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Diamondbacks Line-up
- Gerardo Parra, RF
- Willie Bloomquist, 2B
- Paul Goldschmidt, 1B
- Miguel Montero, C
- Martin Prado, 3B
- Jason Kubel, LF
- A.J. Pollock, CF
- Didi Gregorius, SS
- Randall Delgado, P
And so we turn to Delgado to stave off the series defeat at home by the Marlins, who had won only eight games on the road, before arriving in Arizona. The one thing I trust will be stressed beyond all others in the pre-game meeting, the Rule #1 for Diamondbacks' pitchers this series, is "You do not talk about Fight Club pitch to Giancarlo Stanton." It should be made clear to Randall that anything in the strike zone there, will result in his ticket being punched back to Reno. And I'm talking on one of those dubious buses that leave from downtown Phoenix, not in any pleasant mode of transport. To borrow a sign from last weekend's WWE pay-per-view: Stanton homers, we riot.
I am curious to see how Delgado does. I wasn't that impressed with him on his first promotion, but two innings of mop-up work isn't really an adequate body of work on which to base an opinion. After all, Heath Bell sucked in his first appearance of the year and he has worked out alrig... Er, never mind. Please carry on. The obvious roster move was made to make room for Delgado, optioning Charles Brewer back down. Brewer's 3.2 scoreless frames were perfectly acceptable, but again: if you're capable of judging a pitcher on that, you probably don't drink Guinness.
With IPK having dropped his appeal at exactly the moment expected, looks like Delgado will be in the rotation for a bit. With off-days on Thursday and Monday, the D-backs will be using a four-man rotation for a bit, consisting of him, Trevor Cahill, Wade Miley and Patrick Corbin (in that order, going forward). Once Kennedy is eligible to come back, I would presume we'll be switching to a five-man rotation, and we should be getting some kind of idea by then, when Brandon McCarthy will be able to come back. Last I heard, the only ill-effect from his seizure was a loss of sensation in the tip of his tongue. [Dubious comment with-held, in the interests of taste]
Both teams will send up right-handers making their first starts of the season, because the Marlins' Eovaldi has been on the DL since spring training. An MRI showed inflammation in his throwing shoulder, which caused him to be shut down. He was expected to be the Marlins' #2 this season, and is another young piece round whom the team will probably be building going forward, as he only turned 23 in February. He came over from the Dodgers in the Hanley Ramirez trade, and has won both his previous starts against the D-backs. The team has a collective .167 average against him, though that's a total of only 41 plate-appearances.
There will be a recap. I think it'll be BattleMoses, but Clefo swapped with 'charmer for Friday, then BattleMoses stood in for Clefo on Saturday, so it could be any of those three. Clefo and 'charmer have disavowed all knowledge, however, so I'm going with BattleMoses for now. I'll be watching Oz the Great and Powerful. I wonder if Giancarlo Stanton plays the title role?