Game #11 Preview: 4/17, Arizona Diamondbacks @ San Francisco Giants

Josh Collmenter RHP, 0-2, 6.52

Jake Peavy RHP, 0-1, 9.00

Ender Inciarte - RF	Norichika Aoki - LF
A.J. Pollock - CF	Joe Panik - 2B
Paul Goldschmidt - 1B	Angel Pagan - CF
David Peralta - LF	Buster Posey - C
Jake Lamb - 3B	Casey McGehee - 3B
Tuffy Gosewisch - C	Brandon Belt - 1B
Chris Owings - 2B	Gregor Blanco - RF
Nick Ahmed - SS	Brandon Crawford - SS
Josh Collmenter - RHP	Jake Peavy - RHP

At time of writing, there's no word of a roster move by the Diamondbacks, to shore up their bullpen the night after every arm was pressed into service. Let's take a look at usage patterns over the past five games, and try to figure out who might be available in relief of Josh Collmenter tonight. Here are the number

It doesn't actually look too bad. Delgado and Reed are likely the only two who can realistically be crossed off, and maybe you would want to avoid going to Chafin for a third time in four nights. Everyone else would be working on back-to-back outings, but with two days or more off prior to last night. If we can just get Collmenter through six innings, I think we'll be fine.

Of course, that's a significant if, considering he hasn't retired a batter past the fifth in his first two starts. A BABIP of .462 is a good reason why, but then, a line-drive rate of 44% [!!!} largely explains the BABIP. That's more than twice the career figure for Collmenter coming into the season (21%), so either something is off, or he has been very unlucky. It may be the latter, because it isn't just line-drives [though his BABIP on those is a hundred points above league average[. On fly-balls, league average is an .077 BABIP; Collmenter is sitting at .250. Admittedly, we're talking VERY small sample size, but if regression were to start kicking in tonight, I'd not mind.

Say what you like about last night's game, it certainly appears to have been gripping television. For it was the highest-rated contest for the team on Fox Sports Arizona since April 1 last year, pulling a 5.7 rating/11 share in Phoenix, where it was the second most-watched show on any channel, behind only The Big Bang Theory. It peaked at 8:30, during Randy Johnson's unexpected appearance in the broadcast booth, with a 7.4 rating, and over the whole night, from 7-11pm, Fox Sports Arizona was the most watched station in Phoenix. Overall, ratings have been up 38% over last year's season average: hopefully, unlike 2014, the team will continue to give us reason to watch...