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Diamondbacks line-up
- Adam Eaton, CF
- Martin Prado, 3B
- Paul Goldschmidt, 1B
- Aaron Hill, 2B
- Cody Ross, LF
- Wil Nieves, C
- Gerardo Parra, RF
- Cliff Pennington, SS
- Brandon McCarthy, P
But if we lose tonight, I'm still going to blame Kirk Gibson, for changing the line-up from the one which brought us victory in each of the past three games. Though, admittedly, I can understand why Eric Chavez has been wrapped carefully in cotton-wool and placed back in his box for today's game, as using him to start four days in a row would certainly seem to be asking for trouble. Prado moves back to third-base, and that opens up an outfield slot for Parra. The other change sees Gregorius swapped for Pennington, which isn't a change I'd expect to have too much of an impact either way, especially facing another right-handed starter.
I was quite surprised to see how balanced our collective offense has been thus far, especially considering the big splits shown by some of our individual hitters. Put them all together, however, and the Diamondbacks have an OPS of .714 against RHP, and an almost-identical .713 against LHP. That has helped translate into somewhat similar records, though we do prefer the southpaws: we are one game above .500 when facing a right-handed starter, and three above (in about half as many contests) against left-handers. Contrast, say, the Giants, who are 15-22 against LHP, or worse yet, the Rockies, a woeful 15-27 - Colorado's record against RHP is almost identical to ours.
As mentioned, today is Goldschmidt bobblehead day, and you know what that means: yep, a bunch of Ebay auctions by people selling the giveaway. There's even a couple of people selling the gold edition of the bobblehead, if you have $60 or more to bid. I'm probably more intrigued by the Missoula Osprey version of the Goldschmidt bobbler, which was given away last August. That was rather more limited than the 25,000 which will be given out at Chase Field tonight: there were only 750 of those. Goldzilla played for Missoula in 2009, and he still co-owns (with Jon Griffin) the team record for homers in a season, with 18.
He'll be hard-pushed to do better than last night's game, walking off the Mets after the Heath Bell Experience had proved an unpleasant one in the previous inning. It's been a weird couple of weeks for Goldschmidt: since July 24, he is hitting below the Uecker Line at .192 - but his overall OPS is a robust .892, because more than half of his hits have left the park. He's 10-for-52, with four singles, six home-runs and nothing in between. He is also still taking a load of walks, with an on-base percentage over that time of .354, so we can't really complain too much. If they don't give you anything to hit, don't swing.
Dodgers look to be on their way to another win over Tampa, and the Reds will be getting under way against the Padres in a few minutes. Just keep winning, Diamondbacks. It's all you can do...