Three Takeaways from the Diamondbacks' Series Split with Giants

The Arizona Diamondbacks split a four-game series with the San Francisco Giants. After taking the first two games, Arizona had two chances for a series victory, but could not convert, dropping the final two.

Their record stands at 43-44, and they're 3.5 games out of the third NL Wild Card with four teams in front of them. Here are my takeaways:

The Arizona Diamondbacks are Consistently Inconsistent

Just as they have all season, the D-backs see-sawed back and forth between good games and bad, unable to get on a streak.

Arizona got deep quality starts from Ryne Nelson and Zac Gallen in the first two games, and between the starters and bullpen, they held the Giants to just two runs in both games, winning 4-2 and 8-2. That got the D-backs back over .500 and they seemed on their way to a series victory.

Merrill Kelly pitched a quality start in game three, but it was a shaky one, going six innings and allowing three runs. He gave up two in the first, continuing a trend of allowing first-inning damage.

The offense had a hard time getting untracked but finally got back in the game in the middle and late innings. New reliever Jake Woodford gave up two runs in the eighth however, to make it 5-3. Ketel Marte did the impossible, hitting a two-run game-tying shot in the ninth.

But it was all for naught, as Shelby Miller allowed the ghost runner to score in the 10th and the D-backs could not score the ghost runner in their half.

Then on Thursday, Robbie Ray took a no-hitter into the fifth inning before Eugenio Suarez broke it up with a solo shot. Ketel Marte hit a solo homer in the ninth, but Ray still pitched a complete game.

Brandon Pfaadt got knocked around in the first few innings to give up four runs, but lasted six innings, and didn't give up any more damage. John Curtiss gave up two more and Kevin Ginkel allowed one to put the game out of reach for the suddenly-cold D-backs offense as Arizona lost 7-2.

Hop-scotching back and forth seems to be the lot of this roughly .500 team. Whether or not they're able to get on a run to catapult them into a playoff position remains to be seen.

Length From Starting Pitchers Protects Bullpen

The silver lining to the way the series ended is that D-backs starters threw 25.2 innings in the series, leaving just 11.1 innings on the table for the bullpen to cover, one of which was the extra inning.

This is actually a continuation of a trend. The Diamondbacks rank fifth in MLB in most innings pitched by their starting pitchers, averaging 5.5 IP/G.

On the flipside, the D-backs' pen has pitched only the 10th-most innings in MLB this year. One shudders to think how poor the relief numbers would be if the bullpen was asked to shoulder a heavier-than-average load.

Home Run-Dependent Offense

The Diamondbacks' offense was very home run-dependent in this series. Seven different players combined to hit 10 homers in the series, including two each from Ketel Marte, Eugenio Suarez, and Lourdes Gurriel Jr.

They scored 20 runs, but were just 5-for-28 with runners in scoring position.

That's not exactly typical for the Diamondbacks. Their season average with runners in scoring position is .252, which is exactly league average. The D-backs have a good offense, and frequently score when it matters most. But the consistency was not there for this series.