Diamondbacks Gameday Thread, #9: 4/8 vs. Dodgers

Roster move:

The Arizona Diamondbacks made the following roster moves:

• Recalled INF/OF Pavin Smith from Triple-A Reno.
• Placed OF Kyle Lewis (illness) on the 10-day injured list.

Well, that’s ironic. But I guess it makes sense, in that Smith and Lewis were basically fighting each other throughout spring for the same roster spot. Lewis’s start has been a bit up and down. He did have that pinch-hit home-run off the bench in Los Angeles. But he has only gone 3-for-18 overall, with a .556 OPS, no walks and nine strikeouts. Smith gets his chance to see if he can do any better for a while.

Alek Thomas has now appeared in seven games to start the season, and is still looking for his first hit. Ketel Marte - and, for that matter, Corbin Carroll - has appeared in all eight games, and is still looking for his first walk. We’re not there yet in either case, but we are beginning to get into quite rarefied territory for both cases. Obviously, we’re excluding pitchers for all of this. Otherwise, it’d likely be Merrill Kelly all the way. But to start with Thomas, how far has someone gone into the season before getting their first hit? In terms of people who made the Opening Day roster, Carson Kelly last season is the only person with a longer ohfer than Thomas’s 16 at-bats. Carson got a hit after starting the year 0-for-19.

All told, the mark belongs to Domingo Leyba in 2021, who never DID get a hit that season as a Diamondback. After being promoted in mid-May, he was 0-for-22 across 13 appearances, mostly off the bench, before being dealt to the Orioles. He got a hit in his second game for them. Leyba is now in the Pirates’ organization, should you care to know. With regard to walks, the Opening Day champion by games is Phil Gosselin, He went the whole month of April without a walk. Indeed, it was not until May 15 that he drew his first base on balls, the walkless streak covering 30 games. However, Ildemaro Vargas has a longer PA streak from Opening Day in 2019, at 75 PA. He then got three walks in the same game, which is nice.

The all-time champ is someone you should recognize from DbacksEurope’s Random D-back series: Jerry Gil. He was promoted in late August of 2004, and stayed on the roster the rest of the season without ever seeing ball four. He ended the year with 88 hitless PAs, though was hit by a pitch once. His only major-league appearance thereafter was one games as a pinch-runner for Cincinnati in 2007, so he ended his career with no walks in 88 PAs, a mark almost unparalleled among non-pitchers in the modern era. Let’s hope that’s a mark that neither Marte nor Carroll get to challenge.