Diamondbacks Game Preview #80: 7/4 vs. Giants

San Francisco Giants 40-37 vs Arizona Diamondbacks 35-44

LINEUPS

Carlos Rodon 7-4, 2.62 ERA vs. Madison Bumgarner 3-8, 3.63 ERA

Today is a big game. It’s the 4th of July, and a big holiday crowd is expected. (Big for here, perhaps 26-30K). The team will surely wish to put on a good performance and win a game in front of more fans than we’re used to seeing at Chase field this year. More importantly, the Diamondbacks are 9 games under .500. While we all love round numbers, some round numbers can be quite negative and 10 games under .500 before the all star break would be one of those.

Perhaps fittingly, Madison Bumgarner takes the mound for the D-backs in the closest thing you can have to a must win game for a team without any real playoff expectations. This will be Bumgarner’s fourth start against his former team, against whom he’s 1-1, with a 3.94 ERA. Darin Ruf and Wilmer Flores have good numbers vs. Bumgarner and five different current active roster hitters have a homer against him.

As we learned in the series preview from Imstillhungry95, Bumgarner’s peripherals have been a good deal higher than his ERA. The bright spot however is he has actually lowered his FIP over his last couple of starts from 5.01 to 4.70 while his ERA went from 3.45 to 3.63. The narrowing of the gap between ERA and FIP was expected. It would be great if he can continue to improve his BB/SO ratio and limit homers to continue lowering his FIP. That would give all of us, (and also potential trade suitors?) more confidence in his ability to maintain a mid 3’s ERA.

Lefthander Carlos Rodon leads the league with a 2.29 FIP, and has pitched great for the Giants. The Giants just suffered a three game sweep to the Chicago White Sox and have lost 9 of 12. So this is a big game and series for them as well.

The Diamondbacks are running out their “right handed” lineup again today with Jordan Luplow leading off. It’s a little tough to see the attraction with that as Luplow has a .170/.272/.449 triple slash overall and is batting .167/.323/.333 in 31 PA from the leadoff spot. He’s also just 2 for 11 vs. Rodon in his career, although he does have a homer. Cooper Hummel on the other hand has good numbers in the leadoff spot, in fact the best of anyone with over 20 PA leading off. Team Split Here . Ketel Marte is the only other D-back who has faced Rodon, and is 0-7 against him.

TOREY LOVULLO AUDIO

TOREY LOVULLO NOTES:

Tuesday Starter is still listed as TBA and Torey seemed to hint that it could be a bullpen game, but they still haven’t decided. It does not look like Tommy Henry is getting called up at this time.

Ian Kennedy, Calf Injury: He has had imaging which is still being evaluated. He is not available today. There is nobody available to replace him at the moment so no roster move.

Zach Davies, Shoulder Inflammation: Daives has not begun a throwing program yet and is still in the treatment phase of his recovery. He will most likely get another set of imaging done before he resumes throwing.

J.B. Bukauskas will pitch again for Reno on Wednesday. It will be his second game for the Aces, and 4th rehab game overall.

Chris Devenski will throw for Reno today, his second rehab outing in AAA.

General discussion topics in the audio included yesterday’s loss, and Zac Gallen’s quote as reported by Steve Gilbert

“That’s a game as a ballclub, as a franchise, we should win that game 100 times out of a 100,” Gallen said. “If this franchise wants to get to where I know it can get to and wants to get to, those are games you have to win. You cannot let those games get away.”

“This isn’t the first time we’ve kind of let one get away that shouldn’t have gotten away,” Gallen said. “We just didn’t put them away when we had the opportunity to. Against teams that are going to scrap, especially at a place like this, you’ve got to just trying to pour on as much as you can.”

Torey was happy Gallen was taking accountability with that quote and was proud of him for saying it. While it may have seemed like he was possibly calling out the offense for not continuing to score runs and the bullpen for blowing his lead, Zac clarified this morning he was not and he was mostly pissed at himself for giving up the three run homer. Regardless, he’s not wrong. They have to win those kinds of games. Too many have gotten away.