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Jon Duplantier gets the start, in place of the injured Luke Weaver. See Jack’s pre-game report for an update from Torey Lovullo on Weaver, and also the plans to try and stretch out Duplantier a bit. Considering the bullpen is wheezing after Taylor Clarke’s early departure AND then the game going extra inning - they had to throw eight innings - I imagine Duplantier will have been told to throw strikes and hopefully get some quick early outs. It would be nice if those expected 80 pitches would be enough for at least five innings. So far in the majors, he has been quite economical. Small sample size, but the 12 innings he has thrown here have taken 187 pitches, 15.6 per frame, so five innings would seem achievable.
To make way, Kevin Cron was optioned back to Reno after yesterday’s game. I doubt it will be the last we see of him. Barring injury, he can’t be called up for 10 days, perhaps when the bullpen returns to a more normal seven-man set-up? As Jack noted, It seems likely they’ll go from nine to eight when David Peralta returns. As for Cron, he went 3-for-14, though all three hits were doubles. His OPS was .676, which was below the numbers expected based on his Triple-A stats, adjusting for Reno. However, he was on the receiving end of what has been called the “catch of [the] MLB season” in San Francisco, and with better batted-ball luck, his numbers would have significantly higher.
The team could certainly use a win, to end May on a decent note. As we noted, it has been a strange one, with the team outscoring their opponents overall, yet stumbling to an 11-16 record. That remain considerably better than May 2018, both directly, and in terms of a change from the previous month. Last May, Arizona’s winning percentage was just .296, a whopping 424 points down on the April figure. This time, we’re at .407 going into the final game, which is currently a 208 point drop in W% from April. So, this slump is perhaps only half as bad as the one from 2018. But it’s also worth remembering how well the team rebounded in June, going 19-9. Hopefully, this year’s model will follow suit there, too.