The Diamondbacks dropped two out of three to the Rockies. Are we at the point in the season where we can no longer brush it off as “just a series”?
Spencer: Sure? But what about all the games early on we lost? It sucks but there’s a lot of baseball left. There’s just a lot less leeway than there was a week ago.
Makakilo: Momentum Matters: losing that series damaged some great momentum from winning against the Dodgers. Downhill To Playoffs: it’s easier than needing to win the last games of the season.
Dano_in_Tucson: Nope. It was just a series. Result was disappointing, certainly, but any major league baseball team can beat any other major league baseball team on any given
day, or even win a three-game series. Besides, aside from Soroka, Colorado drew the weakest links in our chewing-gum-and-baling-wire rotation, and Colorado can hit, even if they usually can’t pitch.
Of course, I’m answering this after writing up the recap for our series-win-deciding game against the best team in the NL East, so that’s probably informing my mindset. We’ve taken two so far from Atlanta….to my thinking, that more than outweighs dropping two of three against the Rockies.
Ben: I think the middle loss of that series was one you could brush off as “just baseball,” but the series finale was particularly ugly. They were handed golden opportunity after golden opportunity to score and failed in nearly all of them. In isolation, dropping the series to the Rockies is a setback for sure, but following that up with a series win against a much stronger Atlanta team is a real palate cleanser.
1AZfan1: I understand the camp who says that each game matters equally throughout the season, from 1 to 162, but from a mental standpoint we’re getting close to the games that matter just a little bit more than the rest of the regular season. As fans, we’re all scoreboard watching and keeping tabs on the standings, but no one is tracking magic numbers yet. No one is lining up rotations for the postseason yet. We’re not quite to the point that each series carries the weight of the season. To me, early September is when I feel that switch hits. All that to say, winning series against the Rockies in August can help make September less stressful, but there are still nearly 40 games left. Not plenty of time, but time enough.
An issue the Diamondbacks have consistently faced is hitting with RISP. Is there a solution to this that can take affect in the short amount of time remaining?
Spencer: Hit the ball where the defenders aren’t. Problem fixed.
Makakilo: Perhaps scoring runs with RISP is not an issue. 78% of Diamondbacks runs scored happened with RISP, which is the second highest percentage in MLB (Brewers are highest with 81%). Alternative viewpoints are that the Diamondbacks need more baserunners, or that the Diamondbacks need to hit more homers.
Dano_in_Tucson: Um….maybe? I hope so? Honestly, I have no idea what all that is about, and what could possibly be done about it at this late date in the season. But here’s hoping.
Ben: As far as I’ve seen, so much of the success around specific situations comes down to luck and the variability of baseball over the course of the season. There’s little the team can do to change their hitting philosophy or approach at this point in the season. Certainly, there are some changes that could be made to batting order, approach in attacking a specific pitcher, etc, but their approach has gotten them this far so why would they change?
1AZfan1: The solution goes by many names. Sequencing. Randomness. SSS. YCPB. Anything can happen over a short time period in baseball. I am encouraged that they have a large amount of opportunities with RISP in just about every game (5th most PA in MLB) and their batted ball metrics are all basically the same comparing RISP to overall season numbers. LD-GB-FB numbers are all nearly identical. K% is nearly identical. The biggest difference is a 10 point drop in BABIP from .281 to .271. If the batted ball luck swings only partially back toward the mean they will score a fair amount of runs. I don’t think there’s any team-wide mechanical or mental adjustment that can or will happen within the daily grind of a postseason race in August and September. What can happen is just pure luck. The balls start to fall our way a little more often. I just hope they keep giving themselves opportunities.
Justin Martinez seems to be nearing his return from the IL. How much of an impact do you see him having the rest of the season?
Spencer: Probably not all that much. He’s still a lot of potential. I’m not sure I want him pitching leverage innings this year. Garcia is killing it as closer, so for 2026 I wouldn’t change stuff just because Martinez is signed.
Makakilo: He would have a high impact in an area of need. In 2 games in Reno, he faced 6 batters. He struck out three and none of the other three got a hit or walk.
Dano_in_Tucson: I see it being big, assuming that he’s got his control back as well as his velocity after his Tommy John surgery. Of course, our bullpen has actually been a strength this year, so having him come back is perhaps not as crucial as it might have been in previous seasons. That said, though, being able to plug him back into the back end of what has already proven to be a really solid unit should help us out enormously down the stretch as we push to hold onto a wild card spot.
Ben: I would imagine he’ll have a marginal role in the bullpen, but I would be surprised if Lovullo uses him in higher leverage spots until they feel confident about his health. They clearly see Martinez as part of the team’s future so I have a difficult time believing they would take even the slightest of risks with his health at this point in the season.
1AZfan1: I think it will be substantial. Garcia and Morillo would be legitimate back-end weapons on any team in baseball. Both are within the top 6 in MLB in reliever xERA. J-Mart, when fully healthy, is better than both of them. Will he be fully healthy? His pitching lines and velocity readings in Reno certainly suggest that if he’s not fully healthy now, he should be in September. This bullpen has had admirable contributions up and down the line from Ginkel, Clarke, Loaisiga, and even Carrillo, but they aren’t at the same level of those other three. I honestly believe that when Martinez returns we will be able to stack our 7-8-9 against anyone else in baseball.
Same question, but Jordan Lawler?
Spencer: More of an impact than Martinez I think. Although I’m not sure where I see him playing. Does he deserve to play over Waldschmidt? I could see either side of that argument. He certainly deserves to play over Kepler or Noot, but Noot is the veteran the team just targeted to acquire…. You can’t have either Lawlar or Waldy riding the bench in Barrosa’s role for development purposes. But the team seems pretty adamant Lawlar is no longer an infielder. I think in a world where everyone is healthy, I cut Kepler for Jordan but make Marte the DH most days and play Lawlar at 2B. When Moreno needs to DH, one of Lawlar/Marte takes an injury prevention rest day.
Makakilo: I’m uncertain. The positive is that for the Sod Poodles he hit 4 homers in 32 PAs (exceptional!). The negative is that for the Sod Poodles he struck out 13 times in 32 PAs with zero walks (plate discipline needs to be fixed).
Dano_in_Tucson: Dunno, honestly, because I’m not entirely sure how/where he’s going to fit into the outfield mix. I mean, he could replace Kepler/Nootbaar in left, or reclaim center and push Waldschmidt to left, where he would be the one replacing Kepler/Nootbaar, either way that would likely be a positive. That assumes, of course, that he can resume his performance with the bat after so much time on the IL this year.
It seemed at the start of the season like he’d finally figured out that side of his game, and when he came back after his first IL stint it seemed like he still had it and there wasn’t much rust to shake off, but he was back on the IL again so quickly after his return that….well, I just don’t know. We’ll see. His return might turn out to be really big, which would be great. But it could also turn out to be, well, meh. Here’s hoping it’s the former.
Ben: I think Lawlar is a very different case. He’s obviously gotten the prospect pedigree and his performance at the beginning of the year finally shows some of the translation between those expectations and actual on-field performance. I’m not convinced he’ll be able to jump right back into the .316/.409/.447 slash line as soon as he returns, but anything will be better than the black hole that Max Kepler has been so far – and the latter’s unavailability in the postseason adds even more impetus to bring Lawlar back as a third/fourth outfielder.
1AZfan1: Lawlar’s impact is a little less convincing to me. If he’s still the same player he was when he was injured, then it’s a big deal getting him back in the lineup every day. I’ve been one of the biggest Lawlar believers on this site, and even I am concerned that much of his success may be tied to the .407(!) BABIP he was rocking over his small sample of 12 games, but I don’t expect him to crater offensively, either. I’d expect that Kepler gets the boot in favor of Lawlar so the bar is set pretty low for how much he needs to do and still provide value. A Waldy-Lawlar-Carroll (or Lawlar-Waldy-Carroll) outfield defense looks pretty legit, too.
What is the biggest thing in the Diamondbacks’ favor towards heading back to the Postseason, and what is their biggest danger in missing it?
Spencer: We have killed it in division this season. That’s the second tie breaker and I believe we beat every team in the race currently (in one of those first two tie breakers). Conversely, our biggest danger of missing the postseason is that we are once again playing poor enough ball that the tie breakers may not matter; we are letting other teams dictate how the season goes rather than winning enough for it to not matter.
Makakilo: If the season ended the morning of 15 August, the Diamondbacks would be a NL Wild Card team. That is the biggest thing in favor of reaching the postseason. On the other hand, baseball is a streaky game, which is the biggest danger.
Dano_in_Tucson: In our favor, I would say it’s the vast improvement we’ve shown in the last month or two in going toe-to-toe with teams with actual winning records, and beating them, and taking series from them.
Our biggest danger? I guess I’d have to say the intermittent signal loss we seem to get with our offense, as illustrated by the ongoing RISP issues that we see a lot of days.
All in all, though, I feel quardedly optimistic about our chances of reaching the postseason as we slouch along into the last month and a half of the season.
Ben: For the first time in a long time, the D-Backs have an excellent bullpen. That has been an absolute weapon throughout the season and it’s been a marvel to watch develop. Ironically, their biggest weakness remains their rotation. Eduardo Rodriguez continues to be a marvel and Brandon Pfaadt has executed one of the most remarkable turnarounds in recent memory, but the team is still relying on a combination of Michael Soroka and a pair of rookies in Mitch Bratt and Kohl Drake to carry them into the postseason. That isn’t exactly one of the most intimidating rotations in the National League.
1AZfan1: Biggest thing in their favor, in my opinion, is the strength of their pitching staff. Pfaadt, ERod and Soroka look to be good enough to go toe-to-toe with anyone else in the business and with Corbin Burnes on the mend (and Ryne Nelson as a possible piggy-back partner), I think we will have enough starting pitching to hand the ball off to our good-to-great bullpen and make it easier for our offense to score enough runs to win any given night. Our biggest danger in missing the playoffs likely comes from the fact that we are fighting for 2 spots against 2 teams who were considered to be better than us on paper at the beginning of the season and can very possibly lean on their talent to perform to expectations more than we can. We either need one of the other teams to underperform or we have to outperform compared to expectations.
