With 11 wins of their final 16 video games, the Diamondbacks now have a 50-48 report and sit simply proportion factors behind the Mets for the ultimate NL wild card berth. Loads of groups stay within the combine within the crowded Nationwide League, but this scorching stretch of play signifies that the reigning NL champions are discovering their type regardless of weathering a number of accidents inside their beginning rotation.
Arizona GM Mike Hazen stated on July 1 that he hoped his membership could be able so as to add fairly than subtract on the commerce deadline, and the Diamondbacks’ sturdy play within the final three weeks has paid off their basic supervisor’s perception. With the D’Backs now extra firmly wanting like contenders, Hazen advised reporters (together with MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert and Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic) yesterday that “as of now, the calls we’re making, we’re wanting so as to add expertise to the staff.”
The place precisely the D’Backs may focus their purchasing has but to be decided, as Hazen stated he would “love to have the ability to goal down the must bullpen, position-player match someplace, and simply go along with that.” A extra restricted listing of wants would hinge, after all, on how wholesome the rotation is wanting by the July 30 deadline, as Jordan Montgomery, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Merrill Kelly all stay on the injured listing.
Montgomery is the closest to returning, as he threw 56 pitches over three innings of a simulated recreation on Thursday. This strains the southpaw as much as be activated from the 15-day injured listing throughout Arizona’s sequence in Kansas Metropolis that begins on Monday, although supervisor Torey Lovullo didn’t formally state this was the staff’s plan. Montgomery hasn’t pitched since June 27 because of proper knee irritation, and is trying to return from this IL stint and switch round a tough season, because the lefty has a 6.44 ERA in his first 65 2/3 innings and 13 begins in a D’Backs uniform.
Rodriguez and Kelly are each tentatively set to return sooner or later in August, and each hurlers are set for bullpen periods right this moment. Hazen stated “all the pieces has been good” with the duo as of late, and so they might advance to going through hitters after each Saturday’s bullpen after which one other throwing session subsequent week.
Assuming Montgomery is certainly again for the Royals sequence, he’d rejoin a D’Backs rotation that additionally options ace Zac Gallen, Brandon Pfaadt, Ryne Nelson, and rookie Yilber Diaz. Nelson has pitched more and more effectively because the season has gone on and Diaz has regarded sharp in his first two profession MLB begins, and thus Arizona may go from an absence of rotation depth to maybe a surplus later within the season if everybody comes again wholesome and efficient. These are the choices Hazen should weigh because the deadline approaches, since on paper, buying and selling for an additional starter looks as if a logical hedge towards the uncertainty that the Diamondbacks nonetheless face with their starter combine.
“Lengthy-term beginning pitching continues to be going to be one thing I’m going to discover it doesn’t matter what if it’s a number of years of management as a result of I really feel like we have now to,” Hazen stated. “We all the time need to look out for our rotation a few years down the road. I feel if I really feel very assured when Monty comes again after which [Kelly and Rodriguez] are proper across the nook, I most likely wouldn’t place as a lot emphasis on it. However I don’t know. It clearly relies on if Nelly and Yilber maintain throwing the ball very well, that’s going to affect how this goes.”
Hazen additionally introduced that the D’Backs could be transferring Slade Cecconi right into a bullpen function for the remainder of the season, which might be much less an indication of Arizona’s confidence in its forthcoming rotation depth than it’s a reflection of Cecconi’s unimpressive outcomes as a starter. Cecconi has began 13 of his 14 Main League video games this season, posting a 6.14 ERA over 66 innings.
It isn’t essentially shocking {that a} rookie is having a tricky time in his first prolonged look towards massive league hitters, and if nothing else, Cecconi has eaten some innings for a D’Backs staff that was usually scrambling to fill rotation holes. His new function may even be about protecting innings in some sense, as Hazen stated that if Cecconi is recalled from Triple-A, the right-hander will work in a protracted man function to assist in giving the bullpen some respite.
