Game #38 Preview: 5/19, Arizona Diamondbacks @ Miami Marlins

Jeremy Hellickson RHP, 1-3, 5.92

Tom Koehler RHP, 2-3, 4.29

Ender Inciarte - CF	Dee Gordon - 2B
Mark Trumbo - RF	Martin Prado - 3B
Paul Goldschmidt - 1B	Giancarlo Stanton - RF
David Peralta - LF	Marcell Ozuna - CF
Yasmany Tomas - 3B	J.T. Realmuto - C
Chris Owings - 2B	Christian Yelich - LF
Tuffy Gosewisch - C	Mike Morse - 1B
Nick Ahmed - SS	Adeiny Hechavarria - SS
Jeremy Hellickson - RHP	Tom Koehler - RHP

Oh, hang on - it's a Hellickson start, isn't it? Better keep those hopes of a winning streak in check, considering that the Diamondbacks are 1-6 so far when he takes the mound. Not all Hellickson's fault, obviously - last time out, there was an F-sized assist from Addison Reed - but we should probably have done better, considered the offense delivered tacos in three of those seven games. Should you be interested, the franchise mark for most team losses by a starter in a season, belong to Brandon Webb in, you will not be surprised to hear, 2004. We lost 23 times with him starting, compared to 12 wins. But the worst meaningful win % is Casey Fossum, the same year: 6-21!

So, yeah: Hellickson has a ways to go before he deserves to be spoken of in the same company as Fossum. But I don't have an enormous amount of faith in his ability to restrain Stanton; the D-backs did well last night, and the game plan worked well, but Rubby De La Rosa is a very different breed of pitcher from a soft-tosser like Jeremy, and the same approach may not prove successful tonight. Going by (limited) past history, "very carefully" would be the watch-word, Stanton being 0-for-1 with a pair of walks against Hellickson. Thought they might have faced each other more often than that, given the Florida rivalry.

Trumbo back in the #2 slot tonight. So far, seems to have worked pretty well overall: I think it may force him to be a bit more selective, and his K:BB ratio there (7:4) compares favorably with the number when he bats cleanup (11:3). Small sample size, obviously. Meanwhile, the bottom of our order has...not been sucking quite so much of late. The non-pitchers  in the 7-0 slots, have got their collective OPS up to .575: while still the worst in the National League, it's better than three American League teams. Including, I note the Yankees, who have been using Stephen Drew and Didi Gregorius a fair bit down there...  A long climb still needed: remains our worst in team history by 56 points.