A pair of NL West teams meet for the first of four on Thursday as the San Francisco Giants journey to the desert to take on the Arizona Diamondbacks in the aftermath of the non-waiver trade deadline. At the deadline, the D-Backs established themselves as contenders with a few key moves while the Giants were mostly inactive, toeing the line between contender and pretender. They’re more contender than pretender with Madison Bumgarner on the mound and he’s slated for the start on Thursday opposite Zack Greinke for the Diamondbacks.
First pitch of the game between the Giants and Diamondbacks is scheduled for Thursday, August 2, 2018, at 9:40 p.m. ET at Chase Field. The matchup will be televised locally.
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Odds Analysis
Arizona sits neck-and-neck with the Dodgers atop the NL West and five games up on the Giants. There’s little doubt that the D-Backs are the better team, but Arizona isn’t quite as good at home as they are on the road, going just 27-26 at Chase Field.
Fortunately for Arizona, however, the Giants have struggled mightily away from AT&T Park and are 22-32 on the road. They dropped three of five on their last road trip due largely to lackluster offensive output.
On the year, the Giants are near the bottom in the NL in runs scored, plating just 438, the fourth fewest, ahead of only the Padres, Mets and Marlins; all three teams well out of the race. Arizona has scored nearly 50 more runs, but their .711 OPS is only slightly higher than the Giants’ at .707. Interestingly, the Giants are actually sporting a much better average than the D-Backs though Arizona has drawn more walks and hit for better power, although only slightly.
On the road, the Giants’ OPS dips to .675 and the average down to .239 that average is in line with what the D-Backs hit at home, but the OPS is well down due to a worse OBP and worse slugging.
While the offensive difference between these two teams isn’t huge, it is noticeable. The Giants are better at putting the bat on the ball, but the Diamondbacks have the better eye and more power.
Arizona also gets an added bump in this matchup with the recent acquisition of Eduardo Escobar from Minnesota. Escobar has looked good in his first couple games in Arizona and leads baseball in doubles while hitting 15 homers and sporting a .852 OPS.
Escobar takes over third for the injured Jake Lamb and is a sizeable upgrade over the third baseman who was hitting just .222 with a .655 OPS. With Escobar and the recently healthy Steven Souza Jr. added to the mix of Paul Goldschmidt, David Peralta and A.J. Pollock, it’s easy to say this team is a better hitting squad than the season numbers.
The numbers bear that out. Over the last month, Arizona is hitting .261 as a team with a .753 OPS.
As for the Giants, they’re batting .237 the last month with a .648 OPS as they’ve regressed. An injured Brandon Belt doesn’t help. The San Francisco first baseman was having a career year with a .842 OPS. He was the team’s best hitter as Buster Posey was having a down year for him and Brandon Crawford has regressed lately.
Probable Pitchers
Neither team has officially announced their starters for this series, but provided the rotations stay in order, this series opener is shaping up to be a battle of the aces with Zack Greinke and Madison Bumgarner slated to square off.
After missing the early part of the year, Bumgarner is back to his normal self. In 10 starts, he’s just 3-4, but has a 3.06 ERA. He’s tossed 61.2 innings and is already top-10 on the team in WAR.
Bumgarner’s strikeout numbers are down a bit this year and his walk rate is elevated leaving him with a 1.200 WHIP, his highest since 2011, but he’s generally been able to limit the damage created by the extra base runners.
In his last start, we saw the real Bumgarner shine through as the veteran southpaw tossed eight innings, allowing three runs—only two earned—on six hits and a single walk against a competitive Brewers team.
Meanwhile, in his career against the Diamondbacks, he’s just 9-11, but has pitched to a 2.60 ERA and 1.088 WHIP in 31 games over 197.2 innings of work. In a full season’s worth of innings against Arizona, he’s got a career ERA better than his 3.01 overall.
Bumgarner was impressive against the D-Backs earlier this year, too. He’s faced them once in 2018, making his season debut against them back on June 5. In that game, he took the loss, but pitched six innings of two run ball.
Bumgarner faced off against Patrick Corbin back in June. He has the other All-Star starter for the D-Backs on Thursday in Greinke.
The 34-year old right-hander is 12-5 with a 2.96 ERA and 1.054 WHIP in his 22 games started. He’s pitched 136.2 innings and has amassed a 4.0 WAR.
While those number are great, his 5.96 strikeout to walk ratio is his best stat. He leads the NL there as he’s got a strong 9.4 strikeout per nine inning rate and has been incredibly stingy in free passes, giving up just 24 all year. As a result, the Giants will have to work their way on base on Thursday.
He’s allowed just one walk in his last three games combined and has not allowed a single walk in four of his last seven starts.
Over those seven starts, Greinke has allowed just six runs in 46.2 innings. That’s a 1.16 ERA. He’s also walked just five batters, allowed only 34 hits, including just two home runs, for a 0.836 WHIP. It’s hard to find a pitcher throwing better right now.
Against the Giants, he allowed one run in seven innings in his only start this year and is 12-2 with a 2.31 ERA in 18 career starts.
Live Betting
The bullpen is, perhaps, the biggest strength of the Diamondbacks and an area that the D-Backs far out class the Giants.
Arizona has the best bullpen ERA in the NL at 3.07 and while the Giants’ pen has been rather stable this season, it’s allowing half a run more in its ERA. To add to the differential, the D-Backs just brought back Brad Zeigler in a deal with Marlins and Jake Diekman from Texas.
With Zeigler, Arizona adds a reliever with a 0.64 ERA over his last 28 appearances and partners him with Brad Boxberger, Archie Bradley, Yoshihisa Hirano and Andrew Chafin, all pitchers who can throw meaningful innings and have an ERA+ of at least 120.
Beyond those late inning arms, the D-Backs can whether early exit from starters—not that they’ll have to with Greinke on the hill—but they can at least go to a pinch hitter earlier in a close game if they so choose given T.J. McFarlaned has a 1.78 ERA in 60.2 innings as a long man. Then, of course, the addition of Matt Andriese from the Rays adds to the depth in the earlier innings.
In the end, this Arizona bullpen is loaded and while San Fran has some nice arms, they are still missing closer Hunter Strickland.
MLB Pick
Bumgarner is a great pitcher, but Grienke’s numbers in his last seven starts and in his career against San Francisco are hard to ignore.
Arizona is also in contention while the Giants have shown at the deadline that they’re looking more towards the future. Those moves undoubtedly have ripple effects into the atmosphere of the clubhouse which can impact play on the field.
Look for a low scoring game on Thursday. Both pitchers are amongst the best in the game, but Bumgarner’s command isn’t fully back. Look for Arizona to scratch across a couple runs, taking advantage of that.
From there, Grienke will do his thing against San Fran and then hand things over to a bullpen stacked with talented arms to close out what should ultimately be a lower scoring winning for Arizona.
MLB Odds: Diamondbacks 4, Giants 3
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