Greetings from the dizzy heights of fourth-place (by a couple of thousandths of W%, anyway). Can Arizona complete the sweep over San Diego this afternoon at Petco?
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Diamondbacks Lineup
- Ender Inciarte - CF
- Gerardo Parra - RF
- Paul Goldschmidt - 1B
- Miguel Montero - C
- Aaron Hill - 2B
- Martin Prado - 3B
- David Peralta - LF
- Nick Ahmed - SS
- Mike Bolsinger - P
Odrisamer Despaigne sounds like an entirely made-up name, like a Bond villain or something taken from a poorly-translated Japanese role-playing game for an obscure console. I keep thinking it should be an anagram of something that reveals his true identity, but all I've been able to come up with is "Gardenia moped rises", which doesn't appear to be much of a clue. Still, we'd be foolish to take him lightly, considering that in his major-league debut, he blanked the Giants for seven, holding them to four walks and no hits on the road. We haven't had a starter put up seven shutout vs. SF in over three years and 56 attempts, since Ian Kennedy in June 2011. So: be warned.
From the Diamondbacks' side, this marks the major-league debut, wearing #13, of Nick Ahmed That number was previously worn with Arizona by (the presumably non-superstitious) Jason Kubel and Rodrigo Lopez, so let's hope Ahmed works out a bit better. A little surprised to see him start today. I'd have though the injury would mean Hill and Didi Gregorius would be the everyday starters, and Ahmed would be relegated to the Cliff Pennington role. Nick Evans can only watch - from the bench, naturally - enviously. Be good if we could finish off the Padres, complete the sweep and claim sole possession of fourth by the end of the day.