2023 Diamondbacks: Who’s hot and who’s not? (2.0)
On to better and brighter days right? Arizona will attempt to bounce back against the Kansas City Royals tonight after losing 3 out of 4 against the San Diego Padres. Fernando Tatis Jr. and Joe Musgrove made their season debuts and they didn’t seem to miss a beat.
Their returns to the team solidified that the Padres now have the 6 stones of the infinity gauntlet set into place (Fernando Tatis Jr., Juan Soto, Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts, Yu Darvish, and Joe Musgrove).
After a rough weekend of baseball, the Diamondbacks are now tied with the Dodgers for first place in the NL West (12-11). They will battle with a sad Royals team that is currently 5-17. Time to take care of business.
Heading into this 3 game series against Kansas City, let’s look at who has been hotter than the Phoenix sun for the Diamondbacks, and who has been colder than the North Pole.
Diamondbacks players that are hot 🔥
Ketel Marte is on a heater recently and I am convinced that an AI robot was actually playing for him last year, that wasn’t the real Ketel. In the last 7 days, Ketel has truly looked like his former self with a bat in his hand; here are his numbers at the plate from the past week: 11 hits, 4 RBIs, 5 runs, 1.111 OPS.
With a torrid week at the dish, Ketel is now tied with the team lead in hits, and he has an OPS above .800 21 games into the young season.
KETEL. MARTE. 💣 pic.twitter.com/MCON69a9mr
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) April 18, 2023
Losing Daulton Varsho via trade was difficult, but all aboard the Gabriel Moreno hype train. In 20 at-bats this past week, Moreno racked up 8 hits, 7 RBIs, and 3 runs. Over the last 7 days, he has an OPS of 1.029. We all knew this kid could hit, but don’t be surprised if he finishes the season blowing away your expectations for him.
Diamondbacks players that are not hot 🥶
Josh Rojas has been providing Arizona with quality at-bats and production all season, until this past week. In the past 7 days, Rojas went 6-30 (.200) with 9 strikeouts; in his last 2 games, he is 0-7 with 3 strikeouts.
Every good hitter goes through their slumps; let’s just hope that Rojas can break out of his against the horrible pitching of the Kansas City Royals.
Things haven’t gone as planned for reliever Peter Solomon. Let's just say that last week was a rough one for him. In 6 innings pitched, Solomon gave up 5 hits, 7 walks, and 9 earned runs.
Besides his strong outing in Miami (3.0 IP, 0 ER) it has been tough sledding for the 26-year-old. If he can’t find a solution here soon, the Diamondbacks only solution might be sending him to Reno to regain his confidence.