Solid and healthy opponent.
Weak June schedule.
If you have to miss your 1-2-3 of the rotation, then there is probably no better month than to lose them in this Diamondbacks’ month of June.
In the month of June the Diamondbacks have been unspectacular, but have gone 13-8 and have crawled back into the Wild Card chase, which is a terribly mediocre fight. But where there were a bunch of teams below .500 a few weeks ago fighting for the Wild Card leftovers, currently the final spots have been taken over by the Cardinals (.513) and Padres (.500). After losing against the Phillies, the Nationals have leaped over the Diamondbacks once again, with the Mets right behind us with the same winning (or losing) percentage and with Pirates, Cubs, Reds and Giants a maximum of 2 games behind us.
The best way to describe the road trip and the homestand before it is: “No gravy”. I had hoped we would win the series against the Angels, White Sox and Nationals and steal at least one win against Philly. Anything more than that would be gravy. So basically we did exactly what I hoped for, but didn’t get any gravy. – Smurf-1000 and his resume of the series before entering this new home stand, cheesy comment on the AZSnakePit
But like Smurf-1000 said, can we really expect much more from this team other than they have done? Pretty hard to expect much more, with the questionable performances of those starting pitchers that are currently replacing Gallen, Kelly and Rodriguez in the rotation. Good times must lie ahead if we believe in Montgomery’s recent turn-around.
But it is still somewhat saddening that we have to accept these “miserable” wins, because we really need this team to be better and healthier if we want to make the post-season.
At home, I’m disappointed that we fell short of sweeping the Angels or the White Sox. On the road, sweeping the Nats would have been sweet. Those extra wins could count towards making the playoffs. – Makakilo in a recent roundtable, on the AZSnakePit
Twins: battling for the Wild Card.
The battle for the Wild Card for Arizona doesn’t get much easier. Although we wrap up the month of June with yet another “bad” team as the Oakland Athletics, first we have to say welcome to one of the traditional strong teams of the AL Central: the Minnesota Twins.
It is a good tradition to bash on the AL Central as one of the weakest divisions, but this year it seems the AL Central teams are making more noise. The Cleveland Guardians have a solid lead with a .653 winning percentage, the best in the American League and second best in the entire MLB (behind the Phillies). That has left the Minnesota Twins and their good 43-35 record in the second spot in their division and in a Wild Card position, but just slightly ahead of the surprising Kansas City Royals and their 42-37. Even the Detroit Tigers aren’t bad this year (36-41), which we saw a couple of weeks ago when they took 2 of 3 in a series at Chase Field.
That is a well accomplished feat for a team that was predicted to battle for a wild card but saw one of their biggest contributors of last season (Sonny Gray) leave in free agency and traded another one away (Jorge Polanco) while not attracting any new names of fame. That came on the heels of an ALDS loss against the Astros (3-1) and uncertainty looming over them because of the Bally Sports continuous saga.
So, the Twins headed into this season with not a lot of depth and the biggest success factor of this team so far is therefore that they have stayed healthy while still getting useful contributions from their core players. The Twins have used just 17 position players this season. In a baseball environment where offence is generally down, the Twins hitters are one of the better hitting teams in the league, with a special note of honour going to Carlos Correa (.304/.368/.491). Third baseman Royce Lewis has returned from the IL this month of June and the former top prospect is showing what he can do when healthy (.348/.413/.848).
On the pitching side they have gotten an underwhelming performance of former ace Pablo López, although he did pitch 8 scoreless innings in his latest outing yesterday in Oakland. Despite that, the Twins are a top of the league pitching corps, with Joe Ryan (3.13 ERA) and Simeon Woods-Richardson (3.26 ERA) carrying this year’s rotation, and while the whole bunch ERA+-wise is a meagre 98, when looking at K/BB they are only behind the Mariners. In the bullpen former Diamondback Jhoan Duran isn’t as solid as last season (but still good enough), but Griffin Jax has taken the spotlight and many high-leverage situations, even taking over some closer situations.
As said, the Twins have gotten to where they are with steady performances, taking advantage of series against weaker opponents in the MLB. As such, they have swept the White Sox (twice) the Angels and Athletics, have battled and beaten direct competitors such as the Royals, Rangers, Astros and Mariners, while they hardly stood a chance against teams like the Orioles, Yankees and Indians and were swept.
All in all, the Diamondbacks face a tough challenge in a team playing according to their capabilities.
Matchups.
Game #1 Tue 06/25 6:40 PM MST, Joe Ryan (MIN) vs Brandon Pfaadt (ARI).
- Joe Ryan. 15 GS, 92.0 IP, 5 W-5 L, 3.13 ERA, 3.58 FIP, 0.96 WHIP, 6.33 K/BB.
- Brandon Pfaadt. 15 GS, 90.2 IP, 3 W-6 L, 4.37 ERA, 3.66 FIP, 1.18 WHIP, 3.82 K/BB.
For one of the best starting pitchers in the MLB, Joe Ryan has surprisingly few wins despite achieving 11 quality starts in 15 games for the Minnesota Twins. Ryan is on his way in getting his first All-Star nod of his career and is quietly cementing his name in the top of the rotation of the Minnesota Twins. In a somewhat hitter friendly park, Joe Ryan’s peripherals are actually better at home than on the road, though his road ERA is much stronger: 2.49 vs 3.70. Ryan has gone at least 5 innings in all of his game, with his worst outing coming against the Astros at the beginning of this month, when he gave up 5 runs. Ryan has never faced the Diamondbacks in his career.
It will be a tough matchup for Brandon Pfaadt. Pfaadt has shown he can keep good line-ups in check and why not the Twins’ one as well. The odds probably favour Joe Ryan, but the Diamondbacks should not be without an opportunity in this first match of the series.
Game #2 Wed 06/26 6:40 PM MST, Simeon Woods-Richardson (MIN) vs Ryne Nelson (ARI).
- Simeon Woods-Richardson. 12 GS, 60.2 IP, 2 W-1 L, 3.26 ERA, 3.66 FIP, 1.14 WHIP, 3.06 K/BB.
- Ryne Nelson. 13 G, 12 GS, 64.1 IP, 5 W-5 L, 5.18 ERA, 4.51 FIP, 1.51 WHIP, 2.39 K/BB.
One of the better prospects in the Mets’ system, Woods Richardson ended up in Minnesota after the Jose Berrios trade. He moved up well in the minors, but struggled mightily last year in the majors and in AAA. The rookie throws a 93 mph fastball but really needs his breaking stuff to be successful, like the good curve and slider he has. Woods Richardson is a fly ball pitcher and might have been a bit more lucky with the hard hits this season. He doesn’t go that deep into games, getting into the 7th inning just once.
After going deep against the Nationals and getting a win against the weak White Sox, Nelson once again gets a more serious opponent to work with. Has Nelson really taken a step forward? If so, the Diamondbacks can really use it in this series.
Game #3 Thu 06/27 12:40 PM MST, Chris Paddack (MIN) vs Jordan Montgomery (ARI).
- Chris Paddack. 15 GS, 78.1 IP, 5 W-3 L, 5.29 ERA, 4.24 FIP, 1.43 WHIP, 3.89 K/BB.
- Jordan Montgomery. 12 GS, 63.0 IP, 6 W-4 L, 5.71 ERA, 4.45 FIP, 1.57 WHIP, 2.00 K/BB.
After tanking some confidence against the White Sox and Angels, Montgomery finally got a good performance against an opponent of some serious calibre and achieved a much applauded win against the Phillies. A good Montgomery is what the Diamondbacks will need as well in their final game of this series to either avoid a sweep or achieve a nice win. You would be inclined to say that the matchup is favourable, with former Padre Chris Paddack taking the mount for the Twins.
Paddack is the only remaining piece of that Padres-Twins trade that sent Pagan and Paddack to the Twins and Brooker and Taylor Rogers the other way. Paddack is probably the weakest arm in that rotation of the Twins and isn’t weird to think that at some point he will be removed from the rotation when the Twins try and seek an upgrade over him ahead of the trade deadline and push themselves further into the Wild Card. Besides, Paddack is probably on a pitch limit anyhow after he returned from TJ surgery in September 2023. Despite the high ERA you could say that Paddack has been a useful arm in that back part of the rotation. The 5 wins he has behind his name say exactly that and a closer look at his game logs show that he has been exceptionally hard hit by the lineups of the Yankees (twice) and Orioles with a few hiccups here and there against the Angels and Athletics. But in 8 of his 15 appearances he kept the opponent limited to 2 or fewer runs over 5 innings.