Diamondbacks Home Opener Gets Spoiled

The Arizona Diamondbacks have had a very tough season so far.  Starting with the Opening Day game being played in Los Angeles, and then after 4 games against the Dodgers, they had to visit San Diego for their home opener.  Today the Diamondbacks returned home and faced off against the Dodgers again, so in 11 days it’s 10 games, 8 against the Dodgers, and 2 against the Padres.  3-4 is not an awful record for how rough their schedule is.

The awful part of this game was Arizona had plenty of chances to win this game, they left 6 players on base and they just couldn’t take advantage of batters in scoring position.  Torrey Luvello after the game said this team needs to start believing they can hit off any pitcher and beat any pitcher.  If Arizona can find a way to tee off against Kershaw then maybe that will be the confidence booster they need.

Merrill Kelly’s home opener did not go as smoothly as his first game.  Pitching only 5.2 innings and allowing 4 runs was not the start he wanted.  By the time the third inning hit the game felt over since the game was 3-0 and Arizona has not scored more than 2 runs against LA yet and in 4 out of 5 games they’ve scored 2 runs.  Merrill Kelly allowing 0 runs in the first game wasn’t going to last forever,  he’s a very talented pitcher and will most likely bounce back in his next game he is not one the team is apprehensive about after this performance.

Arizona decided to gamble this offseason and invest in powerful arms.  One of their prospects is Carlos “Wild Thing” Vargas.  Arizona had the longest gap between 100+ MPH pitches in MLB, Vargas fixed that by having multiple 100+ MPH balls in the same inning.  Vargas biggest issue is his control as he accidentally hit Mookie Betts with a 98 MPH ball to the head last night.  In the famous story of Randy Johnson, a recruit saw Johnson and after a while of watching him pitch, he leaned over and said if he ever learns control he will be the greatest pitcher of all time.  I’m not saying Vargas will be Randy Johnson but control takes time and he has a lot of potentials if he’s given the time to get under control.  Even with Carlos walking 3 players in the 9th inning, he earned 2 strikeouts and allowed no runs, meaning he can pitch himself out of tricky situations.

Tonight’s matchup will be between Bumgarner who pitched 4 innings and allowed 5 runs in their first matchup against and Clayton Kershaw who pitched 6 innings and allowed 1 run in his first game against Arizona of the season.  During the introductions for the season opener, Bumgarner was booed by his own home crowd and hopefully, he can use that as fuel to push D-Backs back to .500.