Snake Bytes, 5/17: Waiting for Greinke

A generally quiet day in Diamondbacks-land, as we wait for injury updates on Zack Greinke and David Peralta, while the Giants arrive for Game of Thrones night tonight. Insert your own joke there, please: I’ll steal the best for the preview. :)

Team news

[AZ Central] What we think we know about the Arizona Diamondbacks with a quarter of the season gone - Last season Lovullo’s patience was no virtue. He stuck with struggling players to the detriment of the team, which contributed to the collapse in September. In the spring, Lovullo said he had learned from the experience, and he’s backed that up with action this year. He dropped Zack Godley from the starting rotation far sooner than he would have a year ago. He removed Archie Bradley from the eighth-inning role quicker than he would have a year ago. Players and coaches in all sports often talk about being their own harshest critic. And that’s often all it is, talk. But Lovullo has put it into practice.

[The Athletic] Zack Greinke’s injury and Taijuan Walker’s setback force Diamondbacks to confront their depth - In the immediate aftermath, Greinke had a hard time judging his injury’s severity. He’d felt it only the pitch before the one that forced him to call for the trainers. He felt something similar in 2016 when he injured his oblique, but this was in a different spot and not as painful. That gives him optimism — “Last time, it was six weeks,” Greinke said, “so hopefully this won’t even be six days” — but he also acknowledges that he’s been less than successful at gauging such things. “In ’16, I wasn’t concerned at all,” he said. “I thought I was going to make my next start. Then it just never got better.”

[MLB] Mock Draft: Rutschman remains at top - 16. Diamondbacks: George Kirby, RHP, Elon. Outside of Atlanta, which picks at Nos. 8 and 21, the other clubs between Arizona's Nos. 16 and 26 selections can't compete with the Diamondbacks' MLB-high $16,093,700 bonus pool. The best strategy might be to wait on a higher-priced player most teams can't afford and take someone at 16 who won't get to 26

And, elsewhere...

[The Athletic] An electronic strike zone is coming to the Atlantic League - Atlantic League president Rick White told The Athletic, the league will begin training umpires to use the system. Once that training is complete, technology will take over the pitch-calling responsibilities from humans – probably in about “three or four weeks,” White said. And on that historic day, the Atlantic League will become the first professional baseball league to use the electronic strike zone full-time.

[MLB] Players poll: Who has MLB's best uniforms? - [Well, here's a surprise...] =5th D-backs, 5 votes. To be upfront and honest, there wasn’t actual consistency in terms of which D-backs uniforms were selected. Though the Arizona franchise really hasn’t been around long, there are a ton to choose from. Orioles first baseman Mark Trumbo likes the throwbacks to the 2001 World Series era -- the home vest look that, colors aside, was actually old-school in style. Astros catcher Max Stassi singled out the maroon, or “Sedona red,” jerseys that debuted in the club’s 2007 rebrand. But even the mildly controversial, futuristic look adopted in 2016, when the D-backs began wearing particularly dark road grays and snakeskin pants, got some love here.

[ESPN] How the Nationals won a series for the first time in a month - They bested the Mets during a series in which neither Scherzer nor Strasburg pitched. But outfielder Gerardo Parra did. Actually, that's a lie -- Parra didn't pitch. But given the extent of his contributions against the Mets, it was as if he did. In the finale against New York on Thursday, Parra reached base all four times he batted, going 3-for-3 with a home run, a double and a walk, and driving in three runs. He also started at first base, a position the 32-year-old outfielder had played only a couple dozen times in his career prior to signing with Nationals last week. Oh, and he stole a base too.

[SI] The Orioles' Fielding Catastrophe Against the Indians May Be the Worst Play in MLB History - Hyperbole is easy. Human beings routinely reach for top-shelf words and descriptions because they capture feelings better than situating something in the middle. That’s understandable, and part of why being online can feel so exhausting sometimes: Everything is the biggest, best, craziest, wildest, most enraging and stupidest. With all that in mind: This play, from Thursday’s Orioles-Indians game, is without a doubt the single worst, dumbest, ugliest, most inconceivable display of fielding that’s ever been recorded.