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Games until the merciful end of the season: 8
There may or may not be line-ups on top of the line above. That depends on whether or not it’s available before 2pm, when I’ll be leaving for BruteSnakeFest 2018. By the time you see this, more than thirty of us will be settled in at the Cornish Pasty Company in downtown Phoenix, getting our pre-game on, before heading over to Chase Field for this evening’s contest. It promises to be quite an event. Turambar has been charged with documenting the proceedings, though I can make no guarantees about exactly when the full and glorious recap of tonight’s game might show up. Probably not tonight: J.R.R. Tolkien didn’t knock out Lord of the Rings on his lunch-hour, shall we say...
We will get to see what, in all likelihood, is probably going to be Patrick Corbin’s last start in a Diamondbacks uniform at Chase Field. He has been stellar this year, deserving a far better record than his current 11-8. Startling to think that, two years ago, he was so bad he had been relegated to a bullpen role for the 2016 D-backs [not exactly a team filled with pitching depth]. Corbin is living proof that Tommy John surgery is not necessarily a career killer, and that you can come back to be every bit as good a pitcher as you once were. He may not quite match his career best for IP [that’d take eight innings today and his final start], but bests for ERA, FIP and bWAR seem all but assured.
Much the same ambivalence goes for me about today’s game as yesterday, except perhaps even more so. Results on Friday brought the Rockies back to within 11⁄2 games of the Dodgers, and if those were to be repeated today, they’d be just half a game back. The tragic number for the D-backs has been reduced to three, with them sitting six back of the Cardinals for the second wild-card, with eight left to play. Arizona can’t be eliminated today, Even if they lose and St. Louis win, we’ll be seven back with seven to play, so get to live another day. If my math is right, three is also the magic number for avoiding a Dodgers clinch at Chase: any combo of three LA losses and COL wins end that possibility.