Zac Gallen named NL pitcher of the month for August

Starting pitcher Zac Gallen of the Arizona Diamondbacks has been voted the National League Pitcher of the Month for August. Gallen earned his first career NL Pitcher of the Month Award and is Arizona’s second consecutive recpient, following his rotation-mate Merrill Kelly. This marks the first time that Arizona has consecutive Pitcher of the Month Awards since Hall of Famer Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling in April-May 2002.

• Across six starts for Arizona, Zac compiled a perfect 5-0 record with a 0.68 ERA. He notched 44 strikeouts while allowing 10 walks and 20 hits over 40.0 innings pitched.
• Gallen recorded three consecutive starts from August 8th-18th in which he tossed at least seven scoreless innings, becoming the first Major League pitcher to do so since Jacob deGrom in 2019.
• Zac has pitched at least six scoreless frames without allowing more than four hits, in each of his last five outings dating back to August 8th. It is the second-longest such streak in MLB history behind only Zack Greinke’s six-game run in 2015.
• The 27-year-old finished his award-winning month on a 34.1-inning scoreless streak dating back to August 8th, which is the second-longest in franchise history behind Brandon Webb’s 42.0-inning streak in 2007.
• He has posted five consecutive outings with a Game Score of 69 or better. The only better run was Randy Johnson’s six-game one in 1999, over which time he had an ERA of 0.92... and went 1-4 in those games, naturally.
• Beyond August, Gallen has now had eight consecutive starts without allowing a home-run. It’s the longest such streak by a Diamondback since Patrick Corbin set the franchise record of eleven in a row, in June-August of 2018.

Here are the logs of Zac’s six outings this month:

It has been as impressive a run as I’ve seen from an Arizona pitcher in a long time, and the award is fully deserved. We’ll see if he can continue the run, when he pitches against the Milwaukee Brewers, in the series final on Sunday.