Know Your Snakes - May 15-17

[Frayed Knot]

Arizona Diamondbacks: 22-17; +28 Run differential, 3rd place NL West 3 games behind 1st Colorado?!?

The surprising part about the 2017 DBacks is that they’ve gone from worst pitching in all the NL in 2016 to top half (6th best) this season without making a lot of changes (NYM pitching is now officially DFL, btw).
Their big off-season move was to import RHP Taijuan Walker from Seattle for a package of players around SS Jean Segura but Walker's been merely OK so far and they've since lost Shelby Miller to TJ surgery (although
that might be an improvement given how he's pitched). Also nominal closer Fernando Rodney has just plain sucked [9.22 ERA, 1.89 WHIP].
As usual they hit: 2nd in the NL in RS/G

On the injury side they lost 3 position players in the last two days which I previously thought was something only we could pull off.
CF AJ Pollack went down on Sunday with a pulled groin and it’s sounding like that one may be a while, and this is after he missed virtually all of 2016 and he’s easily their best player after Goldschmidt so this one’s gonna leave a mark.
RF David Peralta also left Sunday’s game with the always popular “glute tightness” which, coincidentally, is a box you need to check on a HOOTERS job application.
And on Saturday part-time catcher Chris Ianetta took a pitch in the face and is now on the concussion DL

C - Jeff Mathis: .154/.179/.292
1B - Paul Goldschmidt: .314/.450/.584 (10 HR) … IOW, his usual under-publicized awesomeness
2B - Brandon Drury: .322/.364/.496
SS: Nick Ahmed: .267/.321/.467
3B: Jake Lamb: .273/.358/.482
LF - Yasmany Tomas: .248/.299/.487
Not sure who we’ll see in CF & RF as Pollack & Peralta were pretty much everyday guys


Mon 9:40 - Zach Wheeler vs Zack Godley [1-0; 2.25; 1.00]
This will be the 27 y/o Godley’s 3rd start of this season and the 8th of his ML career having pitched parts of 2015-16 w/the DBacks

Tuesday 9:40 — Tommy Milone vs Zack Greinke [8 GS, 4-2; 2.79; 1.03]
Greinke seems to alternate between good seasons and (relatively) bad. Right now he’s in the midst of a ‘good’ as his 58 K / 9 BBs ratio suggests.
Lots of Zack(h)s this week.

Wednesday 3:40 — the starting pitcher will be this guy: [fimg=150:2qwx43v3]http://www.onlineseats.com/upload/concerts/2307_con_Harvey_Korman_2.jpg[/fimg:2qwx43v3]
Oh wait, it'll actually be Harvey [u:2qwx43v3]vs[/u:2qwx43v3] Corbin ... my bad.
Patrick Corbin (L) [3-4; 4.17; 1.39] We’ve faced him a couple times over the years and have usually beat him up pretty good (5 games/4 starts, 6.04 ERA)

[Edgy MD]

Ex-Mets Snaking Their Way Through Life

• Bench Coach Ron Gardenhire
  
• Batting Coach Dave Magadan
  
• Special Assistant to the President & CEO J.J. Putz
  
• Vice President, Latin Operations, Junior Noboa
  
• Special Assistant to the GM Craig Shipley
  
• Heartland Area Scout Tony Piazza

Mets Who Have Shed Their Scales

• Closer-as-of-This-Morning Addison Reed
  
• Third Base Coach Glenn Sherlock (had spent 19 years as a coach for the Diamondbacks, dating back to their inception!)
  
• Bench Coach Dick Scott (minor league manager and major league scout for Arizona)

Batting Coach Kevin Long resides in Arizona, as I imagine 25% of all MLB-affiliated dudes do.

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy MD wrote: [*]Special Assistant to the GM Craig Shipley

So we've gone directly from the Brewers to Shipley?

MNKL9onYB_8

[Fman99]

I know my snake, pal.