The Arizona Diamondbacks have certainly got some attention from the major league observers with their 19-10 record in the month of May. They've climbed from 13th to fifth in the most recent power rankings published on MLB.com. The D-backs are ranked only behind the Phillies, Indians, Cardinals, and Yankees. Here's what they say about Arizona:
↵↵↵Power Rankings: Phils No. 1; D-backs snake up | MLB.com: News
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Credit goes to manager Kirk Gibson for changing the culture in the clubhouse, and to an offense that has come to life, but the D-backs' bullpen has been lights out, starting with closer J.J. Putz.
That's all good news but of course, being the Diamondbacks we can't be too upbeat so here's the other shoe you knew would be dropping. In a different power rankings from another source, the D-backs ranked 28th. This ranking, however, looked team logos.
↵↵↵Not terrible, but it’s annoying that someone -- doesn’t matter if it’s an owner or a PR flack -- looked at the one from 2007, snapped their fingers, and said "Wait, that team name on the logo needs fangs!" Then they spent time, effort, and company money to convince people of fangs. There were e-mails going back and forth about the change. There was probably a focus group. No one said, "Look, you missed your chance at fangs when the first one came out. You blew it. Let it go." The person who fought for the fangs won. That’s just not right.
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To make matters just a little worse, the D-backs home field came in 24th on a list of parks as rated by users of the online service, Yelp. The rating wasn't horrible -- a 3.79 out of five stars.