Place Your Bets on the 2016 Diamondbacks: Mayday...

Leading up to Opening Day, anyone who wanted to was awarded fifteen hundred SnakePit dollars and invited to wager them on a series of over-under lines about the Diamondbacks' season. 31 people entered the doors of our theoretical casino, betting on anything from team wins to Brad Ziegler saves. Two months and 54 games into the 162-game campaign, that means it's time let's take a look at the lines so far. For each, I've given the original line, the amounts wagered on sides of that line, the projected tally based purely on the number through 54 games, and whether that projected figure would be over or under the line. That's then used to figure out the standings.

Team wins: 82.5 (8850-1059) - 69, UNDER

The team has gone backwards, going 11-16 over the second chunk of the campaign, and every step in that direction makes it harder for them to reach .500. Eight games below, means they have to be that many over the rest of the way - and that's also a steadily declining number of contests. To reach 83 wins, the final two-thirds of the season would need the Diamondbacks to go 60-48, which would works out at a 90-win pace over an entire season. That would have been a bit of an optimistic stretch at the beginning of the season, before the injury to A.J. Pollock, and the collapse of Shelby Miller. It's possible. Just doesn't feel very likely.

Goldschmidt BA: .300 (6260-350) - .269, UNDER
Goldschmidt: HR: 32.5 (531-100) - 30, UNDER
Goldschmidt RBI: 109.5 (1650-2504) - 99, UNDER

Goldie is certainly coming back in average, with that BA having increased by 30 points since we looked at these, at the end of April. However, the more AB you have, the harder it becomes to move the needle. If we presume we're one-third of the way in his total at-bats, to reach 300, he would have to hit .316 from now on. Certainly not impossible, but as with wins, the sooner the hits accumulate the better. The HR have come up short, and indeed, are now under the line. But one swing of the bat would, literally have changed that, so I wouldn't necessarily be ripping up my betting slip for that particular category.

Pollock BA: .295 (50-830) - .000, UNDER

No change here, but Pollock has been making the right noises about coming back this year, with him scheduled to resume that vague area known as "baseball activities" next month. We'll see how that goes, but if things go true to form, this could end up being a highly-volatile line, decided by quite a small number of at-bats in September.

Peralta BA: .290 (600-969) - .260, UNDER

Small sample size - very small! - but Peralta was over the line in the second stretch, before going on the disabled list. He went 5-for-17 in the six games that he played, which is an average of .294. It will be interesting to see what the team does to make room for him, when he comes back, and also how Peralta plays. We could certainly use him, both on offense and defense.

Greinke Wins: 15 (5850-289) - 18, OVER
Greinke ERA: 2.90 (1352-1600) - 4.71, OVER
Greinke Strikeouts: 199.5 (850-860) - 180, UNDER

Zack has certainly been accumulating the wins of late, partly through improved performance and partly through run support. Over his five starts under examination, he went 4-1 with a 3.82 ERA, with the team averaging 5.8 runs per game in support of him. That has pushed wins over the line, much to the punters' delight, and also got the ERA going in the right direction - and the first outing of the third block certainly helped, getting it down to a season low 4.29 - but the house won't be getting excited about the line on this one until it's in the low threes. The 11 K's he got the other day also have that line possibly over by the half-way stage, though with almost an even split of cash, the house doesn't care.

Miller Wins: 11.5 (7488-0) - 3, UNDER

Hey, Miller got a win! But even that fell short of pace, since he needed more or less to win twice a month to keep up. So, he still needs 11 wins, and isn't even on the roster currently. Presuming he returns against the Marlins, that would give Shelby about 20 starts the rest of the season, all being well - both in terms of his performance and his health. If he pitches like he did in 2015, and gets an appropriate level of offensive support, that could just happen. But the first of those seems like a very large conditional statement, and it's going to take a while before we have the slightest degree of confidence restored for Miller starts.

Ziegler Saves: 29.5 (800-3659) - 27, UNDER

This goes the other way, from over to under, though it has mostly been a result of the team's overall poor form, resulting in a general shortage of save opportunities. Ziegler only had four in the month of May, and duly converted all four of them. That said, there was still reason for concern, with his overall performance shaky: his ERA in save situations is 0.90, but in non-saves it's 4.85. His GB/FB rate is perhaps particularly concerning, as it's the lowest it has been since 2010, although is still more than double the overall MLB rate. We'll see what happens, but if Ziegler struggles, there are no shortage of alternatives.

The standings

So, to summarize the changes since last time: Goldschmidt HR from OVER to UNDER; Greinke Wins from UNDER to OVER; Ziegler Saves from OVER to UNDER.

That's a little better, with two out of the three changes being to the side of the line favored by bettors. shoewizard joins Diamondhacks at the head of the table, benefiting from the shortage of Ziegler saves. Meanwhile, at the other end of the table, the number of bankrupt 'Pitters is cut by more than half, from the 14 who lost it all last month, to a mere half-dozen this time round. We'll see at the end of June whether this profitable trend proves sustainable.