Arizona Diamondbacks Game Preview, #78: Best road-trip ever?

Patrick Corbin LHP, 4-6, 4.63

Chad Bettis RHP, 6-5, 5.44

Jean Segura - SS	Charlie Blackmon - CF
Michael Bourn - CF	DJ LeMahieu - 2B
Paul Goldschmidt - 1B	Nolan Arenado - 3B
Jake Lamb - 3B	Trevor Story - SS
Rickie Weeks - LF	Carlos Gonzalez - RF
Chris Herrmann - C	Ryan Raburn - LF
Yasmany Tomas - RF	Mark Reynolds - 1B
Brandon Drury - 2B	Nick Hundley - C
Patrick Corbin - LHP	Chad Bettis - RHP

If we can beat the Rockies today, that will mean the Diamondbacks return to Chase having gone 8-2 on this road-trip. That would be their best winning percentage on a set involving 3+ cities ever. We've done 7-3 before - we actually did just that earlier this season, including our other four-game sweep, against the Giants - but no better. [As an aside, I found our worst road-trip ever too: that was in May-June 2010, when we went 0-9 against the Rockies, Giants and Dodgers. Losing the final four in walk-off fashion - one on a balk. The last two by 1-0 margins. Both in extra innings. Man, that was a rough couple of weeks]

At least yesterday's game was a relatively crisp three hours and thirty-five minutes, almost an hour quicker than the monstrosity which was Friday night. Got me wondering if Coors Field is particular conducive to long games, due to its... ah, "offensive" nature [and, for once I don't mean that freakin' abomination of a mascot!] So, what I did was look at the median length of games for each National League ballpark this year. I excluded all extra-inning and rain shortened games, so all of the figures below are only for contests that went exactly nine innings.

1. Rockies, 191 minutes
2. Diamondbacks, 190
3. Pirates, 185
4. Brewers, 184
5. Mets, 182
6. Cubs, 180
7. Dodgers, 180
8. Giants, 180
9. Padres, 180
10. Braves, 178
11. Nationals. 176
12. Reds, 176
13. Cardinals, 175
14. Marlins, 175
15. Phillies, 173

No great surprise to see the Rockies on top, not least because a lot more runs have been scored at Coors Field than anywhere else. 424 so far, over sixty more than the next (the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, with 363). Chase is in fourth, on 341, but despite that, our median game time is almost indistinguishable from the contests played at Coors. Probably little wonder then, that when the two teams faced off earlier in this series, the result was the longest regulation-length game in National League history.

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