Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Arizona Diamondbacks fans and fans across the country.
Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.At the time of writing (during the early stages of Friday’s game in Houston), the Diamondbacks have scored a total of five runs across the last 38 innings at the plate. It’s therefore no great surprise that the results in this week’s poll focused on the team’s clutch
hitting – or lack thereof – as far and away being the most important thing for the team as we negotiate our way through the final months of the season. Part of this is perhaps recency bias, with this week’s struggles being undeniable: they literally went the entire series against Philadelphia without an RISP hit. But can anything be done?
First though, here’s how you voted.
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Here’s how the team’s number with runners in scoring position have broken down over each month of the season so far, along with their rank in MLB
- April: .291/.341/.561 = .902 OPS (#1)
- May: .270/.347/.422 = .769 OPS (#8)
- June: .162/.288/.259 = .548 OPS (#29)
- July: .237/.323/.388 = .711 OPS (#21)
- August: .248/.324/.472 = .797 (#5)
As you can see, it’s all over the place. They were actually pretty good in these situations last month. All told, they are actually +34 points with RISP, compared to overall: .744 OPS vs. .710. Both figures are actually pretty close to average, because teams generally do hit a bit better with runners in scoring position, compared to normal. The respective figures across all of MLB were .742 and .719. So, I’d expect Arizona’s numbers to come back to that over the rest of September. If anyone has to worry about regression to the mean down the stretch, it’s probably the Phillies, who come into play this weekend almost a hundred points better with RISP (.811 vs. .713).
Personally, I’m more curious to see how the starting rotation shapes up. The return of Corbin Burnes and Michael Soroka should provide a boost, given how shaky the replacements in the rotation have been. Eduardo Rodriguez, Brandon Pfaadt and Merrill Kelly have combined for 68 starts and an ERA of 3.55, going into Friday night’s game. Discounting Soroka’s 18 starts, everyone else in the rotation has made 55 starts and a 5.54 ERA. So you don’t need Cy Young caliber pitching from Corbin to be helpful. What matters is, the bar for Burnes and Soroka to improve on who they are replacing, is not high. And that’s discounting entirely Zac Gallen and his pre-IL ERA of 6.34.
