Arizona Diamondbacks: Goldschmidt is as good as it gets

Arizona Diamondbacks’ Paul Goldschmidt isn’t showing signs of slowing down.

The first baseman went 3-for-4 in the 2-1 victory over the San Francisco Giants. He ended the night with two singles, a double and two RBI. Goldschmidt, affectionately known as Goldy, drove in both of the Diamondbacks runs.

Is it the road trip? In eight straight games away from Chase Field, Goldschmidt is 12-for-28 at the plate (.429 average), with four home runs, 10 RBI and 3 walks.

Is it the month of August? Only four days in, but Goldschmidt is batting .571 so far. Of the eight hits he has collected this month, four of them have given the Diamondbacks the lead.

With his hot bat, Goldschmidt is making it harder and harder to ignore his bid for National League MVP.

After Thursday’s three-homer night and Friday’s 3-for-4 performance, Goldschmidt is undoubtedly the reason the Diamondbacks are holding onto their half-game lead in the Wild Card race.

Goldschmidt is a top ten batter in the National League, leading the league in WAR (5.2) and tied with Los Angeles Dodger Justin Turner in OBP (.443).

While Goldschmidt is going to take over the highlights for tonight, Anthony Banda’s start in place of Robbie Ray was a positive sign for the young lefty.

His second career start, Banda pitched 6.0 innings, giving up one run on three hits and four walks, but striking out seven.

Banda’s command wasn’t as tight as the Diamondbacks would have liked it to be. Out of the 92 pitches the 23-year-old threw, only 52 of them were strikes, leading to the four walks. However, Banda was able to get out of jams and stay calm in stressful situations.

He was followed by three consecutive perfect innings from the Diamondbacks bullpen. Jorge De La Rosa earned two strikeouts in the seventh and David Hernandez made his second appearance after his return to the team.

Fernando Rodney earned the save, his 25th of the season.
Taijuan Walker will take the mound tomorrow against Chris Stratton. The Giants moved Matt Cain to the bullpen.

The Diamondbacks did receive a wave of good news today. Ketel Marte was reactivated from the bereavement list and joined the team in San Francisco, while Yasmany Tomas began base-running activities and Robbie Ray resumed baseball activities.

The Diamondbacks have now won five of their last eight and they have two more left in this road trip.