Diamondbacks Think Overbay, Not Over the Hill

The Arizona Diamondbacks wear the calendar with pride. Bring up the issue of age and they are apt to yawn and bring up the accomplishments of the last two years, as Mark Grace did after 12 innings of a Dodger home opener that left everyone forced to watch it considerably older.

“When I signed with the Diamondbacks two years ago,” said Grace, now 38, “everybody was talking about how old we were then as well, and we won the World Series. Last year, it was the same issue, and we won [98] games and the division title again. There’s no problem being a little older if you can still play, and the guys here are better than a lot of 24- and 25-year-olds.”

Well, true. The Diamondbacks have been better than anybody in the National League West each of the last two years, but it doesn’t hurt to plug in a little youth here and there, a Junior Spivey at second base, a Mike Koplove and others in the bullpen and rotation.

This year, the biggest transition in the regular lineup is at first base.

Erubiel Durazo was traded to the Oakland Athletics, and Lyle Overbay arrived from the Arizona system to replace Grace in a passing of the torch that had produced only a flickering flame through the first week of the new season.

Overbay was quietly being called “Overmatched” by some skeptics, a bit of cruelty that was hard to dispute.

Despite convincing averages of .343, .332, .352 and .343 again as he moved up the Arizona ladder, Overbay, 26, struck out five times, produced only two hits in his first 15 at-bats as the regular first baseman and was on the bench for the second day in a row as the Diamondbacks moved into Dodger Stadium Monday with a 1-5 record and .210 batting average that compounded their first baseman’s struggle.

“We all have a tendency to put pressure on ourselves,” Diamondback Manager Bob Brenly said of his decision to give Overbay another day off. “Sometimes, if you just sit and watch, if you get away from that pressure for a day or two, it makes it a little easier.”

Brenly was saying this in the aftermath of a 6-4 Arizona victory in which he had virtually exhausted his bench by the 12th inning and so there came pinch hitter Overbay to slug his first major league home run off an Andy Ashby fastball that didn’t sink as much as the pitcher wanted.

The two-run drive into the right-center field bleachers supplied the margin of difference in a game each team had chances to win earlier and represented what Brenly called “our biggest at-bat of the season so far.”

Or as center fielder Steve Finley put it:

“The team needed it and Obie needed it. It was big by all accounts. We were 1-5 and didn’t want to go 1-6, especially the way San Francisco is playing right now.”

The Giants, who need only 155 more wins to sweep the season, are 7-0 and 4 1/2 games ahead of the Dodgers, five ahead of the Diamondbacks, who came back from a 3-0 deficit against Kevin Brown, the second consecutive game in which the Dodgers failed to maintain a three-run lead. They have now used 11 relievers in those 25 innings -- including closer Eric Gagne twice in non-save situations -- a treacherous pace.

Home runs by Chad Moeller and Luis Gonzalez helped rally the Diamondbacks in this one, and then there was Overbay -- up in September of each of the last two years -- connecting on the sinker that got too much of the plate, a bit of heroics that the frustrated first baseman said was the kind of thing you dream about. “I was running around the bases thinking, ‘Is this really happening,’ ” he said.

Actually, Overbay had been thinking the same thing about his two for 15.

“It’s just good to contribute,” he said. “I was definitely pressing, and it was more me than anything. Everybody has been real supportive, but you start to question your ability. I wasn’t even hitting the ball hard.”

Among his supporters has been Grace. The veteran first baseman knows this is probably his last year. He is now as much mentor and cheerleader as player.

“We’ve all gone through what Obie was going through, but sometimes you have to figure it out for yourself,” Grace said. “I mean, you get a hundred different people telling you a hundred different things and your head starts spinning. As much as Obie trusts me, it was time to leave him alone.”

Brenly had done just that, but by the 12th inning he needed a pinch-hitter for pitcher Matt Mantei, and Overbay was summoned to provide the type of clutch hit that the Diamondbacks hadn’t been getting in a season start that had skeptics bringing up the issue of age again, wondering after only six games if the calendar had finally caught up to a team whose roster, in addition to Grace, includes Randy Johnson, 39; Finley, 38; Matt Williams, 37; Curt Schilling, 36; and the kid Gonzalez, 35.

A large portion of a record opening day crowd of 53,819 at Dodger Stadium was aging in freeway traffic by the time Overbay provided a youthful tonic -- “We’re hoping it jump-starts him and jump-starts us,” Brenly said -- but then the facts are what they are, or as Finley said, “We are old, but I’ll take experience every time. I mean, age is irrelevant if you can still play the game, and I think we’ve proven that we can.”

No argument from the Dodgers, forced to eat third-place dust each of the last two years.