Super early Gameday Thread, because of the switch-over
You may have noticed that this Gameday Thread is going up about four hours earlier than usual. That’s because tonight sees the Great Migration, with all of SB Nation moving over onto a different platform. To facilitate that, all sites will be frozen at 2 pm Arizona time, until the migration has been completed, as tome point tomorrow morning. No new content will be permitted during that time, so if there wasn’t a super-early GDT, there would not be a GDT at all. Also due to this, there will be no recap of tonight’s game. Normal service will be resumed, hopefully, with tomorrow morning’s Snake Bytes. which is coming to you from our Eastmost regular writer, DbacksEurope. Fingers crossed, anyway…
As for this game, we will see whether the D-backs can build on the series win over the Athletics in [this city intentionally left blank], as they face a likely sterner challenge in the Padres. San Diego come in possessing the third wild-card spot in the NL, but it is a fairly comfortable position, with a four-game lead over the Reds, then six over the Giants and… wait, what? the Marlins? Yeah, over the last fifty games, Miami has basically been close to the best team in the majors. Their dismal start probably means it’s still going to be too late – Fangraphs gives them a 1.7% chance of making the playoffs. But perhaps they can build on that going forward for next year.
Which is basically what the D-backs are looking to do. While it’s a feeble sample size, it does seem that getting something for Eugenio Suarez might have been wise. He hasn’t exactly hit the ground running for Seattle: 2-for-17 with no walks, five strikeouts and an OPS+ of -16. Yep: negative. But we’ll see. Back at Chase Field, hard to say who has the edge in starting pitching with this one, because neither Brandon Pfaadt nor J.P. Sears have covered themselves in glory. Both have been prone to the long ball: between them, the two pitchers have allowed 43 in 226.1 innings. So I’d be inclined to expect a high-scoring battle tonight.
And with that, I’m locking the doors on the SnakePit. See you all tomorrow for a glorious future!