Arizona Diamondbacks Game Preview, #22: Slugging to Success

Carlos Martinez RHP, 3-0, 2.70

Shelby Miller RHP, 0-1, 8.59

Jeremy Hazelbaker - LF	Jean Segura - 2B
Stephen Piscotty - RF	Jake Lamb - 3B
Matt Carpenter - 3B	Paul Goldschmidt - 1B
Randal Grichuk - CF	David Peralta - RF
Brandon Moss - 1B	Yasmany Tomas - LF
Yadier Molina - C	Welington Castillo - C
Jedd Gyorko - 2B	Chris Owings - CF
Aledmys Diaz - SS	Nick Ahmed - SS
Carlos Martinez - RHP	Shelby Miller - RHP

So far, it will be no surprise to discover it's the hitters who have been getting it done, and powering the team to their current 10-9 record. The table below shows how the Diamondbacks' hitters have performed, through the first 21 games of each season since the franchise began in 1998. The table is sortable: click on the header of a column once to order the rows from lowest to highest by that column, then again to reverse the order. The initial order is by descending value of OPS.

By OPS, this has been the best start to a season by our hitters since 2008, but by some of the counting stats, they've been doing better. The team has had more hits and triples than any year in franchise history, though at least the former is informed by having had more PA, due to a record load of early extra innings. The home-runs are the most since 2004, when Richie Sexson was assaulting the Bank One Ballpark Jumbotron, as we noted earlier today. And the 11 triples matches the number posted through the first 48 games last season. On the other hand, the walk-rate is low, even as Goldy is currently on pace for 162 walks, a number surpassed in baseball history only by Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds.

Last night's success was particularly impressive, scoring a dozen against a team which had averaged allowing only 3.94 runs over the first 18 games. Admittedly, most of that was done against the soft underbelly of their bullpen, but on the other hand, the D-backs had lost a grinding, five-plus hour heart-breaker on Sunday afternoon, and nobody would have blamed them if they had looked hungover last night. It didn't happen, the hitters bailing out the starting pitching after another mediocre outing. And they may need to do it again here, unless Miller has fixed whatever it was that ailed his mechanics. Whether the result hitting the mound or not, walking for consecutive batters is not something I want to see tonight.

IMPORTANT POINT. Tonight's game is NOT on Fox Sports Arizona, but will air on FS1 instead. It will still also be available on Fox Sports Go. If you ask where the game is in the GDT, the SnakePit drone will be deployed in your direction.