Giants-Diamondbacks Series Preview

We’re all hoping that the 2024 San Francisco Giants can be the 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks — a team that got extremely lucky. That’s because the Diamondbacks, like the Giants, aren’t all that talented when compared to the top of the league, but they have an interesting mix and have a clever system of player deployment to sort of gimmick their way to winning as much as they lose. In theory, this is an even matchup.

Record-wise, the Diamondbacks are 27-32, but they have scored as many runs as they’ve allowed (274), meaning they should be a .500 team. The Giants, meanwhile, have a -29 run differential but are 29-31. This is where the ludicrous nature of being fan must be pointed out so that we understand how nuts we all are: if this exact situation were reversed, we’d all be saying how lucky and overrated the Diamondbacks are and how the Giants’ record in no way reflects the team’s true talent, which is probably a World Series contender. But we won’t do that, right, because the Giants are our team and we wear orange & black blinders.

We’ll look at that sweep by the Yankees as a sign that the Giants aren’t one of the best rosters in the league, but because they held their own/aren’t fully healthy/the Yankees are on an abnormal hot streak in those three games convince ourselves that they’re actually better than the second division they’re mostly consigned to — that batch of teams struggling to fight for the second and third Wild Cards. The Giants, with all the leading and flagging indicators — including an actual win-loss record — of a sub-.500 team aren’t a .500 team... because of reasons! The Diamondbacks, meanwhile, are.

I’m just going to let us all believe that after watching our favorite team get tuned up pretty well by Aaron Judge and Juan Soto for three days. We need the oasis of delusion.

What we don’t need to imagine as Giants fans is the toll a long playoff runs takes on the team in the following season. Whatever one might think of the 2023 or 2024 Diamondbacks, that whole “run it back” scenario is a recipe for a struggling follow-up season, and that’s exactly what Arizona is experiencing right now as the reigning National League champions.

The Giants split a four-game series with them in the second half of April. The Giants were 10-13 after that series and have gone 19-18 since. The Dbacks were 11-12 after that series and are 16-20 since. They’ve been a bit better than average on offense and a bit below average with their pitching, but the under the hood numbers are a bit more sinister. They went 11-16 in April and outscored opponents 130-122. They went 11-15 and were outscored 129-97. There defense has been a bit better than average, too, but their team BAbip is 3rd-highest in MLB (.302) behind the Giants and Rockies, both tied for worst (.311).

We know the Giants are in their situation because they get a lot of groundball contact (a sport-leading 48.6%). The Rockies are 4th at 45.8% and Arizona’s middle of the pack at 43.2%... but the difference between the Giants and the Rockies & Dbacks is that the Giants are pretty good at striking guys out. A team K/9 of 8.64 is 13th in MLB. Meanwhile, those Rockies are dead last (30th) with 6.61 K/9. And the second-worst (29th) is Arizona (7.59). This is a far cry from where they ended last regular season: 8.47 K/9 (23rd), 41.7% groundball rate (19th) and a .296 BAbip (16th).

The Diamondbacks’ main strikeout starter, Zac Gallen, is currently on the IL, and while Brandon Pfaadt has performed better in his second season (4.32 ERA / 3.10 FIP in 73 IP compared to (5.72 / 5.18 in 96 last season), it’s still the case that the rest of the pitching staff doesn’t have strikeout stuff. Their bullpen has some guys who can do that, but they give up a lot of balls in play, and as advanced as the pitching and defense scheming has gotten, hitters are still better, generally, than ever. Is this an opportunity for the Giants’ thin lineup to feast early in the game and build a lead ahead of a solid bullpen late in the game?

Conversely, the Giants are supposed to have a pretty good rotation on top of a lockdown bullpen. It’s not really a lockdown bullpen now — at least, it’s a work in progress. That doesn’t add anymore pressure to whoever’s starting for the Giants, but it’s worth sliding the 6th inning and beyond from trending Giants to “toss up.” I checked and the Diamondbacks are hitting .195 in the 7th-9th innings (.266 in innings 1-6), so if the Giants’ bullpen actually has any talent — and right now, it’s certainly questionable — then they might be in decent shape should they have a lead late.

But this is the exact quality of team the Giants are designed to matchup well against, and as zero of a test as the Phillies and Yankees series were, one was encouraging while one was demoralizing. That’s when you should take the data sampling averaging strategy and simply toss out the high skewing result and the low skewing and just look at what’s left. The Diamondbacks and Giants are the exact same team, both trying to claw out of the dregs of being an also-ran for the glory of playing the lottery that is MLB’s postseason.

Series details

Who: San Francisco Giants vs. Arizona Diamondbacks
Where: Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona
When: Monday (6:40pm PT), Tuesday (6:40pm PT), Wednesday (12:40pm PT)
National broadcasts: FS1 (Monday), MLB Network simulcast (Tuesday & Wednesday)

Projected starters
Monday: TBD vs. Ryne Nelson
Tuesday: Kyle Harrison vs. Blake Walston
Wednesday: Jordan Hicks vs. Jordan Montgomery

Where they stand

Diamondbacks, 27-32 (4th in NL West), 274 RS / 274 RA | Last 10 games: 4-6
Giants, 29-31 (3rd in NL West), 257 RS / 286 RA | Last 10 games: 5-5

Dbacks to watch

Christian Walker: .890 OPS through April, then a bit of a drop in the first week and a half of May, seeing his season line fall down to .819, but since May 13, he’s picked it back up, with an .826 OPS buoyed by a .515 slugging. 4 of his 12 home runs have come since May 15th, and he homered twice in Arizona’s series against the Mets. This guy made them feel comfortable with moving on from Paul Goldschmidt. He hasn’t hit the Giants as hard as Goldschmidt has, but he’s tied for the team lead in home runs with Ketel Marte (12).

Joc Pederson: He has just 9 plate appearances against lefties this season, (2-for 6 with a home run, a double, and 2 walks) and is otherwise demolishing the baseball, with a .304/.395/.520 (.915 OPS) line in 159 total PA. He’s smoking the heck out of the ball and has an enviable Statcast page. He went just 1-for-7 in San Francisco, which tracks a bit with his .854 OPS on the road so far this year. In Arizona, though, he’s hitting a robust .349/.411/.635 in 73 PA. Will he face Kyle Harrison?

Jordan Montgomery: The other big lefty in the Boras fold this offseason who similarly missed Spring Training to get the best possible one-year deal is similarly having a forgettable year that could irrevocably break his career. Players tend not to get better into their 30s, but there’s something to be said about sudden and stressful life adjustments. Maybe Montgomery, who changed agents after this offseason, will be able to settle in and return to the left-handed version of Logan Webb down the line. This season, though, appears to be as lost as Blake Snell’s.

Giants to watch

Heliot Ramos: That 4:1 strikeouts to walk ratio is a big no-no, but in the past 12 games he’s reduced it to 3:1 while swatting a pair of home runs along with a double and 9 singles. That’s a triple slash of .279/.367/.442 (.809 OPS) and, well, Giants who have great seasons tend to have a breakout series in Arizona at some point.

Kyle Harrison: We all expected another Lincecum or Bumgarner, but it looks like we might have to settle for... Jonathan Sanchez? At least for now? The 22-year old already looks gassed when the Giants are going to need another 60-70 innings out of him to cover the innings needed the rest of the regular season. Since 7 shutout innings in Colorado on May 7th, he’s started 4 games (20 IP) and posted a 6.30 ERA (5.54 FIP).

Camilo Doval: Looking at his 2 blown saves and declaring he’s fine is a lot like looking at pitcher wins, don’t you think? The Statcast data shows a hard throwing pitchers who’s getting absolutely crushed by the opposing swings... an 11.3% barrel rate! A 91 mph average exit velocity — 2 mph average difference from his career! — and a 50% Hard Hit rate. I’m sure Bob Melvin has every confidence in him, but that’s because Melvin has rarely had a talent like this. We’ve seen him at his best, and he’s been far from it this season.

Prediction time