Diamondbacks go for Series Win Against Pirates

The D-backs road trip continues in Pittsburgh before moving on to Philadelphia Monday.

The Diamondbacks (26-20) and Pirates (24-21) have split the first two games of the three game series and play the rubber match at 10:35 this morning Arizona Time, 1:35 EST.   Pittsburgh took game one, thumping Zac Gallen and the bullpen 13-3. In game two Arizona fought through dominance from Mitch Keller to record a 4-3 comeback victory. 

The D-backs are at the top of the Wild Card standings by two full games, and trail the Dodgers in the NL West by 2.5 games. The Pirates are tied with the Brewers for first place in the NL Central, and are 1.5 games behind the D-backs in the Wild card. 

Pitching Matchup

Merrill Kelly, (4-3, 2.92 ERA) gets the start for Arizona. He's coming off seven innings of one run ball in his last start against the A's on May 15th.  Kelly got off to shaky star to his season command wise, perhaps due to the World Baseball Classic's disruption to his pre season preparation. But he's settled down and reduced his walk rate and is following up his excellent season last year with an even better one so far in 2023.

Roansy Contreras, (3-4, 4.40 ERA) is starting for the Pirates. The 23 year old right hander is in his third major league season. He throws two pitches primarily, a four seam fastball that averages 94 MPH, and a high spin rate slider with above average movement.  He also has a high spin curveball with a good movement profile, but he's cut the usage of that pitch of that pitch somewhat, as it's been getting hit harder this year. This is likely due to location mistakes.  Like most young pitchers, when he controls the walks he's very tough to hit, but if hitters wait him out and force him to come into the middle of he zone, he can be hit hard. 

Lineups

Last night's hero Pavin Smith is at the top of the order, and Josh Rojas has been dropped to 6th in the order. Rojas had been slumping of late and not getting on base or seeing many pitches leading off games. Smith has the best walk rate on the team and typically sees more pitches, but prior to last night's homer had been slumping himself.  The D-backs have struck out more than ten times in each of their last four games. They had only struck out more than 10 times in six games all year prior to that and never consecutively. You can read more analysis about this trend in this article

Through their first 11 trips to the plate in this series the Pirates had scored 14 runs. But they were shut down over the final six innings yesterday, held scoreless after the 3rd inning by Brandon Pfaadt and the bullpen.  Andrew McCutchen is 8 for 22, .364 over his past five games (all singles) and has four hits in the series.