Preview #16: 8/9, Diamondbacks @ Padres

At least there’s no Jake Lamb in the line-up, which will decrease the volume of Twitter activity this morning in Arizona by 27.3%. He hasn’t had a hit since Opening Day, a streak now covering nine games and 22 at-bats; he has just one walk over that time, compared to 10 strikeouts. That doesn’t even make the top ten for D-backs’ hitless game streaks though. The top two (by at-bats) were both from the 2018 season. John Ryan Murphy went more than six weeks without a hit, going 0-for-33 over 13 games. And just before that, Jon Jay had endured an 0-for-34 run in ten games. Right now, I’m not certain Lamb will get another dozen at-bats...

We’re going to be hoping for rather better from Madison Bumgarner this afternoon. Through three starts, he has an ERA north of seven, which is certainly not what we wanted when we signed him. There has been some misfortune involved: an errant throw to second (admittedly, his own) last time he started opened the floodgates. His control has also been errant, with six walks and four hit batters in 15.1 innings this season. MadBum did start slowly last year, allowing 12 runs over 19.1 innings in his first three starts, though five of those were unearned. But as in Nate’s article, we’ll be keeping an eye on his velocity, and seeing how Bumgarner works with what he has.

Pre-game audio from Torey Lovullo

• Madison Bumgarner is “our guy”. Emphasized working deep in games and keeping them in the games. Sounds like an innings eater to me.
• Starling Marte plate discipline improvement: He came over as an accomplished player but each player has a different menu of information that works for them that the team gives them. Individualized approach in other words, not one size fits all philosophy.
• Bullpen Discussion: Interesting to listen to Torey’s explanations of what he was thinking in the 7^th inning yesterday, starting 3:45 into the discussion. He explains how he landed on Chafin facing Myers.
• Hector Rondon: Minimal concern, despite his velo loss and hard hit balls against. His workload has been inconsistent due to the team not being in a lot of early games. He feels the more he pitches the better he gets.
• 3 Batter minimum challenges: Torey expressed that in previous years without the DH having to plan for and execute double switches took more advance planning in game, often 3 innings in advance. than it does to manage three batter minimum. Still getting a feel for managing 3 batter minimum scenarios, and it’s been challenging figuring out other team’s tendencies and how they’re using expanded rosters.
• Andy Young has been practicing at first base the last 3 days in preparation for possible substitution role if needed.