I’d settle for a split
Keeping my fingers crossed the D-backs can take this one, and go off on their first road trip at ,500. Normally, you would want to win home series, but a four-game set changes the dynamics slightly. In addition, given how much obvious room for improvement there is in the team’s play across the first three games, 2-2 would be almost an overachievement. A couple of line-up changes today, and I’m sure Twitter will be apoplectic about the fact that Gabriel Moreno, Ketel Marte and Corbin Carroll are sitting this one out. Worst yet, despite calls for the head of Garrett Hampson (not least by ish95!), the non-roster invitee is “rewarded” for his game-ending gaffe with a spot in the startling line-up this afternoon.
And, yep, check out the replies to the line-up Tweet. I particularly enjoyed the one which asked “Why is Herrera’s still getting starts over adc??????????” Of course, three games in, and we also have comments like “Why tf is Lourdes in the lineup,” I can’t argue with Lovullo when he says, “I know that the Twitter world can go crazy and the keyboard pounders can go crazy.“ With regard to today’s line-up though, Torey said, “I’m gonna try to get guys in and out the first week. I learned the hard way with (Alek Thomas’) injury last year. Can’t full throttle everybody, so it’s a little bit of a challenge early … Corbin said can I change your mind? I said not right now.”
It’s also Eduardo Rodriguez’s first start of the year, and this season, he won’t have Jordan Montgomery’s poor performances to take the spotlight off his own outings. It’s easy to forget that last year, Rodriguez was barely better than replacement level (0.2 bWAR), with an ERA over five while missing most of the season through injury, and still getting paid fourteen million dollars. That figure will be twenty million in 2025, and no excuses can be accepted any longer. He may arguably be the #5 in the rotation this year – he would have been, but for Lovullo’s mis-scheduling of Corbin Burnes. But he’s getting paid like a #2, and needs to start pitching like it this afternoon.