Mets at Diamondbacks Game Preview July 4th

Can the offense get back on track, or are they headed towards a slump?

The  Arizona Diamondbacks (50-35) take on the New York Mets (38-46) for the first of a three game series on this our Nations birthday. First pitch is 1:10 P.M.

The D-backs are 10-10 in their last 20 games but have held on to first place with a 2.5 game lead over the Dodgers. The Mets are having a dismal season, and are 19 games behind the Braves in the NL East and 7.5 games out of a wild card spot. Their owner recently said he would not be investing with further buy moves at the deadline. Barring a big turn around over the next 2-3 weeks the Mets could end up being big sellers. They've already made one sell move, moving Eduardo Escobar to the Angels. But they also just picked up Trevor Gott from the Mariners to bolster their bullpen. So their future direction is murky. 

LINEUPS

Michael McDermott

The D-backs offense has been cooling off a bit of late. A big part of that has been missing Corbin Carroll from the lineup due to a sore shoulder. Back in the lineup today, he did not start in any of the games in Anaheim, pinch hitting just once on Sunday. But Carroll himself had been slumping prior to being pulled from the game on June 29th. In fact over his last 16 games since June 14th Carroll is just 12 for 60, .200/.226/.400. He has just two walks and 13 strike outs during this stretch.  He does have three homers, but he's not been getting on base as much and has been striking out a lot more. 

For much of that time his teammates carried the load, but over the last five games Arizona is batting just .208/.291/.321 and scored just 2.8 R/G.  Of the 14 runs the team has scored in this short stretch, four of them came on a Lourdes Gurriel Jr. homer after Griffin Canning just walked the bases loaded.  Asked after the 5-2 loss on Sunday if he thought his offense may be sliding towards a slump Torey Lovullo did not want to go there. 

"It's hard to say.....we're a team of hitters that can put up crooked numbers. We've been missing Corbin, we know that. It's time for other guys to step up. It's probably just a small sample size"

Lovullo is absolutely correct about the small sample size. For the season the D-backs still rank 5th in  MLB in runs scored with 5.07 per game and sixth in OPS, .762.   They are the only team not to be shutout yet this season.  One caveat however is that according to Baseball Savant  the D-backs have also outperformed their "expected" stats more than any team in the league.  Their xBA is .246, or 16 points lower than their actual .262 and the xSlug is .395, a whopping 39 points lower than their actual slugging of .434.  The possibility of regression to the mean looms large. 

The Mets  offense has been a massive disappointment this season. Despite having the biggest payroll in the league their collection of stars have combined to score 4.48 R/G,  16th in MLB.  Their home park is a well known pitcher's park, but even their park adjusted OPS+ of 99 ranks 15th.  League average is not getting what you paid for when you have a $302 million payroll, the largest in the league, $30 million higher than the Yankees. 

Tommy Pham and Brandon Nimmo have been their hottest hitters of late. Pham is 13 for 22, .591, with two homers in his last six games. Pham is considered a trade deadline target by many as he's a free agent next year and is having a very good season batting .295 with a .892 OPS in 207 PA.  Nimmo is 6-22 in his last six games, but four of those hits have been homers.  The slumping Pete Alonso has 25 homers and 58 RBI on the year, but is batting just .221 with a .316 OBP.  He'll be back in the home run derby at the All Star game however. 

PITCHING MATCHUPS

We covered the series pitching matchups yesterday in detail HERE.  The Mets have flipped their rotation, with Max Scherzer starting today's game. Scherzer is 4-0 with a 3.33 ERA in five starts against the team that drafted him in the first round of the 2006 MLB Draft. In 14 starts, Scherzer is 7-2 with a 3.87 ERA. His home run rate has spiked to 1.5 per nine innings, a result of a fastball velocity decrease. However he still has plenty of weapons to get hitters out.

Zach Davies is coming off his best outing of the year and will look to continue that level of performance to get his season back on track. The keys are simply limiting walks and commanding his change up location. Prior to his last outing, those are two things he was unable to do. 

The D-backs are just 24-20 at home and 26-15 on the road. Expecting a good sized crowd today, they'll look to improve their performance in front hometown fans. They've drawn over 32,000 four times this season and lost each time. Most recently on June 18th when Davies was booed off the mound in a 12-3 loss to Cleveland in front of 42,031 disappointed fans.  Expectations have been raised and the D-backs need to start off the home stand on a high note to keep generating buzz around the team. 

Baseball Reference