Preview, #3: 3/30 @ Dodgers

Friday was shaping up to be a pretty crappy day as a Diamondbacks fan. Paul Goldschmidt was on fire in St. Louis, and another former D-back, A.J. Pollock was doing a single-handed wrecking job on the team in Los Angeles. It looked like we were going to go down 0-2 to start the year. Then Christian Walker came along and... Well, it might be an exaggeration to say that his three-run pinch-hit homer off the bench might have saved the season. But his three-run pinch-hit homer off the bench might have saved the season. It has been almost a decade since we’ve had a 3+ RBI blast off the bench to tie a game or take the lead: Chad Tracy’s slam against the Padres on Sep 26, 2009, when we were 5-4 down.

Always good to snatch a win from the jaws of defeat like that - even if it takes six hours to do so. As ever, that kind of contest is great to win, and sucks to lose. Hopefully, it’ll impact both sides appropriately. I dunno how it’ll impact the players: I know I’m gonna be shattered by the end of today, and I’ve got nothing more taxing to do than attend my mother in law’s 90th birthday party. Mind you, I Imagine the players were not wakened at 7:30 am by loud meowing and persistent furry head-boops. Not unless someone let Orlando Hudson into the team hotel, anyway. :)

We’ll certainly be hoping for a good, long outing from Zack Godley, after using everyone in the bullpen bar Matt Koch (who’s likely still on the Do Not Resuscitate list for this evening’s contest). The problem is that everybody but Greg Holland threw at least 20 pitches. While they should be okay for tonight, I’m sure Torey Lovullo knows we have four more games to play after this one until there’s a day off on Thursday. Our bullpen is currently averaging over six innings of work per game - I may be going out on a limb here, but I suspect that may not be 100% sustainable... Not helping matters: over those 12.1 innings, our bullpen has a K:BB ratio of 5:8. That’s not a typo. Not sustainable either...