Yesterday, like this entire season, was awful and a reminder that there’s nothing good about the Giants — nor will there likely ever be anything good about them again (sorry to the fans of the farm system). So, let’s celebrate the small moments of fun. Because the Giants have to play a makeup game in Atlanta — in the vain hope of possibly sweeping a series — they and the Diamondbacks agreed to convert the third and fourth games of the series into a day-night doubleheader on Saturday. That’s fun. A scheduled
day-night doubleheader is so rare these days.
It’s a relief that there are only 29 games left of this miserable season, and before I spend the next several months in my mom’s basement lambasting and pillorying this embarrassing front office for assembling the worst Giants team of all-time, I guess I’ll look to the games they still have to play to see how they can be further embarrassed by teams that are actually of professional quality.
At first blush, that might not be the Arizona Diamondbacks. While they’re not quite a ramshackle operation on the level of the West Sacramento Athletics, they are usually in the bottom half of the league in terms of attendance. Their pitching always seems like a huge question mark, and their roster always seems to be in some sort of flux, whether because of injury or because Ketel Marte is weird.
Yes, Ketel Marte is at least weird. There might be some serious personal issues going on and he might be an actually kind person, but his behavior has been odd enough that the Diamondbacks have had genuine problems with him the past few years. He’s often injured. He’s often one of the key cogs of their lineup, too. Ken Rosenthal wrote about it for The Athletic here. Long story short, it’s remarkable how Ketel Marte gets slightly better treatment than, say, Rafael Devers.
The Giants will miss him this series as he recovers on the IL, and that’s probably for the best, as he’s embarrassed them pretty good this year. He has 5 home runs and 17 RBI in 9 games against the orange and black this season. That’s incredible. Although, he had 18 home runs against them in 113 games heading into the season; so, again, it’s just good from a “Hey, maybe the Giants might win one of these” POV that he’s not available.
Arizona is just 1 game out of the Wild Card, trailing the Padres, Phillies, and Cubs. They’re 13-11 in August so far and this series and their second-to-last series of the year against the Rockies represent the only easy parts of their schedule remaining. While Marte had a 115 wRC+ in 13 games this month before hitting the IL, Arizona has been buoyed by great offensive performance from most of their lineup. Only 4 of the 16 hitters who’ve had at least 5 plate appearances in August have been below the league average, otherwise, Corbin Carroll (139 wRC+), Geraldo Perdomo (137), Gabriel Moreno (129), Nolan Arenado (119), Tim Tawa (117), and Ryan Waldschmidt (113) have been getting it done. They lineup has carried the team as their pitching has been exactly as valuable as the Giants in August (2.3 fWAR — 4.21 ERA vs. 4.20 ERA for the Giants).
I don’t know what else can be said about the Giants. It’s Jung Hoo Lee’s bobblehead weekend so, we’ll presumably see him again, but with all the injuries and trades, we’re down to Rafael Devers and some dudes. Pitching-wise, it’s Logan Webb and the ghost of Buster Posey’s planning. And, the Giants are 1-8 against the Diamondbacks on the season.
The two teams have matched up since 1998 — so, 29 seasons — and the Giants had never won fewer than 6 games in the season series before. The most they could win this season is 5 and that’s if they sweep, which they won’t. So, this will be the worst the Giants have ever done against the Diamondbacks. Enjoy?
Series Overview
Who: San Francisco Giants (54-79) vs. Arizona Diamondbacks (71-63)
Where: Oracle Park | San Francisco, California
When: Thursday at 6:45pm PT, Friday at 7:15pm PT, Saturday at 1:05pm PT (Game 1) and 7:05pm PT (Game 2)
National broadcasts: None.
Projected starters
Thursday: Landen Roupp (RHP 7-13, 4.34 ERA) vs. Jose Cabrera (RHP 0-2, 5.60 ERA)
Friday: Blade Tidwell (RHP 0-0, 3.58 ERA) vs. TBD
Saturday, Game 1: TBD vs. Merrill Kelly (RHP 8-12, 5.35 ERA)
Saturday, Game 2: TBD vs. TBD
Prediction time
Landen Roupp will lose his start so we can start talking about him possibly becoming a 20-game loser. Of course, the Giants would never let it happen, but ending August 7-14 would keep it in play…
