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The official box score shows the wind-speed for yesterday’s game at 26 mph. It was clearly not a game that the Diamondbacks enjoyed, their fielders being buffeted around, and the breeze directly responsible for a number of mis-plays, which certainly factored into the 5-1 loss to open the series at Wrigley Field. However, the D-backs have not previously found strong wind to be much of a problem. Thanks to Baseball Reference’s Play Index, we can check their record in games with a variety of criteria - one of which is wind-speed. After yesterday’s game, Arizona has played in 38 games where the official breeze was recorded as being at 20 mph or more: they have a perfectly even mark of 19-19 in those contests.
26 mph, however, was particularly brutal. Indeed, it was the fastest for a D-backs game in almost nine years, since April 29, 2010 when wind-speed hit 27 mph, tied for the highest ever recorded for one of our contests. You won’t be surprised to learn, that was also at Wrigley: one won 13-5 by the D-backs, behind two home-runs from Adam LaRoche, plus bombs by Chris Snyder and Kelly Johnson. The wind wasn’t blowing in that day, shall we say. Unsurprisingly, seven of those 38 games came against the Cubs, although the wind-swept honor for most belongs to the Giants, with 12 games. Between them SF and Chicago have been responsible for as many of our 20 mph contests as every other team combined.
The highest temperature for a D-backs game is recorded as 106 F, but I’m not quite sure about the accuracy of that. It was a June game at Chase against the Giants, and I’m fairly sure the roof would have been closed, making the “real” temperature considerably lower. I’m more inclined to trust the 101 F for a game in August 2013 against the Rangers in Arlington as the “true” record-holder there. At the other end, no shock that three of the five games at or below 40 F were at Coors; the others being in Chicago and St. Louis. The latter was host to a 37 F game last April. Though for overall suckiness, an April 2003 game in Colorado (39 F, 21 mph wind) might have to battle yesterday’s 44 F and 26 mph.