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Diamondbacks Gameday Thread, #16: 4/17 @ Cardinals

And Zac Gallen is the NL Player of the Week!

By Jim McLennan
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Philadelphia Phillies v St. Louis Cardinals Photo by Joe Puetz/Getty Images

Today's Lineups

DIAMONDBACKS CARDINALS
Josh Rojas - 3B Brendan Donovan - 1B
Ketel Marte - 2B Alec Burleson - DH
Lourdes Gurriel - LF Willson Contreras - C
Christian Walker - 1B Nolan Arenado - 3B
Corbin Carroll - RF Nolan Gorman - 2B
Pavin Smith - DH Tyler O'Neill - LF
Gabriel Moreno - C Lars Nootbaar - CF
Alek Thomas - CF Jordan Walker - RF
Geraldo Perdomo - SS Tommy Edman - SS
Merrill Kelly - RHP Jack Flaherty - RHP

Zac Gallen was rewarded for his pair of scoreless outings last week, by being named the NL Player of the Week. Perhaps surprisingly, given his record-setting scoreless streak last year, which spanned more than a month, it’s only the second time he has won the award, having previously been named Player of the Week on Sep 6 last year. Good to see Gallen honored, especially since he beat out Max Muncy of the Dodgers, who batted .350 with five home-runs and a dozen RBI.

  • The 27-year-old Gallen went 2-0 after tossing 13.2 scoreless innings across two starts, yielding just five hits and one walk with 18 strikeouts. His 13.2 innings pitched led the NL, while his 18 strikeouts were tops across the Majors last week.
  • The University of North Carolina product fanned 11 batters over 7.0 scoreless innings in a home start on Monday against the visiting Milwaukee Brewers. Gallen surrendered just three hits and one walk in the 96-pitch outing.
  • On Sunday, Gallen worked 6.2 scoreless frames at Miami, permitting two hits with no walks and seven strikeouts to improve to 2-1 with a 3.33 ERA on the season.
  • With the 11-strikeout performance on Monday, Gallen now has six outings with at least 10 strikeouts, tied with Ian Kennedy for the seventh-most in franchise history behind Hall of Famer Randy Johnson (106), Curt Schilling (38), Robbie Ray (23), Brandon Webb (12), Patrick Corbin (10), Zack Greinke (7) and Dan Haren (7).

Into St. Louis go the D-backs, to face a Cardinals team who are in unfamiliar territory: below .500. It’s only the second time since 2007 that St. Louis have been below .500 at this point of the season. They were 6-10 to open the 2017 season. A loss tonight could conceivably drop them into the cellar of the NL Central, if the Reds were also to win That’s also not a position the Cardinals are not familiar with, considering they are currently on a run of 15 consecutive winning seasons. I hope the D-backs can do their part to continue the rough start over the next three games, and drop the Cardinals even further below .500 by the time Arizona leaves town on Wednesday night.

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