Meaningful baseball.
After a home run Derby without one of the biggest sluggers in the game (but with one of the tiniest sluggers) and an All Star game where the Diamondbacks certainly impressed, baseball returns to meaningful games once again.
For fans of certain teams meaningful baseball is already nonexistent since, basically, the beginning of the season and, in some cases, since 2018. Luckily, we don’t belong to them. The question is: for how long though? Good chance that the rest of the season for Arizona will be decided
in the upcoming two weeks until the trade deadline. Most likely, as things stand right now, the Diamondbacks will be sellers in the next few weeks. On the other hand, the team could also make a statement and give Mike Hazen and his front office some food for thought. No better way to do that than by sweeping the upcoming opponent.
The St Louis Cardinals are safely above the .500 line at 51-46, but are also 1.5 games out of a Wild Card, the last one currently in the hands of the San Diego Padres. In what was supposed to be a retooling season, the Cards have been surprisingly competitive until now, although the euphoria was somewhat tampered before the All Star break when the team went 4-8 and lost out of the Wild Card.
What the Cardinals will do the next few weeks is not that interesting. According to the beat writers on MLB, the team is still likely to deal away their expending contracts, most notably closer Ryan Helsley, a name popping up in the Diamondbacks rumours column not that long ago. Whatever happens, those deals will happen after the smoke of our fight with the red birds has cleared.
Sweep.
The Cardinals are pretty much an average baseball team, OPS+ and ERA+ wise. That shows us where the Diamondbacks could have been with just some league average pitching. However, Arizona is 4 games behind St. Louis and that is where a sweep would be so welcome, for 2 reasons:
- The Diamondbacks’ players would make a statement and propel themselves back into contention, not only erasing 3 deficits from their record, but also cutting 3 wins from, at least, one of the teams ahead of them in the wild card standings. No better way to start a hot streak a la Washington 2019.
- Mike Hazen would have an even better position in negotiating trades surrounding his most coveted players. Not all is yet lost and GMs would have to come up with more creativity to convince Hazen from parting with several contributing players.
Hey, maybe Arizona’s situation isn’t hopeless yet. Maybe standing pat isn’t a terrible option and the Diamondbacks can go on a tear. Or, even better, maybe we can be the smart boy in the class and get some valuable and controllable under-the-radar-pitching to help our pitching to become league average. Maybe lose some great offence for average pitching is a terrific trade off?
However it may be, keep on dreaming and keep on supporting the boys in Sedona Red. A minor break refills the engine of all of us and that is all we need the next two weeks.
Matchups.
Cardinals’ starters are confirmed. Diamondbacks’ starters not yet at the moment of writing this article.
I normally don’t announce a promotion nor do I or anyone else or this site or SBNation receive a fee for this promotion, but I, on a personal note, wanted to mention it to all you Arizonans with kids that this weekend you can take two kids for free to Chase Field with the purchase of an adult ticket, at “Kids Free” weekend.
Game #1 Fri 07/18 6:40 PM MST, Andre Pallante (STL) vs Brandon Pfaadt (ARI).
- Andre Pallante. 18 GS, 100.1 IP, 5 W-5 L, 4.49 ERA, 4.61 FIP, 1.30 WHIP, 64/32 K/BB. $2,100,000.
- Brandon Pfaadt. 19 GS, 99.1 IP, 9 W-6 L, 5.16 ERA, 4.58 FIP, 1.31 WHIP, 84/23 K/BB. $799,400.
Pitching to league average would be a great goal for Brandon Pfaadt in this second half. If he would pitch closer to his FIP, he’d shave off more than half a run per 9 innings, which would be a great improvement. Pfaadt looked to be quite locked into his game his last time out, when he went 8 innings against the Padres with his fastball more efficiently than William Tell’s crossbow. Let’s hope that change was for real and second half Pfaadt will once again showcase his talent.
Opposite is Andre Pallante, who has never faced the Diamondbacks, and is league averageish this season with a 91 ERA+. That number is a bit skewed by his last performance, when he gave up 7 runs in 6 innings against Washington. As his K/BB numbers might imply, Pallante isn’t a strikeout guy but a huge groundball pitcher, with an impressive 99-percentile in that field according to statcast. He offers a 4-seamer, sinker and slider to right-handed batting and sinker-knuckle curve combo to left-handed batters. Lefties have quite some trouble with that, but right-handed batting are on a .281/.347/.454 line for the season.
My guess is that Brandon Pfaadt leads the team to his 10th win.
Game #2 Sat 07/19 4:15 PM MST, Sonny Gray (STL) vs Ryne Nelson (ARI).
- Sonny Gray. 19 GS, 108.0 IP, 9 W-3 L, 3.50 ERA, 2.71 FIP, 1.08 WHIP, 118/19 K/BB. $25,000,000.
- Ryne Nelson. 20 G, 10 GS, 78.1 IP, 4 W-2 L, 3.68 ERA, 3.82 FIP, 1.07 WHIP, 65/25 K/BB. $825,000.
It is pretty outrageous to think that Sonny Gray is earning the same amount of money as Jordan Montgomery and has earned less than Montgomery if you combine 2024 and 2025, although he is up for a $35MM pay in 2026. Gray is once again the anchor in the rotation of the Cardinals with stellar K/BB numbers, but a bit unlucky this season if you look at his ERA. Gray will probably be the biggest obstacle in this series to ensure a Diamondbacks sweep, although a few months back in May he got a no-decision, giving up 9 hits and 3 runs in 6 innings.
Ryne Nelson struggled in his last outing against the Angels, but there is no reason to believe he will be back on track in this matchup.
Game #3 Sun 07/20 1:10 PM MST, Miles Mikolas (STL) vs Merrill Kelly (ARI).
- Miles Mikolas. 18 GS, 93.0 IP, 5 W-6 L, 4.94 ERA, 4.50 FIP, 1.29 WHIP, 66/21 K/BB. $16,000,000.
- Merrill Kelly. 20 GS, 116.0 IP, 8 W-5 L, 3.34 ERA, 3.47 FIP, 1.05 WHIP, 113/33 K/BB. $7,000,000.
Theoretically, this could be the last time that Phoenix sees Kelly pitch at Chase Field in a Diamondbacks custome. I am not buying any of that though. No one loves and will love Kelly as much as the average Diamondback fan, so Merrill is here to stay, most probably next season and another one as well. I don’t have any insider info on that, but I do have some inside love for it.
Kelly will lead the Diamondbacks to a victory in this final matchup, hopefully a much needed sweep, because Mikolas is, statwise, performing poorly in the third and final year of his extension with the Cardinals. There is a reasonable chance that Mikolas is pitching in his final major league season with the poor results he is having thus far, although one of the exceptions on that was a 1-run performance against the Diamondbacks in May, where he took the victory. Truth told, that good performance came in an 8-run streak where he pitched to a great 2.08 ERA in 43.1 innings. So, really, Mikolas isn’t doing that bad, it is just that, when he stinks, he does so in great fashion: 9 runs in 2.2 innings in Boston and 14 runs in 10 innings against Cleveland and Cubs, those last two pretty recently. Here is to another stinker for Mikolas and the sweep for the Diamondbacks!
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