Diamondbacks Post-season Gameday Thread, #9: 10/20 vs. Phillies

Be interesting to see how this shakes down. Joe Mantiply gets the start, and one imagines he will go about an inning. Let’s hope it’s more successful than his appearance earlier in the series, when he faced six batters and retired just one of them. He did pitch better in the earlier rounds, retiring eight of the nine hitters he saw, the exception being a walk against Milwaukee. Hopefully, that’s the Mantiply who turns up tonight. Thereafter, it will likely be Slade Cecconi, making his second appearance of the post-season, after a scoreless inning late in the blow-out loss. That was his post-season debut, at the tender age of 24 years and 115 days. Only Kim, Jarrod Parker and Bryan Shaw have been younger pitchers for Arizona.

Thereafter, probably a case of piecing it together depending on the situation. Looking at the chart, I can’t imagine anyone is entirely off the board, though I imagine Paul Sewald will be used only in the event of a save situation in the ninth. Hopefully, things end up not being too taxing, and the A-bullpen can be rested for tomorrow, in support of Zac Gallen. That will depend on the D-backs offense finding their hitting shoes. After scoring 22 times in the first three games against Milwaukee and Los Angeles, Arizona has managed a total of thirteen in the five contests since, and have been outscored 16-5 in this series. Fortunately, run differential is not used to determine post-season series winners.

Cristopher Sánchez starts for the Phillies, though it’s not impossible this could end up being a tandem start, with former Diamondback Taijuan Walker available if there’s a quick hook on the Philadelphia starter. We did not see him this season, but the last time Arizona did face Sánchez, it went very well for the D-backs. That was on August 29 last year, in that insane game where the Phillies took a 7-0 lead, before the D-backs posted six spots in both the fourth and fifth innings. Sánchez was part of that meltdown, facing seven batters, five of whom scored. He did pitch well this year, but I hope he suffers PTSD returning to the mound at Chase Field tonight!