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Robbie Ray
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J.A. Happ
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| Jean Segura - 2B | Devon Travis - 2B |
| Phil Gosselin - 3B | Josh Donaldson - 3B |
| Paul Goldschmidt - 1B | Edwin Encarnacion - DH |
| Rickie Weeks - DH | Michael Saunders - LF |
| Welington Castillo - C | Russell Martin - C |
| Peter O'Brien - LF | Troy Tulowitzki - SS |
| Yasmany Tomas - RF | Justin Smoak - 1B |
| Nick Ahmed - SS | Kevin Pillar - CF |
| Michael Bourn - CF | Darrell Ceciliani - RF |
If they get that seventh consecutive win away from home today, it will be their best such streak since June 2011, when then won seven straight in Florida, Kansas City and Detroit. Even the six they currently have hasn't been matched since August 2012, when they did it against the Cubs, Phillies and - curiously, given how rarely we play them - Blue Jays. Victory here would be our 22nd road win, which would also match our tally for the entire 2004 season. We currently need to go 20-26 the rest of the way to have a winning road record; that's happened five times before in team history - and in four of those years (1999, 2001, 2002 and 2011), we made the playoffs...
Of course, the other side of that is the woeful home record, currently sitting at 13-25. Our win percentage away from Chase is currently 258 points higher than in our own ballpark. I can't be sure, but that has got to be a record in baseball, and perhaps any pro sport [the NFL might have a shot, given their short season, but I'm not sure many sides there have gone 3-5 at home and 6-2 on the road, which is the kind of margin necessary to surpass the D-backs' current split] It's all about the pitching. Our runs per game scored aren't that different: at Chase, we average 4.53 runs per game, elsewhere, it's 4.34.
But the other side of the coin? 5.47 runs per game conceded at Chase, a figure that plummets all the way down to 3.74 when pitching in someone else's park. And our defense is better at home; unearned runs on the road are more than twice those given up in Phoenix (12:5). So the gap in ERA is even larger still, getting on for TWO RUNS. 5.28 at Chase, 3.42 elsewhere. It's the home-runs (and triples too, actually) that are the problem. 56 home-runs and 14 triples allowed at Chase; 25 home-runs and 5 triples on the road. It's one of the most bizarre splits I can remember, seems to affect a lot of our pitchers, and I've no idea how to fix it. Open to suggestions though!