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No Torey Lovullo in the dugout for the Diamondbacks tonight, due to illness. He apparently was seen by a doctor earlier today, and he’ll be staying at home. For tonight’s contest, the role of Torey will be played by bench coach Jerry Narron. Taking over as bench coach for the night will be Robbie Hammock. So, do not freak out when the TV broadcast shows strange faces over there this evening. Hope Torey gets well soon though, and this just proves to be a touch of the 24-hour flu or whatever.
It’ll also be a little odd NOT having Chris Owings around; save injury, he has been almost an ever-present in the D-backs dugout for the last few seasons. It does leave the team rather thin in terms of bench players at the moment - and quite a high percentage of the ones they have are catchers! Tonight, for example, outside of the eight starting position players, the Arizona bench will consist of Jeff Mathis, John Ryan Murphy, Nick Ahmed and Steven Souza Jr. Outside of hitting for pitchers, there won’t be much opportunity for Lovul... er, I mean Narron, to play platoon match-ups. But the additional bullpen arm will mean he has more flexibility in that department.
The D-backs need to get back on the winning track this evening. While they lost first place due to last night’s defeat, they’ve been there before, and come back. With the Dodgers facing a World Series re-match against the Houston Astros, there’s a good chance for the Diamondbacks to make their stay in second a brief one. While that relies on the Astros doing us a favor, the important thing is for the team to take care of their own business. The team’s struggles at home are a bit odd, concerning how well they played at Chase last year, going 52-29. This season is closer to the problems they had in 2016, when their W% at home was 37 points lower than on the road. This season, it’s worse still, at 73 points down.