Diamondbacks Host Giants for Crucial Two-Game Series

Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly will start for Arizona against Alex Cobb and Logan Webb for San Francisco

After playing 17 games in 17 days to start September the Diamondbacks finally got a day off yesterday. The push for a playoff push continued tonight with the Giants in town for a two-game series. The Giants are two games back of the D-backs in the loss column, but hold the head-to-head tiebreaker advantage, 6-5

Standings

Jack Sommers

Both the D-backs and Giants are 6-4 in their last 10, but Arizona has the better September record, going 10-7 while the Giants are 6-10 for the month. 

Tiebreakers

Jack Sommers

The Above tie breaker grid is read left to right. A sweep by the Diamondbacks would not only give them a four game lead in the loss column over the Giants with nine to go, but also flip the tie-breaker advantage in their favor. That would give the Giants an extremely remote  chance to pass the D-backs in the standings.  A sweep by the Giants on the other hand gives them the advantage over Arizona as they'd be tied in the loss column but hold the tie breaker.  A split helps the D-backs vs. the Giants, as it takes two more games off the calendar while maintaining their loss column advantage. But that may not be good enough to hold off the Cubs, Reds, and Marlins. It should be noted that the Reds and Marlins also hold the tie-breaker advantage over Arizona. 

Starting Pitching Matchups

Tuesday, 6:40 P.M. Chase Field

aWAR = the average of Baseball Reference and Fangraphs WAR / Jack Sommers

Alex Cobb is not yet showing on the Giants official team page as the starter, but our sister website Giants Baseball Insider reports that Cobb will be starting tonight.  Cobb has been battling a hip injury and was skipped for his last start. He last threw on September 11th against Cleveland giving up just two unearned runs  in a Giants victory. 

Cobb has made eight starts against the Diamondbacks in his career, seven of them coming over the last two years. He threw 7.1 scoreless innings against the D-backs May 11th at Chase Field, but the D-backs got to him for three homers in six innings on August 1st in San Francisco. The Giants won that game 4-3. 

Cobb continues to be an extreme groundball pitcher, inducing a 57.3% ground ball rate, which is 3rd in MLB among starting pitchers, behind only Marcus Stroman and teammate Logan Webb.  He has an extreme home/road split, going 5-2 with a 1.95 ERA in Oracle park but 2-4 with a 5.26 ERA on the road

Zac Gallen may no longer be in the running for the NL Cy Young award after having three bad outings in his last four increased his ERA to 3.50. While he stated clearly that fatigue is not a factor, he's already surpassed last year's career high innings pitched by nine and including tonight has at least two more regular season starts, three if necessary.

The good news for Gallen and the D-backs is that he's 11-2 with a 2.18 ERA at Chase Field this year.  There is nobody else manager Torey Lovullo would rather have on the mound in this must win game.  Gallen has earned his ace status and manager's belief since becoming a Diamondback, especially over the last two years. He's faced the Giants two times this year, picking up a win on May 13th and a no decision on August 1st. In 13.1 innings he's given up five runs on 12 hits, 3 walks, 12 K's and one homer.

Wednesday 12:40 P.M. Chase Field

Jack Sommers

Logan Webb leads the NL in innings pitched and K/BB ratio and should be a leading Cy Young contender. But he's enjoyed just 3.3 runs of support per game, leading to a 10-12 record.  He is the best ground ball pitcher in the league, with a 61% rate. In his most recent outing in Colorado he went 8 innings giving up just one run on four hits in Coors Field. 

Webb is 2-0 with a no decision against the D-backs this year. He's gone seven innings in all three games giving up just six runs, including just one run in Chase Field on May 14th. 

Merrill Kelly has had an excellent season despite battling a blood clot and hamstring cramps over the second half of the season. Recently he's  sandwiched two poor outings in which he gave up seven runs in each around two excellent outings in between. 

Kelly had to be removed from three straight home starts due to  hamstring cramp issues where he says it's still "super hot" down on the field. During a recent interview team President and CEO Derrick Hall said that the temperature has not been any different and that the team does not control the AC as it's connected to a chilling system along with several other down town buildings. 

September Offense

The D-backs have outscored the Giants 71 to 70 in September despite getting out hit overall. The Giants are hitting .262/.338/.424 and their .762 OPS ranks  13th best. The D-backs bats woke up somewhat in the Cubs series, but they still rank 26th in September with a .237/.313/.374, .687 OPS.  Making the discrepancy even more mystifying is the Giants are hitting .262 with runners in scoring position this month while Arizona is batting just .237 in those situations. 

Lourdes Gurriel Jr, (1.008 OPS)  Gabriel Moreno, (.932)  Ketel Marte (.921) and Tommy Pham (.861) have lead the D-backs offense this month.  Presumptive rookie of the year Corbin Carroll  (.704) has been hitting for average (.281) but not much power of late. He has six stolen bases with out getting caught. 

J.D. Davis (1.051 OPS), Blake Sabol (1.028) LaMonte Wade Jr. .(983), Mike Yastrzemski (.938) and Wilmer Flores (.858) have carried the load at the plate San Francisco this month. 

Diamondbacks Bullpen

The D-backs surprisingly have posted the 4th best bullpen ERA in MLB for September with a 2.34 mark. That includes four runs in six innings by Brandon Pfaadt who was really a bulk pitcher behind an opener in that outing.  Removing Pfaadt's outing the true reliever ERA for the D-backs is an astounding 2.01.  There has been neither a bullpen loss or a blown save this month.  Paul Sewald is 5-5 in September save chances. 

Diamondbacks September Bullpen ERA / Jack Sommers