Phillies Opposition Roadblock: Arizona Diamondbacks
At this point, winning one game out of three is actually a success for the Phillies. Sadly, the way they lost the two games this week were just atrocious. One being a seven run extra inning meltdown and the other? Well, I am unsure how to describe the Wednesday night game. It was simply pathetic.
Matt Carpenter had an interesting Wednesday night, but was not truly successful for most of the series. He was 1-11 with a double, run, an RBI, and four walks. Three of those walks came in the first extra inning game on Tuesday night. Phillies pitching struck Carpenter out a total of four times in the two games. Overall, they were able to shut him down for the series despite the losses.
Phils Grade: A
Mike Leake held the Phillies at bay for six solid innings on Tuesday night. The offense was unable to get anything going at any point. However, they were able to scratch out a run near the end of Leake’s night. He only allowed five baserunners the entire night on two walks and three basehits. The righty was able to set down five hitters on strikes. Another difficult evening for the Phillies offense.
Phils Grade: D
The Team: Arizona Diamondbacks
Last weekend was our first of two looks at the NL West’s Arizona Diamondbacks. Not much has changed since last weekend. The D-Backs won two out of three from the Colorado Rockies out in the Rocky Mountains this week.
They lost a tight one run game, but then destroyed their division rivals the next two nights. They outscored the Rockies 26-8 to pull into a tie for second place in the West. They are now sitting 1.5 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers for first place.
The Diamondbacks are 26-9 at home this season and are only a week removed from sweeping the Phillies at Citizen’s Bank Park. In both of those games, the Phils had a late lead, but the Arizona offense was able to charge back into it with clutch homers.
Now, the Phils enter a series against the same explosive offense, but have to deal with both Robbie Ray and Zack Greinke. On the road, this could be an incredibly difficult challenge for a struggling Phillies team.
The Position Player: Jake Lamb
Jake Lamb is not a very well-known player around the game of baseball, but the third baseman is one of the best hitters on one of the game’s best offensive teams. Lamb is having a successful third season in the bigs.
Coming into the weekend, the third baseman is slashing .282/.381/.546, which all mark improvements over last season’s numbers. His 16 homers put him on pace to eclipse his 29 from the 2016 campaign.
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He has struggled immensely against lefties this season (.133/.235/.267 and two homers). It is not far off his career numbers against lefties though (.161/.257/.301). Considering the Phillies lack of left-handed pitching though, Lamb will not have to worry about that.
The problem for the Phils will be that the Seattle native rakes righties (.327/.423/.629 with 14 homers and 54 RBI). In his career, Lamb has slashed .281/.355/.509 against right-handers. And a robust 48 of his 55 career homers have come against righties.
Lamb has two hits against Jeremy Hellickson and one against Ben Lively, but has not faced Mark Leiter Jr. or Nick Pivetta this season. Against the Phils overall though, Lamb has had some success. In 61 official plate appearances, Lamb is .373/.459/.745 with four homers, eight free passes, and 13 RBI against the Phils.
Lamb’s zone is pretty wide. He hits fastballs all over the strikezone against righties. He hits the fastball extremely well and will occasionally chase away on the pitch. On breaking balls and offspeed pitches, it will be important for pitchers to bury them in on his feet. Pitches that sit on the outer part of the zone are fire red on his heat map.
A week removed from a 3-9 against the Phils, Lamb will try to continue his success against them. The Phillies look forward to trying to set him down over the weekend.
The Pitcher: Zack Greinke
This week does not provide a very difficult scenario. Zack Greinke is one of the top arms in baseball and has been for quite some time. The right-hander has dominated the Phillies before and will look to do the same in the wraparound series finale on Monday.
This season has been another strong one for the 13-year veteran. He has an 8-4 record with a very respectable 3.14 ERA and WHIP of 1.05 after 15 starts.
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Teams are scuffling to a .228 average against him and he is yet to reach 20 walks in almost 100 innings pitched. Greinke has reached six or more innings in ten of his starts, keeping the opposition to three or fewer runs in eleven.
Howie Kendrick and Odubel Herrera (a combined 7-25) are the only active Phillies with multiple hits against the righty. Freddy Galvis and Maikel Franco are 2-20 with nine strikeouts when facing Greinke. In ten appearances against them, Greinke has completely dominated the Phils. He has struck out nearly a batter per inning in 60 frames and holds a 2.54 ERA in games against Philly.
At home this season, he is a perfect 6-0 in his eight starts. In those 52 innings pitched, Greinke has struck out 69 batters, walked only nine, and has a 2.77 ERA. He has allowed 27 homers in 31 starts at Chase Field though. A look at Greinke’s splits shows that he does become stronger as the game moves along and is not phased by facing hitters multiple times.
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It may be because he has a mix of six tough pitches. He uses two different fastballs, a slider, and a changeup in a huge mix. All four of those pitches have been used nearly 200 times this season. He has accrued almost half of his punchouts by using his slider. His fastball and that slider are very difficult pitches to hit, seeing the .180 and .214 average against.
Get this. We may even see an eephus pitch.
Whether we do or not, Greinke is going to be very difficult on Monday.