Preview, #8: Arizona Diamondbacks @ San Francisco Giants

What a difference a year makes. Last season, the Diamondbacks didn't win their sixth game at Chase Field until their 41st game overall of the season, on May 16, and had a home record at that point of 6-15. This year, we won it in the 6th game overall, on April 9, and have a home record of 6-1. We ended up winning three more games on the road in 2016 than we did at home. Based on the Opening Week's contests, that's probably not going to happen this year! But the quest to go 72-9 there - which is what would be needed, based on our current home page - begins this afternoon at AT&T Park in San Francisco.

Last year, it proved one of our happier venues. The Diamondbacks went 5-4 there, fueled almost entirely by a four-game road sweep in San Francisco from April 18-21, that was close to the high point of the season, pulling us to our peak record of one game above .500. It completed a very similar ten-game first road trip for the year to the current one. As in 2017, we went through Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco (albeit in a different order), in which Arizona posted an excellent 7-3 record. Something like that here would be fine, needless to say, but I'd rather have played the Padres for four than the Dodgers!

As thunderpumpkin87 already noted in his series preview, this one is a rematch-up of Game #3, when Walker beat Moore, as the Diamondbacks performed their trademark comeback, rallying from a 3-0 deficit in the middle of the third inning. This game did include the only run they've scored in the first third, coming courtesy of Chris Owings' RBI single. They've get to score a run over their first seven outs. I'm not sure how common it is for a team to enter their eighth game in that state. But I'm fairly sure it's not common, especially for teams with 6-1 records, to be outscored 1-11 over the first three innings. Of course, we then go a staggering 47-18 the rest of the way!