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Diamondbacks Line-up
- Gerardo Parra, RF
- Willie Bloomquist, 2B
- Paul Goldschmidt, 1B
- Miguel Montero, C
- Cody Ross, LF
- Martin Prado, 3B
- Didi Gregorius, SS
- A.J. Pollock, CF
- Patrick Corbin, P
If you'd been given the pitching match-up at the start of the season, it would appear to have heavily favored the Giants, pitting the All-Star with a sub-three ERA from 2009-12, against a promising but largely untested sophomore whose ERA last season was 4.54. Two months later, Corbin has yet to taste defeat, while Cain has struggled, particularly away from home where his ERA is now 6.27. We've faced him twice: he didn't get the decision either time, with the final results being split. His outings were very similar: six innings, four runs on five hits with six strikeouts in each. But the last time, at Chase, we took four walks and had three homers.
Corbin has seen the Giants only once this year, but also got a no-decision, despite taking a shutout and a 4-0 lead into the eighth inning. That was on Apr 23, when the Giants scored two in the eighth and two in the ninth to force extras, before we finally prevailed 6-4 in extras. It's what we do when Corbin starts: going back to late last year, we've won the last 12 times he has taken the mound, and 15 of his previous 16 starts. It's an impressive record, and one which I'd be particularly happy to see extended tonight, against one of the teams tied for second-place in the division, 2.5 games back of the Diamondbacks.
It has been a rough 24 hours for our pitching staff, between Ian Kennedy's transformation into a sinkhole last night, and the unfortunate news about Daniel Hudson this afternoon. I thus feel the baseball gods owe us some good things, not least because we'll actually be going to the game tonight, with visiting relatives of Mrs. SnakePit, who are in from California - and one of whom is a Giants fan. It has been quite some time since we've been to Chase - I think the last might have been the trip where we tried the Game Seven Grill. Damn, that was the opening series of the season? We've been slacking. Be hanging out with edbigghead, Turambar, etc. pre-game, so should be fun.
It'll be a soco recap tonight, with 'charmer being off to see some film or other, which I really don't want to get into a discussion about, in the interests of ongoing SnakePit harmony! Still, she paid in blood for it, by having to write up last night's atrocity, so that seems like a fair price! I've just realized there should have been a SnakeLines column up today, but between the draft, Hudson's injury and my half-day at work (woohoo!), it's not going to get done today. I'll get to it tomorrow, and we'll have a somewhat abbreviated, five-game line to look at this week. I'm sure you'll be able to handle that.