The Arizona Diamondbacks Stand Off Against the Texas Rangers was a disgraceful moment which outcomes made fans got stirred
After the Diamondbacks were handed beatdowns in 2 of the 3 games down in Houston against the Astros, they returned home from their short 6 game roadtrip to take on the reigning World Series Champions in the Texas Rangers, in another rematch of last year’s fall classic. While the 2024 Rangers seem to be dealing with the side effects of a World Series hangover, they still have a solid roster of current and former All-Stars that can play the role of spoiler, so this would not be a series that they could just look past (especially now that we are coming down the the final 2-3 weeks of the regular season).
Things would get off to a hot start in Game 1 on Tuesday evening as Joc Pederson and Christian Walker went back to back off Nathan Eovaldi in the first inning. The offense would continue to tack on some run support here and there, but those 2 first inning runs would prove to be all that Zac Gallen and the rest of the Diamondback bullpen would need to lock down this win.
On our last show we dove into the stats for Brandon Pfaadt’s stats through 2024 so far, inning by inning, and noticed that the 5th inning always seemed to be his struggling point numbers wise, so curiosity drove me to see what Zac’s inning by inning breakdown would be and it’s almost like he’s the complete opposite compared to Brandon Pfaadt, especially their 5th inning numbers.
On one of our previous shows we mentioned the ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ performances that we have seen out of Zac since returning from the IL earlier this summer, but we have seen a bit more consistency from Zac over his last 2 outings, as he now has his scoreless innings streak up to 14, which isn’t crazy sounding but still a great sign from our Ace.
While still not 100% back to the Cy Young caliber pitcher he can be, this streak of his had me asking Brandon and Gabe what improvements they have seen from Zac, along with what else they wanna see him work on to make sure that he’s ready for the postseason come October.
While a bit more length from Zac in his outings would be ideal, having Christian Walker back doing Christian Walker helps swallow that pill a bit easier as he would have his 5th multi home run game of 2024 (3 of the 5 are against LAD), and the 14th in his MLB career thus far. IT seemed like the month long IL stint for Walker would prevent him from reaching the 30 HR mark for the 3rd consecutive season, but a final 3 game trip to the homerun factory known as Coors Field had me asking the fellas if that 30 HR mark is still within reach for Christian along with the Gabe and Brandon expressing just how important it might be to keep Walker for years to come.
