Diamondbacks Gameday Thread, #14: 4/14 @ Marlins

Well, was hoping this was going to be the series where we see how what we traded for Zac Gallen is doing, but Jazz Chisholm is out of the line-up for the series opener in Florida. Does not appear to be anything more than a schedule rest day, though his performance at the plate has been a bit underwhelming so far. His OPS+ to this point is 88, compared to the 139 he posted last year, across 60 games. That missing time is a good part of the reason why this trade has tilted towards the Diamondbacks of late, after Gallen’s Cy Young caliber season. To this point, Gallen has now been worth 11.3 bWAR for Arizona, while Chisholm is less than half that, at 4.8 bWAR.

There was also a bit of a fracas when the Marlins played the Mets, with Chisholm being tossed out of the game by umpire Jeff Nelson. Our pals over at Fish Stripes had a nice breakdown of what happened, and that’s embedded above. But I’m not happy with the Marlins for preventing Jazz from playing for Team GB in the World Baseball Classic this spring. He’s eligible due to having been born in the Bahamas, with parents who were at that point British citizens, and originally intended to be part of the British roster. However, the rules state teams could block players who spent over 60 days on the IL the previous season, and Miami exercised that right with Jazz. Boo! Boo! /sips a nice cuppa tea.

Of course, Sunday will be particularly interesting, with Gallen currently scheduled to take the mound for the last game of the season. Tonight, however, it’s Madison Bumgarner, who got bumped from the last game of the Brewers series by Drew Jameson, presumably to give MadBum a more favorable match-up. We’ll see how that works out this evening. His last start in Miami was certainly an interesting one. It was the game where Madison got fondled by Dan Bellino during the foreign substance check, complete with eye contact and everything, eventually leading to his ejection after one inning. We’ll be hoping for slightly less drama in tonight’s contest.