WASHINGTON — The Diamondbacks played a relatively clean game in their series-opening win over the Nationals, but one mistake that stuck out to manager Torey Lovullo was Geraldo Perdomo’s first-inning out on the bases.
When he was caught rounding second too aggressively on a Gabriel Moreno single to left, it turned into Perdomo’s seventh out on the bases this season. Only two players in the National League have run into more.
“We have talked to him about it,” Lovullo said. “We created the awareness. That’s kind of our main approach, and then to not totally put a governor on him and shut him down. We want to be smart and aggressive. That’s our intent every single day.”
The Diamondbacks rank among the better teams in baseball in baserunning. They
are second in baserunning runs, per Baseball Savant. FanGraphs has them lower in their version of the stat — ninth — but still in the upper-third of major league teams.
“We’ve got to eliminate those things,” Lovullo said. “They are very common things that can be easily taken care of. I want there to be great intent, but we’ve got to be smart about it and slow down the motor a little bit.”
Meanwhile, Lovullo shuffled the top of his lineup, something he said earlier in the week that he had been considering doing. He dropped Ketel Marte from leadoff to fourth and bumped Moreno into the No. 3 spot. Corbin Carroll and Geraldo Perdomo occupy the top two spots, respectively.
Diamondbacks at Nationals, 1:05 p.m., Cox, Ch. 34
Diamondbacks LHP Mitch Bratt (0-0, 5.06) vs. Nationals LHP Foster Griffin (11-2, 2.68).
At Nationals Park: Bratt pitched 4⅔ innings against the Athletics earlier this week, working around eight hits, one walk and one hit batter to only allow two runs. … He elicited only three swinging strikes after getting just one whiff in the previous start. … He has averaged 91.3 mph with his fastball while also mixing in five other pitch types. … Griffin has been on a fantastic run since the beginning of June, giving up exactly one run in all eight starts he has made. He has a 1.25 ERA with six walks and 46 strikeouts in 50⅓ innings in that span. Most recently, he faced the A’s and gave up eight hits and one walk while striking out two. … Griffin averages 91.5 mph with his fastball. He throws seven pitch types, getting solid whiff rates on his sweeper, changeup, curveball and splitter.
Coming up
Sunday, July 26: At Washington, 10:35 a.m., Diamondbacks LHP Kohl Drake (0-0, 1.80) vs. Nationals RHP Miles Mikolas (3-7, 5.60).
Monday, July 27: At Pittsburgh, 3:40 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Merrill Kelly (8-8, 5.12) vs. Pirates RHP Bubba Chandler (3-8, 4.47).
Tuesday, July 28: At Pittsburgh, 3:40 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Brandon Pfaadt (5-1, 4.43) vs. Pirates RHP Mitch Keller (6-7, 4.90).
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Diamondbacks-Nationals updates. Lovullo wants smarter baserunning
