The pitching’s a mess and the lineup is a disappointment. Which team am I talking about?
Arizona has just 3 more home runs as a team than the Giants (40 to 37) and a sub-average offensive production (95 wRC+). That’s with Corbin Carroll having an MVP-caliber start to the season, a resurgent Nolan Arenado, a surprise in journeyman Ildemaro Vargas, and the always reliable Ketel Marte in the lineup. The Giants thought they had their best lineup since 2021, if not the championship era, and it’s cruising around 10% worse than league average.
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Arizona’s pitching has been about as valuable as the Giants’ (2.2 fWAR to 2.0), but when you split it into starters and relievers, the Giants have managed to get solid performances out of three starters (Robbie Ray, Landen Roupp, and Trevor McDonald) compared to Arizona’s two (Eduardo Rodriguez and Michael Soroka). Meanwhile, Arizona’s relievers are better at avoiding walks (by 1.75 BB/9) and striking out batters a bit better than the Giants’ pen, giving them a slight edge in value there, by around a win above replacement.
On the other hand, Arizona’s been great on defense: +5.5 Defensive Runs Above Average — 6th in MLB, and a full 10 runs (or 1 win) better than the Giants (-5.5 Def).
But let’s circle back to that disastrous rotation the Diamondbacks are sporting. Here’s what it looks like:
Rodriguez was a hot commodity around the 2023 trade deadline until he made it clear that he didn’t want to be traded. The Diamondbacks signed him that offseason and in the first two years of the deal, he posted a 5+ ERA. They’re finally seeing some strong positive value in year 3, but it’s worth noting that the 2.53 ERA is betrayed by a 3.85 ERA and the Giants won’t see him in this series! Meanwhile, Michael Soroka was once a promising arm for Atlanta whose career was derailed by injuries. He’s back with Arizona and have a great reclamation project season. The Giants will miss him, too.
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But the rest?
Even after all the drama that followed Zac Gallen’s first foray into free agency, he has come back looking like the wornout arm we saw last year. Ryne Nelson has managed to frustrate the Giants before (2-0, 3.05 ERA in 44.1 IP), but he’s allowed 9 home runs in 9 starts. Merrill Kelly was traded to the Rangers last deadline and then re-signed with Arizona, but the 37-year old has been bad — though, it must be noted, his last start was a complete game in Colorado where he gave up a solo home run. The start before that was 7 innings of 1-run ball at home against the Mets.
Are the Giants bats heated up enough to do some damage against a vulnerable staff? How Devers, Adames, and Chapman do against a “Please Hit Me” trio of starters could be very telling about how all three will do this season.
In terms of their fearsome lineup, it’s Corbin Carroll, Ildemaro Vargas, and Nolan Arenado who’ve been consistently threatening. Ketel Marte is still 20% below the league average, Gabriel Moreno is around 25% worse. Shortstop Geraldo Perdomo is backing up his 7-WAR 2025 with a very slow start in 2026 (sub-100 wRC+ and -100 points of slug). Lourdes Gurriel Jr. was close to league average last season (95 wRC+) but has been really bad this season (61 wRC+) — though, it must be noted he’s 6-for-his-last-17 with 2 doubles and a homer.
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It’s a scary lineup if everyone’s clicking and it’s possible that a bat or two beyond Carroll, Vargas, and Arenado are close enough to create real problems for the Giants. It’ll be an interesting test to see if the Giants’ ability to frustrate their NL West opponents is only possible against the Dodgers and Padres and not the two other teams in their division, because on paper, the Diamondbacks look like they could really frustrate the Giants.
Series overview
Who: San Francisco Giants (20-27) at Arizona Diamondbacks (22-23)
Where: Chase Field | Phoenix, Arizona
When: Monday & Tuesday at 6:40pm PT, Wednesday at 12:40pm PT
National broadcasts: None.
Projected starters
Monday: Robbie Ray (LHP 3-5, 3.04 ERA) vs. Zac Gallen (RHP 1-4, 5.02 ERA)
Tuesday: Landen Roupp (RHP 5-4, 3.49 ERA) vs. Ryne Nelson (RHP 1-3, 5.40 ERA)
Wednesday: Tyler Mahle (RHP 1-5, 5.59 ERA) vs. Merrill Kelly (RHP 3-3, 5.91 ERA)
Players to watch
Diamondbacks (besides Corbin Carroll)
Ildemaro Vargas: The infielder is having the best season of his career at age 34 and it comes on his third stint with the Diamondbacks. This is a wacky transaction log!
In 2026, he went to Arizona’s Spring Training as an NRI and earned his way onto the major league roster from there. He has a .903 OPS so far this season and has hit about as well as Munetaka Murakami, Bryce Harper, and Nick Kurtz. He’s always done fine against the Giants (career .720 OPS), so we’ll see if his hot streak is just a streak or if he goes off on our favorite team in such a way that we know that he’s simply having one of those years.
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Nolan Arenado: The Cardinals tried very hard to trade him the past two offseasons and finally found a taker in the Diamondbacks, who will pay him just $11 million of the $42 million owed to him over this season and next. In 2022, he was worth 7.2 fWAR, but in the three seasons that followed, just 6.8 total. Here in his age-35 season, he’s hitting 25% better than league average (125 wRC+) thanks to a .798 OPS. Time has taken away enough of his physicality that he’s no longer the demigod defender at the hot corner of days gone by — we have seen him make some unbelievable defense plays against the Giants over the years, that’s for sure — but he’s still adequate. Coupled with a resurgent bat, it’s plausible that we’ll be cursing his name before the end of the series just like old times.
Paul Sewald: He’s sort of like their Ryan Walker in that he backed into the closer role by accident. Arizona traded for him in 2023 as part of their World Series run. He was on the team in 2024 but sort of fell apart as their closer and left as a free agent. He played for two teams last season and then this past offseason the Diamondbacks re-signed him and he’s back to being their closer. He has just 1 blown save on record, but 4 losses already. Could his vulnerability give the Giants an opening late in one of these games?
Giants
Daniel Susac: Maybe it’s me, but I can’t shake the feeling that Buster Posey shoved aside Patrick Bailey for Daniel Susac because of batting average. I’d like to believe that the front office hasn’t bought into the equivalent of magic beans in the form of a small sample size heater in a position that had basically been a black hole of production in the lineup. The Diamondbacks-Giants matchup used to feature two of the best defense catchers in the sport — Bailey vs. Gabriel Moreno — but the focus has become “will Daniel Susac hit a single?”
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Jung Hoo Lee: He ended April slashing .297/.344/.441 but has fallen off here in May. His pinch-hit RBI single in yesterday’s win raised his May line to just .215/.250/.292. He has a career .607 OPS at Chase Field, suggesting that his slump will be prolonged for at least a few more days. Then again, Arizona’s rotation has been Athletics/Rockies/Nationals bad, so it’s as good a time as any for that bat to get going again.
Robbie Ray: In 5+ seasons for the Diamondbacks, he made 147 starts and one All-Star appearance. He has a 3-0, 3.15 ERA in 3 starts (21 IP) against his former team, including a 102-pitch complete game last July. It’s not too early to start putting him on lists for “players who will be traded this season,” which means each start will be watched not just by scouts, but by fans salivating at the prospect of the team acquiring, um, err, a prospect for him near the deadline. Regrettably, he’s likely to net something in the range of what Tyler Rogers brought back for the Giants: 2-3 prospects near the bottom of the trading team’s top 10 or outside of it altogether.
Bryce Eldridge: Throwing him in here because either as a pinch hitter or a starter, Arizona’s righties would seem to have a lot to offer a masher looking to get his bat going. The rotation gives up a lot of home runs!
Tony Vitello Watch
There was a moment before the Vitello hire that Torey Lovullo’s job was maybe not so secure despite a World Series appearance just two years prior. In that brief bit of time I wondered if maybe the Giants might try to poach Lovullo a la Bruce Bochy from San Diego. His modest success in Arizona aside (686-715 a month and a half into his 10th season with two postseason appearances), he seems like the kind of player-centric and stats-second manager Buster Posey would want. He does a regular radio hit on MLB Network Radio and sounds like a good guy and the type of energy the Giants’ manager position needed in a post-Bochy/Kapler/Melvin period. It didn’t work out that way and instead the Giants signed a guy whose name sort of sounds like Torey Lovullo.
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Tony Vitello, Torey Lovullo. Torey Lovullo, Tony Vitello.
Lovullo. Vitello. Lovullo. Vitello.
Torey. Tony. Torey. Tony.
Prediction time
Those are some rough numbers from Arizona’s starters. It stands to reason that the Giants should win a game in this series for that fact alone.
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