Diamondbacks Move Into Wild Card Co-Lead

Josh Bell has been a Diamondback for a little over a week, but in that short time, he has made his presence felt. Acquired before the trade deadline in a deal with the Marlins, Bell replaced the injured Christian Walker and homered twice in his first game against the Pirates on August 2. He did it again on Wednesday, hitting two home runs in the nightcap of a doubleheader against the Rangers in Cleveland. The Diamondbacks swept the two games, moving them into a tie for the National League Wild Card lead and into second place in the fast-tightening NL West race.

Of course, the Padres aren’t the only NL West team that has gained momentum in both races recently. With the sweep, the Diamondbacks have now won 18 of their last 23 games, a run that has taken them from two games under .500 to 11 more while nearly tripling their chances of making the playoffs:

That 18-5 record is the best in the majors over that span, 2.5 games better than the Padres (14-6). The Diamondbacks have done it against a mix of good teams (the Braves, Guardians and Royals sit in playoff positions as of this writing, and the Pirates have been around .500) and not-so-good ones (the Blue Jays, Cubs, and Nationals). Not only are the Diamondbacks now tied with the Padres for the Wild Card lead, they’ve cut the Dodgers’ division lead to three games — as close as it’s been since April 24 — which has really loosened up the Playoff Odds.

Here’s a graph showing the Wild Card odds for the six NL contenders who aren’t currently leading their divisions.

Note the two red lines, joined on July 10, just as the Diamondbacks begin this run; they are the darkest of the two, the one with the highest upside since then (some started and stopped), they met the Padres and Braves.

Bell, who has been traded at the trade deadline three years in a row, is also heartbroken. The 31-year-old first baseman was hitting .224/.287/.349 (78 wRC+) with nine homers for the Marlins through July 21, but made himself a trade candidate by going 11-for. -24 with five homers in his next six games, all against the Mets, Orioles, and Brewers. Three days later, after Walker left the game with a severe oblique, the Diamondbacks acquired Bell from the Marlins for a trade (not Davy Andrews, alas), though they agreed to take $2.25 million of his $5.9 million cap hit. the remaining ones. salary. Bell went from both sides of the plate in his first start, took a couple of 0-fers, and on Monday opened the series against the team he started against last season by going 2-for-5 with a triple and a single. The last hit led off in the sixth inning, sparking a two-run rally that gave the Diamondbacks a momentary lead in a game they ended up winning for the 10th time.

Both of Bell’s home runs on Wednesday came when he hit a lefty against righty Carlos Carrasco, and both were estimated by Statcast at 375 yards, but he provided the opposite with a second-inning solo homer and a two-run homer. third right:

Bell has generally been strong against righties, both in his career (115 wRC+, vs. 108 vs. lefties) and in recent years (126 wRC+ from 2021-23, vs. 116 vs. lefties). Dialing back to the All-Star break, he improved more against righties — accounting for seven of his nine second-half hits — than lefties, but he benefited from both:

We’re talking small samples, especially his post-All-Star plate appearances against southpaws, but that’s a 214-point advantage in wOBA against righties and a 159-point advantage against lefties. The latter is held back by the fact that his average launch angle over that small piece is -6 degrees, compared to 12 degrees before, and 14 degrees on either side of the break against righties. I’m not sure there’s much explanation here, especially when it comes to a player who eats so badly, but this hot streak has served him and his teams well.

The Diamondbacks’ surge has been driven by their offense, which has yielded a league-leading 6.26 runs per game since July 10, and posted an NL-high 137 wRC+ (.276/.353/. 511) in that span. Ketel Marte has been, well, boiling, hitting .369/.439/.810 (234 wRC+) with 12 homers and an average exit velocity of 94.9 mph in 23 games, which, holy smokes. That run put him in the NL MVP conversation, as teammate Michael Baumann wrote earlier this week, which could mean he’ll wrest the award from Shohei Ohtani, who despite not playing the field owns the NL’s highest MPI (5.7). ) and wRC+ (176), among other things. Marte’s 29 homers, 559 slugging percentage, and 5.3 WAR all rank third in the league, his 153 wRC+ is fourth.

Marte wasn’t the only one to put up video game numbers during this run. Eugenio Suárez hit .318/.365/.718 (189 wRC+) with 9 of his 16 season homers in that span, pushing his wRC+ over 100. Corbin Carroll hit .237/.355/.592 (155 wRC+) ) with six of his nine homers on the season, a convincing performance from a player whose NL Rookie of the Year season’s follow-up has been an unremarkable, more-than-year-long blackout. Joc Pederson (.319/.4580/.723, 216 wRC+ and five homers) and Jake McCarthy (.352/.397/.482, 147 wRC+) both excelled in interim roles. Gabriel Moreno (.304/.385/.411, 127 wRC+) was also in the spotlight, but he landed on the injured list Tuesday with a strained left hip, the severity of which remains unclear. On Wednesday night, 24-year-old Adrian Del Castillo made his debut by going 1-for-3 with the second RBI off Carrasco.

On the other side of the ball, the Diamondbacks have allowed 4.13 runs per game over this stretch, an impressive rate but still ahead of their pre-July 10 mark of 4.86 runs per game. Brandon Pfadt (2.97 ERA and 2.74 FIP in 30.1 IP) and Ryne Nelson (3.52 ERA and 2.06 FIP in 30.1 IP) were the team’s leading starters during this span, while Zac Gallen (4.88 ERA , 3.64 FIP) with only 27 IP. it was, and Jordan Montgomery and Yilber Diaz were bad. Gallen (3.75 ERA and 3.34 FIP overall) and Pfaadt (3.92 ERA and 3.55 FIP) have been their only regular starters with ERAs below 4.00 this season, while late signing Montgomery has been a disaster (6.37 ERA, 4.85 FIP). To be fair, the six starters with at least 30 innings in a season (Nelson, Slade Cecconi, and Tommy Henry are the others) all have ERAs ahead of their FIPs, and those of all but Pfaadt and Gallen at least 0.97 runs nine ahead. In my team’s defense series last month – just before the Arizona fun started – the Diamondbacks ranked 25th in my composite of various metrics, supported by Moreno’s solid pitching job, so it’s fair to suggest that the starters aren’t getting the kind of support they deserve .

Help is not only on the way, but more has arrived. Wednesday’s second game marks the long-awaited season for Eduardo Rodriguez, who the Diamondbacks signed to a four-year, $80 million deal during the Winter Meetings after trying to waive the final three years of a five-year, $77 million contract with him. Tigers. The 31-year-old lefty had been sidelined since the March 19 opener because of what was quickly diagnosed as a strained latissimus dorsi, and his first rehab was shut down in mid-April when he aggravated the injury. He did not commit to a rehab assignment, instead building his numbers with bullpen and simulated games at Salt River Field, capped by a four-inning, 65-pitch simulated game on July 31.

When compared to the pitch count on Wednesday, Rodriguez was flat, getting just two swings and a miss all afternoon and striking out just one batter. He served up a solo homer to David Fry in his first pitch of the second inning, an 89-mph four-seamer into the outside corner. The Rangers scored again in the second on a single by Josh Naylor, who advanced from first to third on a soft hit by Jhonkensy Noel and scored on Angel Martínez’s sacrifice fly, then added a third run in the sixth when José Ramírez grounded out and a cut fastball to inside third. Rodríguez’s outing won’t win any awards, but going forward, it won’t be difficult to develop alternatives with ERAs over 6.00.

Meanwhile, Merrill Kelly will soon return from the streak that limited him to four starts. In his first start Tuesday, he allowed three runs in four innings over 62 pitches for the High-A Hillsboro Hops on Tuesday. If he recovers as expected, his next start could be for the Diamondbacks, although another outing with a high-profile teammate wouldn’t be surprising.

As for the bullpen, which this season ranked second-to-last in the NL in FIP (4.32) and 12th in ERA (4.26), has been much better during this recent run (3.58 ERA, 3.41 FIP), though recently it is much better. in a state of flux. Paul Sewald had four saves in July, including three in a row from July 2-8; he bookended that with another tough outing at the end of the month, and finished with a 10.80 ERA and 5.67 FIP. That prompted manager Torey Lovullo to move him out of the closer role and go with a closer-by-committee scheme. Since July 31, three different pitchers have totaled five saves, namely Ryan Thompson and Justin Martinez and lefty AJ Puk. Puk, acquired from the Marlins for two players, infielder Deyvison De Los Santos and outfielder Andrew Pintar, anchored the bullpen by allowing one run in five innings while striking out seven without walking. Sewald, who has allowed just one run in his first 18 games since May 7 (his first game of the season was delayed due to a severe condition) at the end of June, may finally get his job back, but for now he will work in low-enhancement conditions.

Like the Padres, the Diamondbacks had a hard time escaping the .500 mark, but they warmed up in time to deserve a boost at the trade deadline, and so far the investment is paying off. The Wild Card race has turned into a four-team dogfight involving those two teams in the NL West along with the Braves and Mets, and the door to the top perch of the NL West is open, at least for now. We’ll see if the Diamondbacks can capitalize on this opportunity.