Diamondbacks are open for business
PHOENIX – The streets outside the ballpark are virtually vacant, with one homeless man sitting hunched over on the sidewalk and another looking for shade by a tree with no leaves.
You can grab a parking spot just two blocks away for less than a price of beer being sold inside Chase Field, with some lots charging just $10 and others only $5.
Walk inside the spacious stadium, and sections upon sections are completely empty. The concession workers are standing around with no more than three, perhaps four, people in any single line. They announce a paid attendance of 9,173 this weekday night, but the actual crowd is perhaps a third of that.
There were nearly as many fans for the Phoenix Suns’ viewing party at Chase Field during the NBA Finals than the total attendance for last week’s three-game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
The only thing more dreary than the atmosphere at Chase Field these days is the product on the field. They are the Arizona Diamondbacks, the worst team in baseball, with a 31-69 record heading into Sunday, losing 55 of their last 67 games before beating up the Pirates. They are on pace to top 110 losses and may have a shot at the all-time record of 120 defeats. The fans have become apathetic towards their hometown team, averaging just 12,941 fans a game, third-lowest in the National League, in a ballpark that seats nearly four times that amount.
It has gotten so ugly that former Arizona attorney general Grant Woods ripped owner Ken Kendrick on Twitter, imploring him to sell the franchise after they set the modern-day record of 24 consecutive road losses.
“In Spring Training, we said this team is non-competitive and an insult to fans,” Woods wrote. “KK needs to sell the team to someone who cares. Or don’t expect us to care.”
Kendrick responded back in a nasty email that Woods shared with The Athletic.
The D-backs’ popularity these days really is confined to a small circle of vultures, rival general managers knowing that the D-backs are about to be stripped down with their spare parts going to the highest bidder.
“I’ve never been a part of anything like this,” D-backs GM Mike Hazen tells USA TODAY Sports, “and I never hope to never, ever, see it again. It’s some of the worst baseball ...
“I have to take as much responsibility as much as anyone. I believed in these guys, and we just played so poorly. We went into this season planning to compete, and that hasn’t happened.”
You name it, and it has gone wrong. The defense has been sloppy all season, bordering on atrocious. The pitching is the worst in the National League with a 5.38 ERA , having only one pitcher with more than four victories. The hitting is woeful, with only one player producing more than 10 homers.
“The defense has just abandoned us at all of the wrong times,” Hazen says. “The frustrating part for us is that’s not how we intended to build our club. We intended to play tight defense, be fundamentally sound, but we’ve just had so many defensive miscues that have cascaded into big innings against us. We weren’t built to withstand that on a nightly basis.
“There will be some changes that have to be made in terms of the way we are building a roster,” Hazen says.