:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72399191/1258473435.0.jpg "Diamondbacks Gameday Thread, #78: 6/23 @ San Francisco")
Maybe our pitch will show up in SF today. 🙂 🙂
Today’s lineups
| DIAMOND BACKS | GIANTS |
|---|---|
| Geraldo Perdomo- SS | LaMonte Wade-1B |
| Ketel Marte-2B | Thairo Estrada – 2B |
| Corbin Carroll-CF | Joc Pederson-DH |
| Christian Walker-1B | JD Davis-3B |
| Lourdes Gurriel – LF | Michael Comfort-RF |
| Pavin Smith—DH | Blake Sabol-LF |
| Emmanuel Rivera—3B | Patrick Bailey-C |
| Carson Kelly-C | Brandon Crawford—SS |
| Jake McCarthy-RF | Luis Matos – CF |
| Merrill Kelly—RHP | Keaton Winn—RHP |
How bad has Zach Davies been this season? He’s made eight starts for the D-Backs and given us a 56 ERA+. There was only one pitcher with that many starts and a worse ERA+. You have to go back to Edgar Gonzalez, who started ten games in that terrible 2004 season, to find out: He had a 9.32 ERA, a 49 ERA+. That was historically poor — not just for the franchise, but in general National League team, and not one that’s battling for division. So far, Davies hasn’t hurt the team’s overall record too much, with their starts tied 4-4. But the last three were worryingly poor as the D-backs were not only down 0-3 but also held a 35-11 lead.
If you’re guaranteed to lose every fifth day, the battle becomes a lot harder. Torey Lovullo’s words after last night’s game were almost true. But if you look at the other terrible starting players in the team’s history, you’ll see that most of them had the plug pulled – even Gonzalez was dropped from the terrible team’s roster of 2004 when it expanded in September. The following table lists the starting pitchers with the ten worst ERA+s in Diamondbacks history (again, at least eight starts). Of them, only three made it to fifteen starts. Just one of those who spent the whole year in the rotation: Russ Ortiz, and even he missed two months due to an “injury”. Cahill was moved to the stable and Daal was traded.
The problem for the D-Backs is the lack of credible alternatives. While Brandon Pfaadt is still one of the team’s top pitchers, his performances in the majors this year have been even worse than Davies’. It’s also worth noting that Davies’ FIP is much better than his ERA, way down at 4.20, better than both Ryne Nelson and Tommy Henry. In fact, of the 267 pitchers in the majors with 30-plus innings, only one has a worse gap between his ERA and his FIP (Shintaro Fujinami of the Athletics). Maybe our manager is right and it really would be best to stay with Davies. However, if Zach’s actual production would hurry up and match his FIP, that would be greatly appreciated.
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