The 2024 Arizona Diamondbacks were treading water for much of the first half of this season, trying to stay alive in a packed National League Wild Card race with contenders from coast to coast. Then, the All-Star break happened, and Arizona’s offense exploded.
Slow starts from Corbin Carroll and Eugenio Suarez completely vanished, as Arizona came out of the break with fiery bats only fit for the desert. Now, with less than two weeks to go in the regular season, the D-Backs lead all of baseball with 840 runs scored, a placement at the top of the sport they will most likely keep when the calendar switches to October. Oh, and they are currently tied with the Mets for the third Wild Card spot over the Braves (the Mets have the tiebreaker).
This has been an odd season for the National League’s newest team. An offseason highlighted by the pitching acquisitions of Eduardo Rodriguez and Jordan Montgomery turned sour due to injury or Scott Boras. Their poor performances on the mound, coupled with a thin D-Backs pitching staff behind Zac Gallen, have Arizona in the Bottom Four in terms of runs allowed in the 2024 MLB regular season, only ahead of the Marlins, White Sox, and Rockies (of course Colorado would still allow more runs than the 2024 ChiSox, and by a good margin, too). The offense tells a different story, anchored by offseason acquisitions like Suarez, Joc Pederson, and Randal Grichuk, who have all had great first years in Phoenix. The rest of the lineup has been nails as well; Ketel Marte is putting up an MVP-caliber year, while Geraldo Perdomo and Gabriel Moreno are echoing their 2023 seasons in limited time. All but one main contributor in the Diamondbacks lineup has an OPS+ over 100 (Perdomo has a 99), a feat that wasn’t even done by the 2023 Atlanta Braves (Orlando Arcia also finished with a 99).
This is a team that tripped and fell into the World Series in 2023 as an 84-win Wild Card team. They were always going to lose to the Rangers, whose stacked lineup had them in division-winning form all last year, until a late surge from the Astros pushed them to the five seed. But there’s no doubt that the Rangers were legitimate. I even wrote about their legitimacy after visiting Globe Life Field for the first time in mid-September, positing if the Rangers could slug their way to a world championship. Now, around a year since that blog was posted, the question has flipped: can the Arizona Diamondbacks slug their way to a Fall Classic finish for the ages?
First of all, these bozos have to get to the postseason. Their next three series include a Brewers team that just won the NL Central, a Giants team that is all but eliminated from postseason contention, and a dastardly matchup with the Padres that could determine the top Wild Card team in the NL. If they survive all of that, which I think they will, then they’ll be in position to put on a runs clinic in the postseason. Are the Diamondbacks the 2023 Rangers? Their offense might be better, but the pitching certainly isn’t. So it’ll be up to their star-studded lineup to punch their tickets to succeeding rounds. They might end up like the 2023 Braves, but just like last year, who knows what’s possible in that Sonora Desert air?
All I can say is that, if you see an “ARI” on the score bug in the postseason, Snakes alive.
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