It worked yesterday. Why change a winning formula?
Bit of a shake-up in the D-backs batting order, Blaze Alexander DH’ing and batting lead-off for Arizona. It’s the fifth time this year for Arizona their DH has occupied the #1 spot in the order: Ketel Marte was the player concerned the other times. Others have done it before, some of whom probably make more sense (Daulton Varsho) than others (Kyle Lewis and Cooper Hummel). Though the questions about Lewis and Hummel were more existential than specifically related to the batting order. Carroll is down to eighth, the same spot he had for the opener in Seattle, but a position he never occupied at all during his Rookie of the Year campaign. With an OPS 37 points below Kevin Newman, you could argue ninth.
Tommy Henry is the starting pitcher, and we’ll see how he navigates that ferocious top of the Dodgers’ line-up: Betts, Ohtani and Freeman. Henry pitched well his last time out, holding the Cardinals to one run over six innings. But there’s a reason they are ranked fourteenth by OPS+ in the National League, ahead only of the Marlins, while the Dodgers are second, trailing only the Braves. We’ll also need Henry to re-discover how to pitch at Chase. Last year, his home ERA was significantly better (3.38 vs. 5.05), but that hasn’t been the case so far in 2024 (10.80 vs. 2.81). Let’s hope that is just the vagaries of a small sample-size for Tommy.