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Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt hit his 33rd double of the season in Monday’s 9-1 win over the Miami Marlins. According to the team’s official Twitter account, that set a new franchise record for most two-baggers before the All-Star break.

The record-setting hit came in the fourth inning of Monday’s game, when Goldschmidt smacked a double to right-center field, scoring rookie outfielder David Peralta from third base.

While the double itself was impressive, it didn’t have much impact on the outcome, as the Diamondbacks already held a 6-0 lead at that point. Goldschmidt‘s RBI pushed it to 7-0.

According to Dave Zorn of 24/7 Sports, the Diamondbacks’ previous record holder for most doubles before the All-Star break was Luis Gonzalez, who hit 32 prior to the Midsummer Classic back in 2003.

Widely regarded as the most prolific hitter in the franchise’s brief history, Gonzalez is the Diamondbacks’ all-time leader in batting average (.298), home runs (224), doubles (310), RBI (774) and runs (780), among other categories.

Though he has a comfortable lead in most of those categories, Gonzalez will likely see many of his franchise records fall to the 26-year-old Goldschmidt, who already has 80 home runs, 292 RBI, 279 runs and 121 doubles through just 443 career games.

Assuming he stays in Arizona for the long haul, Goldschmidt—owner of a .294/.382/.526 career slash line—is well on his way to stealing Gonzalez’s title of best hitter in Diamondbacks history.

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Arizona Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt is a .542 career hitter vs. San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Tim Lincecum, which is important to consider when making your MLB picks Friday, as the two teams face off at Chase Field.

Sports bettors will find that the Diamondbacks are minus-113 home favorites in the pro baseball odds, with the betting total sitting at 9.0 in the market.

Let’s take a closer look at this National League West matchup from a betting perspective while offering up a prediction along the way.

Gambling stats via SBR Forum 

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Lost in the ugliness of the Arizona Diamondbacks‘ 4-14 start to the season and the team’s marquee hiring of Tony La Russa has been the gradual growth and development of the D-backs’ young core position players.

First baseman Paul Goldschmidt is a known quantity in the desert but still struggles for recognition on the national level. It’s too bad because there may not be a better pure hitter in the National League. Once the D-backs can identify a cleanup hitter to protect Goldschmidt long-term, his numbers could actually improve as he moves into his prime with more protection.

The 26-year-old Goldschmidt has followed up his 2013 season, where he finished second in the National League MVP voting to the Pittsburgh Pirates‘ Andrew McCutchen, by having another quality start to this season. While Goldschmidt‘s walks and OBP are down, the rest of his numbers look like they will be very much in line with what he did last season. It is reasonable to suspect that Goldschmidt has pressed to provide offense during Arizona’s terrible start to the season, causing the drop in walks and expanding his strike zone.

Where Arizona can be cautiously optimistic right now is in the development of center fielder A.J. Pollock and shortstop Chris Owings. Given the D-backs’ rough start to the season, the fact that both young players have thrived is a really good sign of their ability to deal with the grind of the regular-season MLB schedule.

Pollock is already one of the better defensive outfielders in the National League, but the surprising part of his game has been the continued growth of his offensive abilities. After 49 games, his batting average is solid at .301, and he has an improved OBP of .352. Both are really good signs, but the biggest improvement is in Pollock’s power. His slugging percentage this season is .518, well over his .409 number from 2013.

If there is an area of the 26-year-old Pollock’s game that the D-backs would like to see improve, it would be his walk rate and his ability to cut down on strikeouts. Pollock currently strikes out at a 3-1 ratio over his walks. If he can make that ratio closer to 2-to-1, Pollock will be an extremely effective and cost-controlled player for the D-backs through 2018.

If Pollock continues to have this type of season, I would expect the D-backs to take a long look at creating a contract extension that would take Pollock through his arbitration years and buy out a year or two of his free agency. With the television revenue that continues to come into the sport, MLB teams are making a concerted effort to lock up their young talent early.

As good as the start of the season has been for Pollock, the only player that has had a better start is Owings. The 22-year-old has been a revelation so far for the D-backs, making the deal last season for Didi Gregorius even more questionable. While Owings has slowed down from the hot start that earned him National League Rookie of the Month honors for April, he has still managed to have good at-bats.

Much like Pollock, Owings needs to work on cutting down on his strikeouts while improving his walks and on-base ability to move to the top of the lineup.  

Watching Owings play defensively has been the biggest surprise. Before the season, I believed the D-backs would have been better served to deal veteran Aaron Hill, slide Owings over to second base and insert Gregorius at short. Owings has played shortstop so well that the D-backs are moving Gregorius around the infield at the Triple-A level to increase his versatility.

When the D-backs start making deals at the deadline, Owings should be safely entrenched as the team’s shortstop this season and a potential building block for the future. If Owings can improve his offensive numbers during the season, I have to think the D-backs will eventually look at moving him into the leadoff spot or No. 2 hole based on his minor league numbers and solid speed.

If Hill is eventually dealt this season, Arizona can look at having Gregorius at second base, Owings at short and Pollock in center field, letting the D-backs build up through the middle with young players, a key for long-term contention in the NL West.

Now, it will be up to La Russa and the D-backs to determine if 30-year-old catcher Miguel Montero is the right fit for the team behind the plate. Montero is ranked No. 16 overall among regular catchers in baseball defensively and also struggles throwing out base stealers. The D-backs might be in the market for a defensive upgrade behind the plate.

While it is unlikely that the D-backs will turn the season around and get back into playoff contention, there are still many reasons to watch this team during the summer.

And three of those reasons will be to watch the continued growth and development of Goldschmidt, Pollock and Owings.

Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference and Fangraphs.

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In a move that was surprising and seemingly came out of left field, the Arizona Diamondbacks announced last Saturday that the organization hired Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa to become the team’s newly created chief of baseball operations. La Russa will report directly to team CEO Derrick Hall.

This move is a game changer for the D-backs. La Russa changes everything moving forward in the immediate future. The D-backs had seemingly been handcuffed during the team’s terrible start to the season by having limited in-house options to replace general manager Kevin Towers and manager Kirk Gibson.

La Russa brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, but the biggest thing he will bring to the desert is credibility and a history of success. La Russa is a known quantity, someone most baseball fans will know from his track record with the Oakland A’s and most recently the St. Louis Cardinals. In short, he can inspire confidence with the fans as the D-backs try to dig out of this hole.

As Fox Sports’ Jon Morosi points out in this tweet, La Russa has been involved in one losing season since 1999. One. Compare that to the D-backs’ six losing seasons and two .500 seasons since 1998 and you can see why La Russa will be empowered to bring consistency to the organization.

If the 69-year-old La Russa can bring a semblance of his success from the Cardinals to Arizona, this might turn out to be a franchise-changing decision. La Russa has won three World Series, six pennants and has 2,728 victories to his credit over his 33 years of managing in the game.

Just as impressive is that the Cardinals have hardly missed a beat since La Russa left the organization after the 2011 season. He set up the Cardinals to have long-term sustained success, something the D-backs have struggled to find since their inception in 1998.

It would seem fairly obvious that this move will eventually spell the end for Towers and maybe even Gibson in the desert. It is to the credit of Hall and managing general partner Ken Kendrick that Arizona seemed reluctant to make changes just for the sake of making a change. Firing Gibson after the team started 4-14 would have likely endeared the organization to the fans, even if it wasn’t the right move.

I am still not convinced that Gibson needs to go. I believe he was given a poor roster and a below-average pitching staff this season and asked to create magic. Towers is far more culpable for the poor trades and bad decisions that the organization has made since making the playoffs in 2011.

La Russa is likely to want to bring in more of his own people. He already has his longtime pitching coach Dave Duncan on board as the Diamondbacks pitching guru, former coach Dave McKay as the team’s first base coach and Roland Hemond involved in the team’s front office. It provides a level of comfort as La Russa learns the Arizona organization.

Outside of Arizona, La Russa might be tempted to raid the Cardinals for front-office help in the form of Cards director of player development Gary LaRocque, as Peter Gammons speculates here. Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal mentions bigger names such as Walt Jocketty and Al Avila in this article. If the D’Backs look for a new manager, USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale mentions St. Louis bench coach Mike Aldrete as an option, and ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick tabs Joe McEwing as a name to keep an eye on.

All of these names would figure to be in the mix for the D-backs given their ties to La Russa.

To his credit, La Russa made it very clear that he has no interest in managing again. Perfect. Find the next John Mozeliak or Jocketty to be general manager. See if Gibson can morph into Mike Matheny if given a better team and pitching staff.

This is a coup for Arizona. While this season looks like it is going to be remembered for wasted opportunities, it might ultimately be remembered for bringing about the necessary and needed changes to get the D-backs back on track.

Information used via Arizona Diamondbacks/Twitter, Baseball-Reference, Jon Morosi/Fox Sports, Peter Gammons, Ken Rosenthal/Fox Sports, Bob Nightengale/USA Today Sports, Jerry Crasnick/ESPN and MLB.com.

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As the Arizona Diamondbacks desperately search for answers amid a frustrating start, the team thinks it has found the man who can provide them. The Diamondbacks announced Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa will join the team in a newly created Chief Baseball Officer position.

La Russa will have final say on all baseball matters. Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times notes that general manager Kevin Towers, who previously controlled roster decisions, will stay on but now reports directly to La Russa.

Despite numerous moves from Towers designed for instant competition, the Diamondbacks are 16-28 and 11.5 games back in the NL West heading into Saturday’s action. They have given up by far the most runs in baseball (233) and sit high among the biggest disappointments of 2014.

Towers and manager Kirk Gibson were given contract extensions in February as a showing of good faith, but those feelings have quickly dissipated. Towers in particular has come under fire for his impatient roster building. The Diamondbacks have traded numerous top-level prospects and solid young players away in hopes of an instant impact that has not come.

“The entire organization is obviously frustrated with the results on the field and we are looking to improve,” Diamondbacks president and CEO Derrick Hall said in a statement. “Tony brings us a wealth of knowledge, experience and success, and will work closely with Kevin and Kirk in evaluating our current state to determine the future of our baseball operations.”

La Russa, 69, retired after 33 seasons as an MLB manager in 2011. Working with the Chicago White Sox, Oakland Athletics and St. Louis Cardinals, La Russa guided his clubs to three World Series championships and six appearances in the Fall Classic. He is third on the all-time wins list behind Connie Mack and John McGraw, and was unanimously elected to the 2014 Hall of Fame class by the Expansion Era Committee.

Since retiring, La Russa has stayed around baseball, serving as MLB’s executive vice president of baseball operations. He has worked closely with Joe Torre and commissioner Bud Selig on rule changes—most notably the new home-plate collision rule.

This will be La Russa’s first chance at running baseball operations for an individual franchise. In previous stops he had a say on roster choices, but the final buck never rested with him. In many ways, this role is not dissimilar to the New York Knicks’ hiring of Phil Jackson. Like Jackson, La Russa wanted to get back in the game without the day-to-day grind of coaching personalities and stressing over lineup decisions.

It will be interesting to see whether La Russa is up for the task. His first order of business will be finding a balance between instant competitiveness and long-term projections. Baseball Prospectus’ Jason Parks ranked the Diamondbacks 15th in his farm system rankings, while noting depth is still an issue. If players like Archie Bradley flame out, it will be difficult for Arizona to find the low-cost, high-production talent necessary to compete in today’s MLB.

La Russa will also have to decide the futures of Gibson and Towers. Their contract extensions likely give them a bit more rope than one would expect, but Arizona’s move to hire La Russa is a clear sign that no one is pleased. Towers has essentially been defanged by this move, while Gibson has been up-and-down since his 2011 Manager of the Year win.

With the Los Angeles Dodgers buying their way to contention, the San Francisco Giants a constant looming contender and the Colorado Rockies off to a surprisingly hot start, La Russa has his work cut out. His track record says the Diamondbacks are making a good bet. But like the Knicks are with Jackson, the Diamondbacks are hoping La Russa’s ability to instill a winning culture can translate from the locker room to the front office.

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In 2007, the Arizona Diamondbacks made a surprising run toward the playoffs and reached the National League Championship Series before finally falling short against the Colorado Rockies. Three years later, the architect for that surprising run, general manager Josh Byrnes, was fired in July 2010.

After starting this season by winning only nine of their first 31 games, the D’Backs look doomed to repeat that cycle. General manager Kevin Towers is likely to pay the price for Arizona’s struggles this season due to his questionable moves and the poor performance of the team’s core players and pitching staff.

Towers enjoyed early success in his tenure with the D’Backs, building the 2011 squad into a group that advanced to the 2011 National League Division Series before falling to the Milwaukee Brewers. Arizona looked to be a force in the NL West, primed for a strong three- to five-year stretch based on the depth of the team’s farm system, promising young core players and the improved financial flexibility.

Now, just three years later, almost all of the optimism around the organization has vanished. Much of the fault falls at the feet of Towers for building a poorly constructed team that has failed to capitalized on the window of opportunity that the franchise seemingly had.

It is hard to understand how things have gotten to this point.

Arizona has good ownership, led by Ken Kendrick. Kendrick has been surprisingly approachable while running the team and has seemed to grow into the role as managing general partner. The D’Backs are completely involved and invested in all of the communities of Arizona, operating as great ambassadors of MLB.

The man who Kendrick has picked to run the day-to-day operations of the franchise, Derek Hall, is one of the most genuine and engaged executives in the game.

Hall should find himself on the short list of candidates to replace outgoing commissioner Bud Selig when Selig finally steps down. Hall has the experience of working in a large market with the Los Angeles Dodgers and a mid-market like Arizona. His background in media, communications and business only add to his resume as MLB looks to embrace the new age of social media and lure back younger fans.

Towers has a lengthy resume built in the game among his time with the San Diego Padres and now the D’Backs. Towers has been very accountable with the media concerning the D’Backs‘ struggles and has a strong reputation within the game. But in his 17 years as a general manager, his teams have only made it to the playoffs five times and have only had a winning season in seven of those 17 seasons.

Manager Kirk Gibson is in a tough spot.

He is tied at the hip with Towers, and both men seem to genuinely like and support each other. But the D’Backs, as currently constructed, are not winning anything. And much of the blame goes back to the construction of the pitching staff and the poor player evaluations that the team has made over the past three seasons.

While Gibson might appease his critics by throwing things and calling out his players, he has continued to operate like a professional who has been placed in a no-win situation.

If Gibson is sacrificed, it won’t be because he is to blame for this mess. It is simply because it is the easiest thing to do before blowing up this roster. Arizona talked about being a playoff team this season, not scouting for next season’s draft. It’s not fair, but the D’Backs cannot afford to go through an entire summer with an empty building.

With all of this executive talent, it is hard to understand how this organization has drifted so off track again so quickly. When the D’Backs fired Byrnes, they were undertaking a culture change within the organization. The man they finally picked to replace him, Towers, was basically the polar opposite of Byrnes in terms of building an organization and establishing the organization’s philosophy.

Where Byrnes favored the new-age analytics of the sport, Towers was much more of an old-school executive. Byrnes was viewed as a young, paper-pushing bureaucrat, while Towers was viewed as a wily, seasoned veteran.

Many of the moves that Towers has made during his tenure in the desert fly in the face of the information that is readily available to all of the team’s in MLB and have left the organization open to much criticism. Continually trading away prospects while trying to build a successful mid-market team is virtually impossible to do.

The numbers don’t lie. Arizona features the worst pitching staff ERA (5.20) in the major leagues and an offense that is in the middle of the majors in runs. All of this coming with a franchise-high payroll of almost $113 million to start the season.

Barring a miraculous turnaround, the D’Backs will likely be forced to make changes with Towers and Gibson during the month of May if things continue to trend in a negative direction.

Towers is likely to leave the D’Backs in worse condition then when he was hired, leaving a below-average farm system, high payroll, bad contracts and very little quality starting pitching outside of Wade Miley, an injured Patrick Corbin and top prospect Archie Bradley.

The next general manager and manager of the D’Backs will need to be people who can combine the old-school mentality of Towers with the new-school analytics of Byrnes. They will need to be able to build a consensus and adhere to a three-year plan while developing a blueprint for this team to become a perennial contender.

Change is coming for the D’Backs, and it’s incredibly important that Kendrick and Hall hit a home run with their next moves in order to get the franchise back on track.  

Information used from FanGraphs, Cot’s Baseball Contracts/Baseball Prospectus.

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Starting the season off with a 4-8 record is probably not what Arizona Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson had in mind.

The team began 1-7, marking it the worst start in franchise history, with one more loss in the first eight games than the club’s inaugural season in 1998. And after finishing the past two seasons with an 81-81 finish, winning one game in eight tries is going to start raising concerns.

That is why Major League Baseball has a season that is 162 games long. The Diamondbacks can get going at any point and turn things around in the NL West. After all, the club has won three out of its last four, including its first series win against the San Francisco Giants.

However, there are a few things that must vastly improve if the Diamondbacks are going to compete in this division and for a playoff spot. Arizona is falling behind in some major categories that will keep it shackled at the bottom of the West.

The Starting Rotation

The Diamondbacks rotation took a hit when Patrick Corbin was forced to undergo Tommy John surgery a couple of weeks ago.

As good as Corbin was in 2013, he couldn’t have helped this staff get off to a better start. The rotation has a collective 6.57 ERA and one fewer strikeout than the bullpen in 20 more innings pitched. The staff as a whole has an ERA of 5.86, good for second worst in all of baseball.

This chart shows the early season statistics for the starting rotation.

The offense is scoring runs but it won’t do the club any good if the rotation can’t go deep into ballgames. Josh Collmenter needs to be considered for a move back to the rotation, and Mike Bolsinger, currently pitching at Triple-A Reno, needs a shot in the big leagues.

Giving them a shot against the Los Angeles Dodgers would be a good start. The Dodgers have a team batting average of .251 and do most of their damage against strictly finesse pitchers.

Wade Miley pitched well against the Dodgers in his first start but only went five innings due to the odd scheduling. With help from his offense, Miley should have a longer leash and shut down an L.A. team that is hitting just .198 against left-handed pitching.

The Bullpen

The bullpen is also to blame for the team’s misfortunes.

After tying the Houston Astros for most blown saves in the bigs last season (29), the Diamondbacks have already managed to blow three saves in seven opportunities this season.

Five relievers have a WHIP of at least 1.500 and free passes have come at an overwhelming rate. In 43 innings, the bullpen has given up 23 walks and 23 earned runs. Collectively, the bullpen has a 4.81 ERA and a WHIP of 1.512.

As previously mentioned, the rotation needs to go deeper into ballgames. Not only will it take pressure off the offense but it will also take pressure off of the bullpen which has already made 41 total appearances in 12 games.

The series against the Dodgers could be a good opportunity to build confidence, though. The Dodgers are hitting just .195 against relief pitching and have scored just eight runs during the final three innings.

Clutch Hitting

The club has one of the more potent offenses in baseball, but timely hitting has been an issue.

It isn’t as if the D’Backs aren‘t scoring runs, considering they average 4.25 runs per game and have scored at least five runs seven times this season. It is when they aren’t scoring that has been the issue. The chart below breaks down the innings where Arizona has been most successful.

Through the first 12 games, the Diamondbacks are hitting .212 with runners in scoring position, including just five extra-base hits and 24 strikeouts. That batting average drops to .125 with RISP and two outs, which is good for fifth worst in baseball.

They won their first extra-inning game of the season on April 10. Scoring runs late in games with a shady bullpen will be imperative to keeping pace with the rest of the division.

The offense ruined an eight-strikeout performance by Wade Miley in the first game against the Dodgers in Australia and mustered just two hits against Hyun-Jin Ryu in the second game. The Diamondbacks have a collective .302 batting average against the South Korean and need to live up to it to give their staff support against the Dodgers’ productive offense.

Although stout, the Dodgers bullpen is prone to giving up walks (19) and home runs (4). The Diamondbacks can improve their clutch-hitting numbers in Los Angeles if they can work the count and take advantage of pitches up in the zone.

All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com

You can follow Trey on Twitter @treydwarren

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The rivalry between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers is the “new kid on the block” among some of the more notable ones in baseball. But it sure has picked up steam in a hurry over the past few years.

The start could be traced back to a relatively meaningless September game in 2011 when a Diamondbacks batter was buzzed by an errant pitch from Dodgers reliever Hong-Chih Kuo, who threw a lot of them that season, walking 23 hitters in 27 innings. That batter, Gerardo Parra, launched a home run later in the at-bat and then took his time as he made his way around the bases.

Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw hit Parra with a pitch the next night, which prompted his ejection. There was no brawl and no further conflict—at least not right away.

It wasn’t until the following May, the first time Kershaw had faced the D’backs since the altercation, that the battle resumed. 

Ian Kennedy, the starting pitcher for the D’backs, threw a pitch well inside to Kershaw, who responded by throwing high and inside to Kennedy later in the game.

Again, things didn’t escalate beyond that—at least not right away. 

More than a year later, things finally did. Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig, who was playing in just his 9th big league game and had already made a tremendous impact with 16 hits, including four homers, was hit in the face by a Kennedy pitch in the bottom of the sixth inning.

A half-inning later, Dodgers starter Zack Greinke hit catcher Miguel Montero with a pitch. Benches emptied but things remained calm. It was nothing more than a good old-fashioned stare down between the clubs out near the first base bag. 

It didn’t end there. Kennedy went head-hunting again, nearly connecting with Greinke‘s face with a pitch during the very next half-inning. 

Enough was finally enough. The boiling point had finally been reached. Benches emptied and the two sides weren’t interested in a stare down this time around.

It was the Dodgers who had the laugh last, though. 

As if erasing a 9.5-game lead that the D’backs had built up by June 21 and then running away with the division wasn’t enough, the Dodgers clinched the NL West title with a win in Arizona on September 19 and then celebrated in the Chase Field swimming pool located just beyond the right-center field wall.
 

Several Diamondbacks players and club officials, including president and CEO Derrick Hall, took exception to the Dodgers’ manner of celebration.

Hall responded sarcastically in an email: “I could call it disrespectful and classless, but they don’t have a beautiful pool at their old ballpark and probably wanted to see what one was like.

Utilityman Willie Bloomquist called it “disrespectful and classless”. 

Even with an incident-free two-game series in Australia between the teams last month and Kennedy, one of the central figures in the feud, now pitching for the San Diego Padres, we can’t say for sure whether the bad blood has died down. 

It has become quite obvious that these teams can’t decide when things will be “even.” I doubt any of them are keeping count. These teams hate each other right now and, as long as no one gets seriously hurt, it’s great for baseball. 

Baseball has many storied rivalries. The Yankees and Dodgers have faced off in the World Series 11 times. The Red Sox and Yankees began with the “Curse of the Bambino” in 1918 and the rivalry has intensified over the last few decades. But right now the Diamondbacks and Dodgers have, arguably, baseball’s most interesting rivalry. 

A four-game series between the Yankees, who spent $438 million to land four impact players this past offseason, and the defending champion Red Sox started yesterday. It has to top the “must-watch” list for any baseball fan. But it’s harder to sell it as a heated rivalry when the Yankees’ starting lineup on Thursday included six players who weren’t even with the organization last season and a starting pitcher, Michael Pineda, who missed the past two seasons recovering from shoulder surgery. 

Of the players currently on the Diamondbacks’ 25-man roster, 20 of them were active when the Dodgers clinched the division title on their home field last September. A majority of that group was involved in the June brawl. The Dodgers roster hasn’t changed much, either.

Tonight they’ll go head-to-head at Chase Field for the first time since the swimming pool incident. Things haven’t started off well for the D’backs, who have already dropped two games to the Dodgers and are 3-8 overall. If they’re going to even things out in the standings, this weekend would be a good time to start.

As for which team needs to “even” things out in the ongoing feud, that’s anybody’s guess. You’ll just have to watch and find out.

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The Arizona Diamondbacks are off to one of the club’s worst starts in franchise history, starting 2-7 for the first time since 2003.

After having an off-day on April 7, the D’Backs begin a three-game series at the San Francisco Giants on April 8. The Giants have already beaten the D’Backs three times after playing a four-game series last week.

Although the offense has provided plenty of runs, the Diamondbacks need a boost from their pitching staff.  The club has a collective 6.15 ERA and Wade Miley is the only pitcher with a crooked number in the win column.

It is early but this is a crucial series for the Diamondbacks. Pitching is going to play a vital role in the club’s attempt to win its first series of the season.

Trevor Cahill vs. Tim Hudson

The first of the three-game series will feature Trevor Cahill and Tim Hudson taking the mound against each other for the second time this season.

It was Cahill’s best start of the season so far. Unfortunately, it was also the same game that the offense was shut out for the first and only time this season. This chart shows the numbers for both pitchers during the April 2 matchup.

Cahill is going to need another strong performance for Arizona to come away with the win. The Giants have scored the fourth-most runs and have the third-best slugging percentage in Major League Baseball.

Plus, Hudson has a career 8-1 record and 1.99 ERA against the Diamondbacks.

Bronson Arroyo vs. Tim Lincecum

Wednesday’s matchup will be more favorable for the Diamondbacks.

Bronson Arroyo has pitched well throughout his career against the Giants, although he lasted just 4.1 innings on April 3 after hitting the 82-pitch mark. He missed most of spring training with a sore back and should have a longer leash for his second start.

Tim Lincecum has not fared well against the current Arizona offense. Most notably, Paul Goldschmidt has hit six homers off Lincecum in 23 career at-bats. The fifth home run can be seen in the video.

This chart shows the success of three Diamondbacks against Lincecum.

For the Diamondbacks, allowing Arroyo to lift his pitch count will be the difference.

Randall Delgado vs. Ryan Vogelsong

The final game of the three-game series also leans in favor of the Diamondbacks.

Randall Delgado has given up just two runs in three career starts against the Giants while holding the current roster to a .193 batting average over 18.2 innings.

Ryan Vogelsong has not had the same success against the Diamondbacks. Only Mark Trumbo and Cliff Pennington have failed to record a hit against Vogelsong in 11 combined at-bats. The rest of the offense has a collective .306 batting average.

Vogelsong’s inability to keep Arizona hitters off base gives Delgado the advantage. It is a good opportunity for the 24-year-old to get his first win of the season.

Given the pitching matchups, the Diamondbacks have an opportunity to win their first series of the season. It is also an opportunity for the rotation to gain some confidence moving forward.

All stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and ESPN.com

You can follow Trey on Twitter @treydwarren

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It was revealed last weekend that the Arizona Diamondbacks could soon be facing a worst-nightmare scenario. Now it’s official: They are facing a worst-nightmare scenario.

And not even the best pitching prospect in baseball is likely to save them from it.

If you’ve been out of the loop, D-Backs ace Patrick Corbin exited his final spring tune-up last Saturday with a stiff forearm and was revealed to have damage to his left ulnar collateral ligament the next day.

That typically means Tommy John surgery. And according to Steve Gilbert of MLB.com, Corbin finally went under the knife on Tuesday:

By FanGraphs’ WAR, the 24-year-old lefty was Arizona’s best starter in 2013. The Diamondbacks came into the spring with him as their default No. 1 starter, and Kirk Gibson eventually picked him to start the club’s season opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Australia.

Well, the D-Backs need a new ace now. With the free-agent market all dried up, it’s only natural to wonder if Arizona might be able to fill that need from within by inserting top prospect Archie Bradley in its rotation and then watching him do the rest.

Mind you, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com was pondering the possibility of Bradley—who is MLB.com’s No. 5 overall prospect—breaking camp in Arizona’s rotation even before Corbin got hurt. He has sky-high potential after all, and the door was already open for him with Bronson Arroyo battling a bad back.

With Corbin out of the picture, Bradley opening 2014 in Arizona’s rotation is even more likely.

But him stepping in and filling Corbin’s shoes as Arizona’s top starter? That’s asking too much.

What we need is some context for what filling Corbin’s shoes entails. We can do that by using FanGraphs to juxtapose Corbin’s 2013 production with his ZiPS projections for 2014:

ZiPS was basically projecting more of the same. And for further perspective, that 3.2 projected WAR was actually better than what ZiPS has projected for guys like Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, C.J. Wilson and Justin Masterson.

ZiPS was expecting Corbin to be one of MLB’s best starters. 

What this means is that there are only a handful of established MLB pitchers who fit the profile of a capable replacement for Corbin. It’s therefore no surprise that ZiPS doesn’t see a prospect like Bradley as being even remotely close:

Bradley jumping to the major leagues out of spring training would be a case of him skipping right past Triple-A. That’s a big leap for any prospect to make, and likely the key reason why ZiPS has such a modest strikeout rate projected for him.

I actually think that projection is a bit too modest, as a jump from Double-A to the majors wouldn’t harm his stuff. Which is quite good, by the way, as Bradley throws in the mid-90s with a curveball that Bleacher Report’s Mike Rosenbaum classifies as “plus-plus.” 

At the same time, more strikeouts than what ZiPS is projecting would only help Bradley so much if that projection for his walk rate were to pan out. And therein lies a complication: That projection is fair.

One of the bigger knocks against Bradley is that his command is still iffy, and that’s backed up by the numbers. You can see the iffy walk rate he had at Double-A last year, and that followed up a 5.59 BB/9 at Single-A in 2012.

He hasn’t inspired confidence in his command so far this spring either, walking six in 8.1 innings in Cactus League play and three more in three-and-two-thirds innings in an exhibition against Team Australia.

Via ESPN.com, D-Backs manager Kirk Gibson granted that Bradley just didn’t have good command against Team Australia. The pitcher also granted that he didn’t have good command in his previous exhibition outing against the Seattle Mariners either.

“In the ‘pen, I felt good,” Bradley said, via MLB.com. “I was throwing strikes. I really felt good with where I was at and then at the start of the game just lost it. It’s never good when you’re throwing 90 percent of your pitches out of the stretch. Just never could find consistency or really get comfortable. Just could never find a good spot and get where I felt good throwing the ball.”

Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic was there to see Bradley’s outing against Seattle, and what he saw was a pitcher who was paying for issues that had been more hidden in previous outings:

In re-watching Bradley’s outing against the Los Angeles Angels on March 8, I could see what Piecoro was talking about. Bradley looked very sharp when he set the Angels down in order in the first inning, but in the innings after that one, his release point got to be hit or miss. So too, not surprisingly, was his accuracy.

The other thing people say about Bradley is that his changeup isn’t there yet. Rosenbaum wrote that it’s a pitch with “above-average potential,” which of course means it’s not above-average now. A scout that Heyman spoke to agreed, saying that Bradley’s changeup is “developing.”

You can catch a glimpse of said changeup right off the chute in this highlight video from Bradley’s start against the Angels:

The result was good, as that changeup froze Albert Pujols for strike three. But beyond the result, it wasn’t a particularly great pitch.

It wasn’t actually a strike, for one. More importantly, it didn’t have the kind of late-breaking movement you want to see in a changeup. It was a lot more loopy. 

Tracking that changeup’s movement using still images, we see this:

Bradley was able to catch Pujols off guard, but the fear with a changeup that’s more of a looper than a late-breaker is that hitters will be able to pick it up—especially once the scouting report starts getting around, which is inevitable with every young pitcher.

Granted, a pitcher doesn’t necessarily need three outstanding pitches to make it in the majors. In fact, we just saw two youngsters have outstanding seasons just with heaters and breaking balls in 2013.

St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Shelby Miller was one. Per FanGraphs, he threw 71.3 percent heaters and 18.4 percent curves. He still managed a 3.06 ERA over 173.1 innings.

Jose Fernandez was the other. FanGraphs classified some of his breaking balls as sliders last year, but Brooks Baseball says he featured more than 50 percent four-seamers and more than 30 percent curveballs. He still managed a 2.19 ERA (drool…) across 172.2 innings.

There’s a difference between these two guys and Bradley, however. Miller began his pro career with good command and eventually got a full season in Triple-A to further refine it (3.29 BB/9 in 27 starts). Fernandez made an eye-popping jump from Single-A to the majors last year, but he did so after walking only 2.4 per nine innings across two A-ball levels in 2012.

What their success tells us is this: If you’re going to enter the league with only two quality pitches, you better be able to control them. That’s an area where Bradley still needs some work.

Because he does have overpowering stuff, I’ll wager that he could survive in the big leagues right now. But because he’s still in the developmental phase of his career, it would be more like on-the-job training than anything else. Something like the 4.29 ERA in his ZiPS projections sounds about right.

That’s good enough for the back end of the rotation, sure. But not good enough for the top of the rotation.

Bradley is going to be Arizona’s ace eventually. It would be awfully convenient for him to become the club’s ace now, as it would downgrade the loss of Corbin from “haymaker” to mere “love tap.”

That, however, would require him to be a pitcher that he’s just not ready to be quite yet.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.

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