Preview #151: Arizona Diamondbacks @ San Diego Padres

Yes, the Twitterverse will be deliriously happy tonight, for Paul Goldschmidt is batting in the three-hole, just ahead of J.D. Martinez. Jake Lamb has been pushed down the order to #6, even though there is a right-handed pitcher on the mound for San Diego. If the team does not score at least ten runs tonight, I will be demanding to know why, Because I have repeatedly been assured that’s the reason why the D-backs have been struggling so much offensively of late. Uh, well, for the last three games anyway - let’s forget about the 15 runs over the final two games of the Rockies series, shall we?

In fact, this is the first series for quite some time where the offense hasn’t done their thing. In the Colorado set, Arizona averaged 5.25 runs per game. Before that, against the Padres, 5.33. Prior to that, during the road-trip through Los Angeles and Colorado, 6.33 and 6.67 respectively. You have to go back to the Mets series, from August 21-24, to find a set where we did not average more than five runs per game. Considering no park in the majors this year has been better for pitching than AT&T, with a combined ERA for all pitchers of 3.69, I can’t say I am particularly concerned about this alleged offensive slump. Petco probably isn’t going to be too different.

What I certainly hope is different, is Patrick Corbin’s outing against these Padres, as the last time he faced them, Corbin single-handedly ruined SnakePitFest. For San Diego got to Patrick for eight earned runs, on 11 hits in just 4.1 innings. However, he bounced back with 6.2 strong innings against the Rockies at Chase, and I’m confident the bad outing was just a blip. He should certainly find the confines of Petco a good deal more friendly than Chase: all batters in San Diego have been held to a .236 average, and the .696 OPS is second-lowest in the majors ahead of the .692 at... AT&T Park. But Goldschmidt’s batting third! What could possibly stop Arizona?