Place Your Bets on the 2014 Diamondbacks: One-third down

For each line, we give the original projection, the amount wagered over and under, and the current pace, assuming we continue at the same rate going forward.

Wins: 84.5 (3350-4562) - Pace 63, UNDER

That is fifteen games better than it was when we first checked, so there's that. Indeed, over the last stretch, we weren't that far of the pace; if we'd won last night, that would have made us 14-13 in the second lap, an 84-win pace. So we didn't lose that much additional ground. But the dismal start, 8-19 in the first sextile, dug a pretty deep hole, and we're currently seven wins behind schedule. It is still possible to catch up, with 108 games remaining, but we really can't afford to drop any further off the pace. Probably more likely, if we play .500 ball the rest of the way, we'll end up with a 74-88 record.

Place in NL West: 2.5 (2164-1700) - Pace 5, OVER

Conflicting results here of late. When we first checked, the Diamondbacks were four behind the Padres, and seven back of the Dodgers, who owned the second place we need to get the line on the other side. Now, we are slightly closer to San Diego, at 3.5 games back, but further away from Los Angeles who are still in second, 8.5 games ahead of Arizona. In case you're interested, since last time, the Giants have the best record in the West, at 19-9, but there's only 2.5 games covering the rest of the division, from the Rockies (3.5 back of SF), through the Dodgers (4), Diamondbacks (5.5) and Padres (6).

Paul Goldschmidt's home runs: 35.5 (1100-4073) - Pace 27, UNDER

Goldie has picked up the pace of late, whacking six home-runs over this stretch, twice as many as he had during the first section. However, his overall offensive output has declined, with the season OPS+ dropping from 144 to 139. He seems to have been struggling particularly of late. Since his two-homer performance as we destroyed the Dodgers (ah, happy days...), covering the last nine games and 37 PAs, Paul has produced a line of .182/.250/.273. He has appeared in every Arizona game so far, and has the most innings in the field of any major-league player to date. It may be time to give Goldie a breather.

Mark Trumbo's home runs: 37.5 (1200-4136) - Pace 21, UNDER

This line moves from above to below: this is my unsurprised face. Of course, it's entirely because Trumbo has not played for the Diamondbacks since April 21, so we entirely absent for the period covered by this second report. It's still going to be some time before we see him again: it was reported the other day that Trumbo is now out of the boot protecting the stress fracture in his foot, but has not apparently resumed baseball activities yet. It says, "The next step is for Trumbo to work in a therapeutic pool, and if everything remains on schedule, the Diamondbacks are targeting a return in three to four weeks." So the third lap may be just as dead for Trumbo as this one.

Brandon McCarthy's innings pitched: 144 (1452-1350) - Pace 205, OVER

Hold your breath. This next lap is, historically, the part where McCarthy's seasons tend to go off the track, with Brandon having made a grand total of seven June starts since making his major-league debut in 2005. So far, so good though: the current pace would be a career high for McCarthy by 34.1 innings, and the 205 mark has only been hit by a handful of our pitchers since 2009 (Ian Kennedy twice, Joe Saunders, Daniel Hudson, and most recently Patrick Corbin last year). And if we can get more innings like the first three (ERA 2.18) and fewer like the ones thereafter (ERA 7.39), we'd all appreciate it.

Bronson Arroyo's home runs allowed: 31.5 (100-4847) - Pace 21, UNDER

One of the reasons for Arroyo's excellent performance of late, has been his much greater success at keeping the ball in the park. In the five outings since last time, he has allowed two home-runs in 36.1 innings of work; that included Bronson not allowing a homer in four consecutive starts, for the first time since May 2008. It's probably stating the bleedin' obvious, that not allowing homers helps your numbers - but you might be surprised how much. Over his ten starts this season, he has allowed one or more HR half the time. When allowing a HR, Arroyo's ERA is 8.64. When he doesn't, his ERA is 1.01.

Archie Bradley's starts at MLB level: 12.5 (2200-716) - Pace 0, UNDER

Still possible, but the fact that Bradley is out of action is probably lengthening the odds on it - if he isn't pitching in the minors, then he certainly isn't pitching in the majors. It has just passed a month since he last took the mound for the Aces, and still seems to be some way off, with his latest Twitter update hoping for a bullpen by the end of the week. In the meantime, we have seen Chase Anderson and Zeke Spruill get called up to the majors, though at least we no longer have to worry about Randy Wolf who, I notice, took the loss for the Brewers in his first start for them over the weekend, allowing nine hits and six runs (four earned) in five innings.

Martin Prado's OPS: .770 (4300-136) - Pace .662, UNDER

That is an improvement of close to 100 points since the last time we checked, Prado having given us a line of .286/.349/.408, which is pretty close to expected (OPS .757 over that period). He even hit his first home-run of the season on Tuesday night, ending a streak of 54 consecutive homerless games, the longest of his career, dating back to the end of last season. [It leaves the Royals' Nori Aoki as the most active zero-HR player this year, at 217 PAs] But if you'd have told me before this season, that we'd reach the one-third point and Prado would have as many home-runs as Ian Kennedy, I'd have looked at you very oddly.

Bench-clearing incidents with Dodgers: 0.5 (2866-250) - Pace 0, UNDER

Having safely negotiated the shoals of the latest series, time is beginning to run out on this one. We may still have 108 games left, but only eight of those are against Los Angeles. If it happens, it's probably not going to be at Chase Field, as we play them just twice more in Phoenix, on August 26-27. On the plus side, doesn't seem likely they'll be clinching the West and leaping into our pool again this year (if they clinch at all), since they will still have 28 games left after that trip to Phoenix. I quite like the idea of someone - most likely the Giants - clinching in Dodger Stadium. That'd be fun.

The only change of line was Trumbo's line going from above to below. That doesn't have any immediate impact at either end of the table, with the three perfect scores from the first lap, remaining perfect, and the three utterly imperfect bets also remaining that way. However, we do see the addition of two more to the leaders, with shoewizard and dbacks25 joining the perfect club. The heavy wagering on the downside of Trumbo also moves the overall tally into positive territory, with the SnakePit now collectively $4,168.66 in the black. I think that's close to a first in the time I've been running this. Here are the full results.

We'll be back at the half-way point, which looks likely to be four weeks from today, the off-day after game #81.