The Arizona Diamondbacks Aren't Even Trying Anymore

The lowly Arizona Diamondbacks invited the Milwaukee Brewers into their home last night and proved to be accommodating hosts, mustering very little fight and bowing out in the form of a 5-0 loss. It was the 18th defeat in the last 19 tries for Arizona. The Diamondbacks have strung together an incredible 23 straight losses on the road and hold Major League Baseball's worst record at 21-54. But at least they keep trying. Or do they?

That appears open for debate following a bizarre sixth-inning incident on Monday that saw Milwaukee's Daniel Vogelbach limp home at a snail's pace after suffering an injury to score a run. And the Diamondbacks defense doing everything in its power to let it happen.

Now, it's somewhat easy to understand what happened here. Vogelbach's significant hamstring injury caused him to wander around way outside the baseline to the point he could just as easily have been walking off the field. Shortstop Nick Ahmed can be forgiven for the confusion because it's a very unusual thing to see when you turn around from taking a relay throw.

At the same time, you have to throw the ball there. There's absolutely no downside. Which makes his postgame comments even more perplexing.

"Weird stuff happens all the time in this game," D-backs shortstop Nick Ahmed said. "And I've played it long enough to know now there's something new you're going to see maybe every day and you try to be ready for everything and prepare the best you can and that's what I do each and every day. But I've never once taken a cut and relay and practiced for the guy pulling his hammy and being 30 feet outside the baseline. It's just never happened. So I'm just going to laugh about it. There's nothing I could have done differently."

Nothing he could have done differently? There is, uh, one thing.

Vogelbach's run proved to be unimportant to the final result. And not attempting to record an out could serve as a lesson in sportsmanship like that weird commercial where the basketball player tells his coach the ball was off him and they lose. But more than likely it'll just be another prominent lowlight in a disastrous season, a helpful distillation of all that's gone wrong and will continue to go wrong.