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Diamondbacks Lineup
- Didi Gregorius - SS
- Gerardo Parra - RF
- Paul Goldschmidt - 1B
- Martin Prado - 3B
- Miguel Montero - C
- Aaron Hill - 2B
- David Peralta - LF
- Ender Inciarte - CF
- Josh Collmenter - P
An interesting line-up, with Gregorius coming up from Reno and being inserted at #1 with a bullet. That will be a new experience in the majors, because he has never hit leadoff before. He has tended to see a decent number of pitches - his average for the Diamondbacks is 4.07 per plate-appearance, compared to MLB average of 3.83. But a possible factor in that, is about half of Didi's playing time to date has been in the #8 spot, where you are more likely to be pitched around in the National League. I think it's trying to take advantage of his good numbers against RHP, where Gregorius has a .355 on-base percentage.
However, he's not exactly what you'd call a base-stealer: two career attempts, both of them failures. Indeed, only four Diamondback non-pitchers have had more PAs for Arizona without a successful steal: today's trivia question, can you name them? [Answer at the end] There can't be many teams who have ever played a leadoff hitter who has never stolen a base in the majors - well, with the exception of Billy Hamilton's first ever game, I supposed. Gregorius has been slightly better with the Aces this year, going 3-0 in SB attempts, but I would be quite surprised to see him trying to do too much at Coors this evening.
Collmenter will have a lot to live up to, after his last start proved to be quite the one for the record books, becoming only the second Diamondback ever to face the minimum in a complete game, as he blanked the Reds at Chase Field. As we saw yesterday, the Rockies have been ferocious on offense at home, but Chase Anderson showed that their lumber can be quieted. If Collmenter can execute as well as he did on Thursday night, I'm hopeful we can come away with another victory, setting us up for a possible sweep tomorrow
Trivia answer. The four Diamondbacks with more PAs than Gregorius's 409, but no stolen bases for Arizona are: Johnny Estrada (443), Adam LaRoche (615), Tony Clark (940), and Chris Snyder (an impressive 1,916!). Snyder's career tally, across all clubs, of 2,459 PAs without a stolen-base is second in the past century, trailing only fellow catcher Russ Nixon, who went 2,715 PAs in his career, between 1957 and 1968.