Well, at least I won’t have to spend much time scoreboard watching the rest of the season.
The dismantling of one of the greatest what if’s in Arizona sports history began yesterday with the trading of Josh Naylor. To me, it’s hard to say that it was a case of underperforming. Most of the players that are on the team right now are all performing the way they were expected to. The offense is doing very well, and the litany of pitching replacements suck. It’s hard to compete when the best available
FA starter gets injured for the first time in his career, your second highest paid player is unable to bounce back, and the entire bullpen gets injured, including three different named closers.
The Pirates, on the other hand, are the team of Paul Skenes. He is one of the hardest pitchers to face in the game, but the rest of the team around him just doesn’t live up to it. Without him their pitching is okay, but not great, their offense is terrible, and their record reflects that.
With both Gallen and Kelly starting this series, “probable” pitcher might be too strong of a word, but we’ll see what happens.
Game 1 — 7/25, 3:40PM — Ryne Nelson (6-2, 3.52 ERA, 120 ERA+, 1.05 WHIP) vs. Mike Burrows (1-3, 4.70 ERA, 92 ERA+, 1.41 WHIP)
Ryne Nelson has once again stepped up and is holding down the rotation even though he wasn’t chosen to be there at the start of the season. Only difference is that he’s doing it even better than he did last year. A 120 ERA+, a FIP that’s right in line with his actual ERA shows that it’s for real, even if the walks are a little higher than they were last season. Since joining the rotation full time on June 7th, he has only given up more than two ERs and gone less than five innings twice. Incredibly solid performance from the righty.
Burrows rookie season is going... fine. He’s a bit below average by ERA+, but not dramatically. The ERA is high and he has the FIP to back it up. That’s slightly inflated by a couple bad games, but his good starts aren’t long enough to really start pulling that ERA down. Most of the times, though, he’ll be good for two or so runs and pitching into the fifth inning, but not beyond that. He is prone to that two inning, four ER start, though, so if the Diamondbacks offense can show up, he is vulnerable.
Game 2 — 7/26, 3:40PM — Merrill Kelly (9-5, 3.32 ERA, 128 ERA+, 1.05 WHIP) vs. Andrew Heaney (4-9, 5.03 ERA, 85 ERA+, 1.31 WHIP)
Overall, the numbers for Kelly look good, but if you look at it game by game, he hasn’t really been the dependable mainstay that we’re used to. He’s been much streakier, with a few games in a row where he’s elite, only giving up a couple runs in 6+ innings, then he looks he takes a step back three or four starts, giving up three or more runs per game, usually in fewer innings. He’s currently on one of the elite stretches, though, having only given up four runs in his last three starts, totaling 18 innings.
Andrew Heaney has been around forever at this point, and, other than one obnoxious season with the Dodgers where he put up a 130 ERA+, has made a career out of being a below average left handed pitcher. More of the same this year. You’re looking at three or four runs in six innings, unless he blows it up and gives up seven ER, which he has done four times this season, including his last start against the White Sox of all teams.
Game 3 — 7/27, 10:35AM — Zac Gallen (7-11, 5.58 ERA, 1.37 WHIP,) vs. Paul Skenes (5-8, 1.91 ERA, 224 ERA+, 0.91 WHIP)
The fall of Zac Gallen should be studied. It’s an impressive feat to go from back-to-back top five CY Young finishes to barely being a top five pitcher on your own team in just two years. But the walks are up, the hits are up, the home runs are waaay up, the WHIP is up, it all just adds up. The only ray of hope is that he is underperforming his FIP by almost a full run. He still wouldn’t be an All Star at those numbers, but he’d at least get more on the trade market.
I’m really not sure what to say about Paul Skenes that hasn’t already been said. The guy is the second coming of Jacob DeGrom, both in skill and complete lack of run support from his team. He’s already faced the Diamondbacks once this season and it went very poorly for them. This just isn’t a good match up for anyone, much less an offense that is in the process of being sold for parts.
Conclusion
I like the Diamondbacks chances this series. The first two match ups are strongly in their favor, and given the lack of run support Skenes gets, as long as they can scratch one or two out, they may even have a shot there. It all will boil down to how well they can drown out the noise, and there’s going to be a lot of it with Hug Watch in full effect all series. We’ll just have to see how it plays out.
More from azsnakepit.com:
- Arizona Diamondbacks 8, Colorado Rockies 3: A farewell to Herrmann
- Snake Bytes 3/26: Time to Rest Core
- SnakePit Round Table: Predictions edition
- Arizona Diamondbacks option Yasmany Tomas to Triple-A
- Predicting the Opening Day Arizona Diamondbacks roster
- Arizona Diamondbacks acquire Deven Marrero, DFA Albert Suarez, select Fernando Salas - Patrick Corbin to start Opening Day
- Steven Souza’s strained pectoral: Who should replace him?
