Diamondbacks-Giants Preview: Hotel California
By Thomas Lynch
Cody Ross has four hits in his last eight at-bats. Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
The Arizona Diamondbacks will be finishing up their ten game California road trip with three games in AT&T Park against the San Francisco Giants. The D’backs were just swept by the Dodgers in Los Angeles while the Giants took two out of three on the road against their 2012 World Series opponents, the Detroit Tigers. Arizona, at 59-84 is only a half game in front of the last place Colorado Rockies while San Francisco, with a record of 78-65, trail the Dodgers by 3 1/2 games in the National League West but hold down the top spot in the Wild Card standings.
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The opener tonight has Wade Miley starting for the Snakes against Yusmeiro Petit. Miley, despite being 7-10, has thrown 183 innings in 2014 and is on pace to surpass the 202 he threw in 2013, a career high. Earlier this year, Petit set a Major League record by retiring 46 consecutive batters between July 22nd and August 28th. It was also at this time last year, September 6th to be exact, when Petit was one out away from recording a perfect game against the D’backs before Eric Chavez broke it up with a looping single to right field. On Wednesday, Josh Collmenter looks to record his team-leading and career-high 11th victory against Ryan Vogelsong. After appearing in two games in relief against the Giants in April, Collmenter started against them on June 20th. He pitched five innings of one run ball to pick up the victory. Voegelsong has had a tough year with an 8-10 record an a 4.06 ERA. He is 1-2 in three starts vs. Arizona in 2014. In Thursday’s finale, Randall Delgado gets another start this time facing Jake Peavy. Delgado’s return to the rotation was a successful one as he shutout the San Diego Padres for five innings, picking up his third victory. Peavy is 4-4 with a 2.36 ERA for San Francisco since coming over from the Boston Red Sox on July 26th. He is 14-12 with a 4.57 ERA in 30 career starts against the D’backs.
Cody Ross will be getting his third consecutive start in right field tonight in place of David Peralta who is nursing a sore back. Ross was 4 for 8 in the Dodgers’ series and has now reached his highest batting average of the season at .253. Catcher Miguel Montero leads the D’backs in RBI’s with 71. Outside of Trevor Cahill, the D’backs’ rotation hasn’t allowed more than two earned runs in five of the seven games on the road trip. The Giants’ Buster Posey who has beaten up the D’backs this season to the tune of a .356 batting average with three home runs and 11 RBI’s, was just named National League Player of the Week along with Washington’s Adam LaRoche. Another Snake killer, Brandon Belt, has been out since August 7th with a concussion and is nearing a return to baseball activities.