The Diamondbacks Are Snake Bit
Back on May 3rd, the Diamondbacks’ record for the season stood at a respectable 15-13. No one was counting on them overtaking the Dodgers and Padres, surely, but they seemed poised to contend with the Giants for a third-place finish in the division. They weren’t flashy, but if they had gone on to catch a few lucky breaks, who knows what could have happened. Spoiler alert: they did not. Their moderate success was a flash in the pan, a mirage in the Arizona desert. Snake oil.
After their 17th loss in a row on Sunday, their record now holds at 20-53. Think their 11-22 home record is bad? They’re 9-31 as the road team, with their last win outside of Chase Field occurring way back on April 25th, when they swept a doubleheader against the Braves. Curiously, the second game of that doubleheader was Madison Bumgarner’s quasi-no-hitter that only lasted seven innings. Since John Means threw his no-hitter in Seattle on Cinco de Mayo, his Orioles have gone on to lose their next 19 games on the road, approaching the 22-game record that stood before the D’Backs broke it this year. Call it the curse of the no-hitter? Blame it on mlb betting sites in PA?
Arizona’s now-23 straight road losses broke a historical record shared by the 1943 Athletics and 1963 Mets, each losers of 22 straight road contests. On top of that, Arizona has lost 17 straight overall, and their -107-run differential on the year is ten runs worse than the next worst in that category (the Pirates). So why have they been this bad so far? You can’t give credit to any one player of theirs – it’s been a team effort. However, their least valuable player this season in terms of WAR has been Christian Walker (-0.7 WAR), which is especially disappointing since he was such a solid contributor the last two years. Tim Locastro (-0.5 WAR), Josh VanMeter (-0.4 WAR) and Merrill Kelly (-0.2 WAR) are a few more of the disappointments, and honorable mention to Domingo Leyba (-0.4 WAR) for failing to collect a hit in his 24 plate appearances.
You’d think that manager Torey Lovullo has already had at least a few closed-door meetings with his group, but the air of hopelessness has to be pretty thick around the clubhouse these days. He’s almost surely a goner after the season, I’d have to imagine. Fangraphs has given the woefully run Colorado Rockies a 0.0% chance of making the playoffs, and the Diamondbacks are sitting ten games behind them. Winning a series seems like an impossible dream, but surely every player in Arizona has to be praying for just one win to break this unholy tailspin.
Looking ahead to the trade deadline, the D-Backs are sure-fire sellers. There have already been rumblings that they’re talking with the White Sox about an Eduardo Escobar trade, and he’s probably the most attractive piece they would consider moving before the offseason – though since he will be a free agent at that point, the return will be pretty modest. Further tamping down the return will be his paltry .280 OBP between this year and last, though he has clubbed 15 homers and been worth 1.2 WAR already this year. Stars Ketel Marte and Zac Gallen probably aren’t going anywhere just yet, nor will Carson Kelly, though he just had his wrist broken by Walker Buehler to add insult to injury (literally). As far as other players likely to be shipped out of town next month, rentals Asdrúbal Cabrera and David Peralta are two – but other than the guys mentioned in this paragraph, there just isn’t that much here that other teams would bother calling about.
The Diamondbacks now can claim the longest road losing streak in history. They’ve given me a few questions to ponder, the first being that, since the road streak isn’t over yet, how much are they going to pile on to it? Could they make it to 30 games and ensure their awful feat goes unmatched for a hundred years? Might they have a chance at breaking the overall losing streak record, currently held by the 1889 Louisville Colonels that lost 26 straight? And lastly, could all this losing be just the excuse owner Ken Kendrick is looking for to move the team to Las Vegas, if the A’s don’t beat them to the punch? You might think that’s a leap, but they’ve already explored that move before, and MLB seems to really like the idea of a team in Sin City. Whatever the case, the D’Backs feel like an unending car crash that you just can’t look away from. They can change the conversation and take a lot of pressure off of themselves if only they could win. One. Game.
