The Arizona Diamondbacks are off to one of their best home starts in franchise history. The last time the Dbacks started the year 11-3 at home was 2008, the time before that 1999. With the win against the Padres on Thursday night, the Diamondbacks secured their fourth straight home series win, only the third time the club has done so in it’s existence.
This series brought some bad news, with the word of starting pitcher Shelby Miller’s UCL injury, but the Diamondbacks showed their resiliency and were able to end on a high note.
Starters Solid
The Diamondbacks pitching staff got a little jumbled with the uncertainty of Miller’s status early in the week. Tuesday the Dbacks brought up Zack Godley from Triple-A Reno to start on Wednesday and pushed the starts of Taijuan Walker and Robbie Ray back one day.
Throughout the series, the Diamondbacks starting pitchers held their own and impressed. Monday night, Zack Greinke went six innings, allowing only one run on six hits, with no walks and 11 strikeouts.
Tuesday night, Patrick Corbin had himself an impressive outing going seven innings, with nine strikeouts, two walks and two runs on eight hits, one home run.
The extra day off proved to be beneficial for Walker who went eight innings, allowed two runs on four hits, one home run, no walks and matched his career high of 11 strikeouts, on Thursday.
This week, the Dbacks set a franchise record of 51 strikeouts in a series. The starting pitchers alone accounted for 37 of those 51.
That's a lot of 🔥 pic.twitter.com/8kEsGHjl9b
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) April 28, 2017
If the starting rotation can keep up the work, and the addition of TJ McFarland from Reno fills the void of Miller, the Diamondbacks will stay in good shape for sure.
Dropping Bombs
The Diamondbacks bats have been hot, but against the Padres they were really poppin’. Up until Wednesday, the Diamondbacks had hit a home run in the first inning for five straight games.
Chris Owings had a big series with three home runs, including a grand slam on Monday. On Thursday, Owings went back-to-back with two monster shots to left. His first multi-homer game.
✌ at-bats, ✌ home runs for @cowings5 tonight. It's his first career multi-homer game. pic.twitter.com/BSfBonSEUv
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) April 28, 2017
David Peralta had a solo home run on Monday, his third of the season. Tuesday Paul Goldschmidt hit his fourth home run of the season, while Daniel Descalso hit his first. Thursday, in addition to Owings’ two bombs, Yasmany Tomás hit a shot to tally his team-leading fifth homer of the season.
Resilience
Manager Torey Lovullo has a lot faith in his guys. After coming off a series loss against the Padres at Petco Park last week, the Diamondbacks came back to Chase and took the series against the Dodgers. Even through adversity with Miller’s situation and a tough loss on Wednesday, Lovullo’s club proved to their skipper they’re all in.
“I was hoping that these guys were going to rally around one another and rely on one another in a time of mini-crisis,” Lovullo said after Thursday’s win. “I could tell before the game that these guys were ready to perform. There was a looseness about them today and I felt comfortable knowing that if they went out the way the were showing me they could go out, that we were would be okay.”
The Diamondbacks will head into a big weekend series against the Colorado Rockies starting Friday night. The Rockies are currently second in the NL West with a 14-9 record.
