Previewing Massive Diamondbacks vs Giants Series

On July 30 the Giants were 54-55, six games back of the Padres for the third NL Wild Card. They traded their best two relievers, Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval, along with Mike Yastrzemski at the trade deadline for prospects.

Since then they've gone 21-19, but are just 1.5 behind the collapsing New York Mets for that third spot. Last week they beat the D-backs two out of three in San Francisco, before dropping two of three to the Dodgers over the weekend.

The D-backs sold even harder at the trade deadline, having arrived at that marker with a 51-58 record. They offloaded almost all of their players on expiring contracts such as Merrill Kelly, Eugenio Suarez, Josh Naylor, Shelby Miller, and Randal Grichuk. Only Zac Gallen remained from that group of players.

But a funny thing happened. Gallen regained his form, and has pitched extremely well since the trade deadline, and several players have stepped up to perform at very high levels, especially Geraldo Perdomo, Corbin Carroll, and the surprising Blaze Alexander.

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Perdomo in fact leads the National League position players in Baseball Reference WAR with 6.3. He's also exhorting D-backs fans to come out to Chase Field and support the team for the big series this week.

Despite what remains one of the worst bullpens in the league, the D-backs have battled to a 24-17 record since the deadline, clawing back to an even .500 and are just two games out of the Wild Card themselves.

Speaking of Alexander, he's day-to-day with a left elbow contusion following a hit-by-pitch on Sunday. He is awaiting further imaging on Monday morning.

The Giants meanwhile just lost platoon first baseman Dominic Smith due to a hamstring strain. He will be out at least two weeks, ending his regular season.

In response the Giants are calling up their top prospect, 20-year-old first baseman Bryce Eldrige. Eldridge stands 6'7", 240 pounds. He's hit .260 with 25 homers and 84 RBI across two levels in 2025.

Diamondbacks and Giants Starting Pitching Matchups

Kai-Wei Teng is a 26-year-old right-hander from Taiwan. He's struggled to prevent runs despite striking out 28 batters and only allowing one homer in his six games. That's because he's walked 14 and given up 26 hits. Note that his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) is less than half his ERA.

Teng leads with his sweeper, and has a mid-90's four-seamer. He also throws a curveball, sinker, and changeup.

Zac Gallen had his streak of effective starts snapped by the Giants last week, giving up five runs in 6.2 innings. That still leaves him with a 4-2 record and a 2.83 ERA in eight post-trade deadline starts.

The Giants have not yet announced a starter for the Tuesday's game. That spot would normally have gone to Carson Seymour, but he just pitched in relief against the Dodgers on Sunday.

Eduardo Rodriguez is enjoying his best stretch as a Diamondback. He has been very effective over his last three starts, at times even dominating.

He's pitched 18.1 innings, allowing just one run, and even has a 2.93 FIP to match during the streak. That's resulted in three straight wins, evening his record to 8-8.

Forget Justin Verlander's won-lost record and mediocre full season ERA. He is a Hall of Fame pitcher who is hot right now. Over his last four starts, 24 innings, he's allowed just three earned runs (1.13 ERA).

In fact if you go back over his last 10 starts, he's 3-2 with a 2.44 ERA and 2.93 FIP. He's still capable of being great for extended stretches.

Brandon Pfaadt used to have the nickname "Big Game Brandon". The D-backs desperately need him to revive that mindset and come through this week. He's sprinkled in some good starts among his blow-up starts, but the latter have been too frequent, resulting in an ugly 5.31 ERA.

Pfaadt's true talent level is likely closer to his career 4.21 FIP than it is to the career 5.15 ERA. But location mistakes, resulting in hard contact and ill-timed home runs continue to plague him.

Diamondbacks and Giants Bullpens

The D-backs have managed to get where they are despite having one of the worst bullpens in MLB, both before and after the trade deadline. Injuries to the first, and then second tier of relievers have resulted in a collection of minor league players and journeymen filling out the bullpen.

Torey Lovullo is left to piece that together the best he can, but any way it's sliced, this unit is always on the precipice of blowing any lead.

There is no closer, and rookies like Andrew Saalfrank, Kyle Backhus, and Taylor Rashi, along with veteran Jake Woodford, have gotten most of the high-leverage innings of late.

If it feels like every late inning is white-knuckle baseball, well that's because it is. The D-backs actually lead all of MLB in reliever Leverage Index (pLI) since August 1.

That is a measure of how high the leverage of the innings pitched are. 1.00 = average leverage. The D-backs relievers at 1.36 are way out in front of the league in this measure since that date.

By comparison, the Giants' 0.80 pLI ranks 27th since August 1. In general the innings have been far less stressful for the Giants relievers.

The closer is Ryan Walker, and he last had a save chance on September 9. No other Giant reliever has had a save opportunity since that date.