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The La Russa Heartbreakometer
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Robbie Ray
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Chad Bettis
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| Ender Inciarte - RF | Charlie Blackmon - CF |
| A.J. Pollock - CF | Jose Reyes - SS |
| Paul Goldschmidt - 1B | Nolan Arenado - 3B |
| David Peralta - LF | Carlos Gonzalez - RF |
| Welington Castillo - C | DJ LeMahieu - 2B |
| Jake Lamb - 3B | Nick Hundley - C |
| Phil Gosselin - 2B | Matt McBride - 1B |
| Chris Owings - SS | Brandon Barnes - LF |
| Robbie Ray - LHP | Chad Bettis - RHP |
After a homestand which made Requiem for a Dream seem like a Disney movie, it's on to Colorado, where out pitchers can look forward to throwing roughly 36 innings in Coors Field over the next three days, before finally getting the blessed relief of an actual off-day on Thursday. Which makes it kinda odd that the team has decided to call up Phil Gosselin for today's contest, instead of using the slot belonging to yesterday's starter for an extra bullpen arm today.. Of course, tomorrow, rosters expand, so it's only a case of getting through today, before reinforcements will arrive, but still...
Gosselin gets no time to acclimatize to the new surroundings, being dropped right in to the starting line-up at second-base today, to become the 20th position player and 47th player overall to be used by the Diamondbacks in their 2015 campaign. For the remainder of the month, I would imagine he will likely take on a role like that of Cliff Pennington, getting some time at various spots in the infield, but I'm not sure how often he is going to start, ahead of Owings, Aaron Hill and Nick Ahmed. With a career OPS+ of 87, I'm not expecting much - but even this would still be considerably better than that trio have managed this year, being at 61. 57 and 71 OPS+ respectively.
Ray has had his struggles of late, whether it's due to fatigue or simply the hitters doing a better kjob of adjusting to Ray, than he has done of adjusting to them. Coors Field is not exactly the best place for a struggling pitcher to recover his groove, and he'll need to do a better job of locating his fastball than he has, because mistake pitches tend to have a habit of turning into souvenirs here. On the other had, after a homestand where we scored only a total of twenty runs over the seven games, an extended series at altitude could be just what the doctor ordered to kick-start the offense.