Towers expresses belief in early turnaround

DENVER -- The D-backs are off to a disappointing start record-wise this year, but the man who put them together has showed no lack of faith.

"I still believe in these guys," Arizona general manager Kevin Towers said. "I think a really good group of players. We're going to get in sync and put it all together. All we need to do is go out and win two or three games in a row and exhale a little bit. We haven't played very good baseball. That's pretty evident. We haven't been able to put two and two together. The games that we swing the bats well, we don't have pitching. We get pitching performances; we're not swinging the bats."

Ball-strike calls that went against the D-backs led to opposing rallies by San Francisco in two games, but Towers bristled when that was offered to him as a mitigating factor in the 1-6 start.

"That's going to happen," he said. "But that's not an excuse. You have to go out and get the next guy. To me, as a group we need to stop making excuses. We have to go out and get the job done and not blame the umpires or a bad hop. To me, that can become contagious and bad. It's too good a group of guys to use excuses this early in the season."

While no one seems to be panicking in or around the clubhouse, the team realizes that a turnaround must come sooner rather than later.

"It's a rough start, and hopefully we don't dig ourselves too big of a hole," Towers said.