Arizona Diamondbacks Game Preview, #12: Win the series?

Shelby Miller RHP, 0-1, 8.18

Andrew Cashner RHP, 0-1, 8.00>?

Jean Segura - 2B	Jon Jay - CF
Socrates Brito - CF	Wil Myers - 1B
Paul Goldschmidt - 1B	Matt Kemp - RF
David Peralta - RF	Brett Wallace - 3B
Welington Castillo - C	Melvin Upton Jr. - LF
Jake Lamb - 3B	Derek Norris - C
Nick Ahmed - SS	Alexei Ramirez - SS
Yasmany Tomas - LF	Alexi Amarista - 2B
Shelby Miller - RHP	Andrew Cashner - RHP

At least tonight's game is on at a more civilized time, 5:40pm - which is fine for me because I have to be up far too early tomorrow morning - especially considering it's a Sunday. So, let's hope this one is crisply played in about 2:20, and I get the recao knocked out by 9pm or thereabouts. Some shuffling of the line-up for the D-backs with the pitcher back to hitting ninth, and Ahmed moved up to seventh, ahead of Tomas. I'm still not too sure about the top of the order. While Segura has been great - our 1.188 OPS from the leadoff spot is the best in the NL - I'm still waiting for the shoe to drop and him to go back to hitting .210.

And behind him, the #2 spot has been problematic. We're dead-last in the NL there, and it's not even close, with a line of .188/.188/.229. The resulting OPS of .417 is 127 points below the next-worst, and we have a K:BB of 13:0, which is hardly setting the table for Goldschmidt and Peralta. I've said it before and I've not been the only one, but I'd like to see Lamb's good plate discipline used higher up the order, and would like to see him given a shot in the second spot. But, frankly, anyone except Brito and Chris Owings would likely be an improvement, considering they now have 52 plate-appearances between them, without a single walk.

Key tonight will be seeing whether Miller can continue the improvement shown in his second outing into the third, in the same way Zack Greinke did last night. We're now up to 19 consecutive games without a starter win: Even if you presume only a 30% chance of your starter getting the W in any contest, the odds against it happening 20 games in a row are about 1,250 to 1 against. It's got to end sometime, and this evening - winning us our first series and setting Patrick Corbin up for a chance at the sweep tomorrow afternoon - would seem to be as good a time as any. I have my pristine, 3-0 recapping record on the line too!