Diamondbacks Gameday Thread, #49: 5/23 @ Phillies

With about a week to go, Lourdes Gurriell Jr. is currently on track to have the best May in franchise history. Indeed, he actually has a shot at having the greatest calendar month ever by a Diamondback. Right now, that record belongs to J.D. Martinez over the last month of the 2017 season. Over 25 games, he batted .396 with no fewer than sixteen home-runs. Even though he only walked seven times, he had a .951 slugging percentage, for a monstrous OPS of 1.382, as he helped the D-backs into the NL wild-card game. Second place going to Luis Gonzalez, who is the only Arizona hitter to bat .400 for a calendar month over 90+ PA. He hit .418 (43-for-103) in June 2001, on his way to a 1.350 OPS.

Gurriell is currently 3rd, with a May OPS of 1.305, and after last night’s 4-for-4 performance, is batting .396, so an average beginning four is in reach. Lourdes’s BABIP of .383 is pretty close to Luis’s .378 and is 46 points lower than J.D, who had a .429 BABIP down the stretch. Though the impressive number of homers Martinez hit didn’t factor into the number! Those are the only three to have reached a 1.230 OPS for a calendar month with the Snakes. Gurriell is also the franchise leader for May - as mentioned in the recap, the next best is Goldy’s 1.226 in May 2015. He also leads the National League, His nearest competitor for Player of the Month might be Michael Wacha, who has a 0.36 ERA over four starts.