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Diamondbacks Lineup
- Didi Gregorius - 2B
- Gerardo Parra - RF
- Paul Goldschmidt - 1B
- Miguel Montero - C
- Martin Prado - 3B
- David Peralta - LF
- Chris Owings - SS
- Ender Inciarte - CF
- Wade Miley - P
The Diamondbacks are currently on pace to go 23-58 at Chase this season. That's dismal: it's the same home record achieved by the 2003 Tigers, who lost 119 games (but whom we did manage to beat in Clefo's simulation the other day), and the same number of losses as the 1962 Mets, who went 40-120. The only team in the past century with more defeats on their own turf, were the 1939 St. Louis Browns, who were 18-59 in Sportsman's Park, on their way to a 43-111 record. Those are the teams with whom this season's Arizona Diamondbacks are jostling, in terms of home performance.
But the weird thing is, all those teams sucked on the road too: the Browns had the best away winning percentage, and even they lost more than twice as often as they won, going 25-52. It isn't the case for the D-backs, who are a brisk 17-14 to date, after their sweep of the Rockies in Colorado. That actually gives them the best winning percentage for the franchise on the road, since the 1999 team went 48-33. Indeed, it's an area where we have struggled a lot: just once since 2005 have we managed to finish the season above .500 away from Chase, going 43-38 in 2011. The other division winning bunch in 2007 didn't manage it.
Interesting change in the line-up today, with Aaron Hill getting the day off, and Didi Gregorius getting to man second base. It'll be his first major-league start there; indeed his entire MLB experience is 2.2 innings there in the Colorado series, after Hill was replaced in a double-switch. It wasn't exactly without incident, shall we say - though I guess the game ended well enough. He has played there a lot for Reno, with 38 appearances at second, and one wonders whether this is something we might see more of going forward. Perhaps this is part of Tony La Russa's vision of the Diamondbacks' future?