Diamondbacks Will Snake, Rattle, and Roll Past Giants Thursday
Arizona begins a four-game home series with San Francisco on Thursday at 9:40 ET. Arizona’s ace Zack Greinke will lead his squad to victory.
Giants at Diamondbacks
MLB Pick: Arizona
Arizona’s Zack Greinke (12-5, 2.96 ERA) is a reliable winner. His career win percentage in home games is 71.6, higher than the overall win percentage of every pitcher in MLB history except two. He’s showing great form, winning his last seven decisions in seven of his last eight starts (+7.05 units). He’s conceded two runs in his past 22.2 innings and hasn’t allowed over two runs in a start since June 18. His FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) was under 3.00 in six of his last seven starts.
Greinke relies primarily on his fastball. He throws it 44% of the time and relies on it most in every scenario. Greinke mixes in a curve, slider, and change-up with between 10 and 20 percent frequency. One key for him is location. He avoids the middle and higher regions of the plate. His eight most frequent pitch selections are on the peripheries and bottom row of the zone. He combines good location with control over the movement of his pitches to induce whiffs, particularly with his change-up, slider, and curveball. The first two are hard to track because they lack vertical movement but possess strong horizontal movement. The curveball creates an especially drastic change of velocity that keeps the hitter off-balance—in addition to its strong movement.
Another key for Greinke is creating similar vertical and horizontal release points. He alters which pitches have similar release points. Their similarity inhibits the batter’s ability to identify which pitch is approaching him, thereby slowing his reaction. Lastly, Greinke sequences pitches well in order to stay ahead of batters. For example, he’ll throw the same pitch three times simply because it’s unexpected.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Zack Greinke, 3 Pitch K Sequence/Painting By Sliders. ️️<br><br>[Also, watching Greinke's follow-throughs, he expected Iannetta hit the last two up the middle. ] <a href="https://t.co/BwKvSe4cof">pic.twitter.com/BwKvSe4cof</a></p>— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) <a href=" ">June 9, 2018</a></blockquote>
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In 240 career at-bats, the Giants hit .225 and slug .379 against him. Their BA leader, Buster Posey, slugs .271 against him. Their second-best hitter, Brandon Crawford, bats .231.
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San Francisco’s Madison Bumgarner (3-4, 3.06 ERA) has, in his short season so far, made his ERA plummet after shutting down Milwaukee, which hits southpaws poorly, at home. But he’s struggled away from home, allowing three or four runs in three of his four road starts. His FIP is 5.46 away, versus 2.89 at home.
The southpaw Bumgarner relies on a fastball-cutter-curve combo. His cutter has been his best pitch. Opponents are hitting .200 against it, although Arizona batted .625 against it in San Francisco. It shares similar release points with his change-up, so it’s hard for batters to tell which pitch approaches them. He is precise with it, most frequently locating it low and away on the border of the zone and mostly for a strike, and uses its horizontal movement to toy with the batter’s perception of whether it will be a ball or a strike and entice a whiff. Like his fastball, he ably uses it in all scenarios, making him more unpredictable. But his stuff is futile when he struggles to command it on the road, where he struggles to stay ahead of the count and avoid walking batters.
Arizona needed time to excel at home, where it ranked 27th in slugging through May, but 12th since then. It ranks 13th in slugging against Bumgarner’s top three pitches from lefties, but is metrically underachieving and enjoying statistical progression. Its slugging rate against those pitches is .43 higher in July home games than its season average.
Zona strengthened its already highly-ranked bullpen with the acquisition of Jake Diekman from Texas and Brad Ziegler and Miami. Ziegler hasn’t allowed a run since June 23 and Diekman has conceded only one run outside of hitters-friendly Texas. Moreover, T.J. McFarland hasn’t conceded in July and Archie Bradley has yielded only one hit in six innings against the Giants.
Arizona was swept at home by these Giants and will begin achieving revenge on Thursday.
Arizona begins a four-game home series with San Francisco on Thursday at 9:40 ET. Arizona’s ace Zack Greinke will lead his squad to victory.
Giants at Diamondbacks
MLB Pick: Arizona
Arizona’s Zack Greinke (12-5, 2.96 ERA) is a reliable winner. His career win percentage in home games is 71.6, higher than the overall win percentage of every pitcher in MLB history except two. He’s showing great form, winning his last seven decisions in seven of his last eight starts (+7.05 units). He’s conceded two runs in his past 22.2 innings and hasn’t allowed over two runs in a start since June 18. His FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) was under 3.00 in six of his last seven starts.
Greinke relies primarily on his fastball. He throws it 44% of the time and relies on it most in every scenario. Greinke mixes in a curve, slider, and change-up with between 10 and 20 percent frequency. One key for him is location. He avoids the middle and higher regions of the plate. His eight most frequent pitch selections are on the peripheries and bottom row of the zone. He combines good location with control over the movement of his pitches to induce whiffs, particularly with his change-up, slider, and curveball. The first two are hard to track because they lack vertical movement but possess strong horizontal movement. The curveball creates an especially drastic change of velocity that keeps the hitter off-balance—in addition to its strong movement.
Another key for Greinke is creating similar vertical and horizontal release points. He alters which pitches have similar release points. Their similarity inhibits the batter’s ability to identify which pitch is approaching him, thereby slowing his reaction. Lastly, Greinke sequences pitches well in order to stay ahead of batters. For example, he’ll throw the same pitch three times simply because it’s unexpected.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Zack Greinke, 3 Pitch K Sequence/Painting By Sliders. ️️<br><br>[Also, watching Greinke's follow-throughs, he expected Iannetta hit the last two up the middle. ] <a href="https://t.co/BwKvSe4cof">pic.twitter.com/BwKvSe4cof</a></p>— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) <a href=" ">June 9, 2018</a></blockquote>
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In 240 career at-bats, the Giants hit .225 and slug .379 against him. Their BA leader, Buster Posey, slugs .271 against him. Their second-best hitter, Brandon Crawford, bats .231.
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San Francisco’s Madison Bumgarner (3-4, 3.06 ERA) has, in his short season so far, made his ERA plummet after shutting down Milwaukee, which hits southpaws poorly, at home. But he’s struggled away from home, allowing three or four runs in three of his four road starts. His FIP is 5.46 away, versus 2.89 at home.
The southpaw Bumgarner relies on a fastball-cutter-curve combo. His cutter has been his best pitch. Opponents are hitting .200 against it, although Arizona batted .625 against it in San Francisco. It shares similar release points with his change-up, so it’s hard for batters to tell which pitch approaches them. He is precise with it, most frequently locating it low and away on the border of the zone and mostly for a strike, and uses its horizontal movement to toy with the batter’s perception of whether it will be a ball or a strike and entice a whiff. Like his fastball, he ably uses it in all scenarios, making him more unpredictable. But his stuff is futile when he struggles to command it on the road, where he struggles to stay ahead of the count and avoid walking batters.
Arizona needed time to excel at home, where it ranked 27th in slugging through May, but 12th since then. It ranks 13th in slugging against Bumgarner’s top three pitches from lefties, but is metrically underachieving and enjoying statistical progression. Its slugging rate against those pitches is .43 higher in July home games than its season average.
Zona strengthened its already highly-ranked bullpen with the acquisition of Jake Diekman from Texas and Brad Ziegler and Miami. Ziegler hasn’t allowed a run since June 23 and Diekman has conceded only one run outside of hitters-friendly Texas. Moreover, T.J. McFarland hasn’t conceded in July and Archie Bradley has yielded only one hit in six innings against the Giants.
Arizona was swept at home by these Giants and will begin achieving revenge on Thursday.
