Diamondbacks Gameday Thread, #29: 4/30 @ Rockies

Roster moves

The Arizona Diamondbacks made the following roster moves:

• Recalled OF Dominic Fletcher from Triple-A Reno.
• Optioned LHP Anthony Misiewicz to Reno following last night’s game.

This will be the major-league debut of 25-year-old Fletcher, who was the D-backs Competitive Balance B selection in the 2019 draft (#75 overall). He has been tearing up the Pacific Coast League, hitting .323/.417/.559 for a .976 OPS in 22 games for the Reno Aces. The usual caveat applies: it’s the Pacific Coast League. This move perhaps suggests that Corbin Carroll might be out of action for few days - not long enough to merit a trip to the injured list, but long enough that the team aren’t happy running an outfield that involves Lourdes Gurriel and Pavin Smith on an everyday basis as starts for Arizona today. He’ll wear #8, most recently owned by Jordan Luplow last year.

Oh, and if you’re keeping count - or if you wagered on this category in Place Your Bets - when Fletcher takes the field, he’ll become the second player to make his major-league debut for the D-backs this season, following in the footsteps of Carlos Vargas.

Ending April

A win today would close out April for Arizona with a record of 17-12, which would be their best record for the month since they started the 2018 campaign off going 20-8. Indeed, the team hasn’t won seventeen games in ANY calendar month since June 2018, when they went 19-9. We’re still barely at the one-sixth point of the season, but it’s going to be very interesting to see how tomorrow’s confidence poll turns out, after the team has made such a strong start to the campaign. In particular, I want to highlight Gerardo Perdomo, who has a shot at doing something never before accomplished in franchise history: hit .400 for the month of April (minimum 50 PA).

He comes into the final game of the season batting .390, having gone 23-for-59 to this point. So he still has some work to do, especially since he is not in the starting line-up today. But that might not be a bad thing: a favorable pinch-hit match-up off the banch could give Gerardo a good at getting a hit, and that would bump him up to exactly .400 for the month. The current high for the D-backs belongs to Luis Gonzalez, who batted .391 in April 1999. No other Diamondback (again, min 50 PA) has even reached .380, so Perdomo is all but guaranteed to be in territory we haven’t seen in Arizona for almost a quarter of a century.

Even across baseball, it’s still quite a rare achievement to be batting .400 at this point. Last season, only the Brewers’ Owen Miller did it, going 20-for-50. But this year, Perdomo isn’t even close to the top. His current batting average may be good for second in the majors, but it still trails Luis Arraez by MORE THAN FIFTY POINTS. Arraez is batting a staggering .443 to this point, and hasn’t done so by sneaking over the bar, having hit that in a full 98 PA. Among everyday players, it’s the highest April average since Barry Bonds batted .472/.696/1.132 in April 2004. Arraez has shown good plate discipline, with 11 walks to 5 strikeouts. But that also pales besides Bonds’ K:BB of 5:39. No, that’s not a typo...