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The La Russa Heartbreakometer
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Chris Heston
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Zack Godley
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| Angel Pagan - CF | Ender Inciarte - CF |
| Joe Panik - 2B | Chris Owings - 2B |
| Matt Duffy - 3B | Paul Goldschmidt - 1B |
| Marlon Byrd - RF | David Peralta - LF |
| Brandon Belt - 1B | Jarrod Saltalamacchia - C |
| Gregor Blanco - LF | Jake Lamb - 3B |
| Nick Noonan - SS | Socrates Brito - RF |
| Jackson Williams - C | Nick Ahmed - SS |
| Chris Heston - RHP | Zack Godley - RHP |
Godley, as you'll recall, was part of the return from the Chicago Cubs for Miguel Montero, and received a surprising call-up from Double-A Mobile in late July. Even more surprisingly, his first three starts were excellent: he went six innings and got the W in each, allowing no runs in two and a trio in the third, for an ERA of 1.50. Despite this, there were concerns about his innings load. He had been a reliever his entire pro career up to the trade, and having thrown only 55.1 innings in 2014, the jump to almost double that (107.1) through that third major-league outing was deemed potentially excessive.
So, he was moved back to the 'pen, and spent most of August there, either with Mobile or in the majors. But that decision seemed to be reversed, with Godley starting for the Baybears on August 30, throwing five shutout innings, then getting called up to the majors again for a start in Chicago (which didn't go well, as I'm sure you recall), and another one tonight. Unless his outing tonight is as abbreviated as the one against the Cubs, Godley will pass 130 total innings for the year this evening. It just seems a strange change of tack, especially considering the meaningless nature of tonight's game, at least from the Diamondbacks perspective.
The word is that this will be his last start, for reals this time, with Jeremy Hellickson likely returning from his strained hamstring to take over from Godley, and Jhoulys Chacin perhaps also joining the roster, the team going with a six-man rotation the rest of the way. However, I do wonder why they took this convoluted route, considering they could have simply kept Chacin up, after his second solid start on August 24. This would have seemed a more consistent and logical approach, rather than recalling Godley and bouncing him from the bullpen back to the rotation. I'm sure there is a plan here. I'm just not certain what it is...