up an earned run until Sunday.

Webb and Haren are a combined 11-1, and already they've drawn comparisons to Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling in 2001.

Will Byrnes, Reynolds and Young improve their numbers as the year goes on? Probably.

But Arizona isn't going to average 5.8 runs a game as it did the first month. The Diamondbacks' fortunes will be in the hand of their pitchers.