And the winner for "Least unexpected roster move of 2016 is..."
OFFICIAL: #Dbacks recall RHP Archie Bradley from the Triple-A Reno @Aces. Dominic Leone was optioned to Reno following last night's game.
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) May 29, 2016
Yep, Bradley's back, and we'll see if he has figured things out. All told, he has an ERA of 6.26 in his 10 major-league starts, and the two this season were worse still, Archie coughing up nine earned runs on 14 hits over just 10.1 innings. He is still relatively young though - he won't turn 24 until August - but it would be nice for him to start turning more of that potential (he was rated the #5 prospect in all baseball by MLB.com before the 2014 season) into performance at the major-league level. A 1.99 ERA over his seven starts for Reno is promising, but means nothing beyond what it is.
If you were watching last night's game, you might have seen the battle between Zack Greinke and Matt Kemp in the sixth inning, where it took Greinke 13 pitches before he finally got Kemp to fly out to right. That was among the longest PA for a D-backs pitcher in team history; there hasn't been one longer since July 2013, when Josh Collmenter and Mark Ellis fought for 14 pitches. All told, there have been nineteen cases where a PA has gone 13 pitches or longer with Arizona on the mound. The team record is 16, belonging to Daniel Hudson versus Brandon Belt in September 2011. Huddy won that one, getting Belt to K.
Indeed, that's been the pattern. Not once in those 19 cases has an opposing hitter got a hit after the 12th pitch. There have been five walks - probably not surprising, considering they were all full counts, as you'd expect - and one sacrifice fly, which drove in the only run in such situations. But overall, hitters there are 0-for-13 with six strikeouts. Two of them were by Brandon Webb and, curiously, the hitter for two was future Diamondback Xavier Nady, who did it four years apart, in 2003 and 2007, while with two different teams (the Padres and Pirates) Here's the list of all 19 such cases.