From fairy tale to 2021 flashbacks: 5 storylines from Diamondbacks' opening weekend

For the third consecutive season, the Arizona Diamondbacks opened the season with a four-game set against the San Diego Padres — and for the third straight season, they dropped three of them. 

Seth Beer’s heroic walk-off home run on National Beer Day feels like a distant memory now. What appeared to be a page-turner for the franchise now looks like a blip on the radar of an otherwise disappointing opening series.

Indeed, less than 72 hours after Beer’s fairy-tale magic, manager Torey Lovullo was calling on Carson Kelly — his primary catcher — to pitch the ninth inning in a 10-1 blowout.

What went wrong? The offense had five or fewer hits in every game of the series. The defense made several costly mistakes. Both of the team’s newly acquired backend bullpen arms struggled in their first outings. Only one starting pitcher lasted five innings. What didn’t go wrong?

That doesn’t mean it’s time to hit the panic button. The Los Angeles Dodgers lost two of three to the Colorado Rockies over the weekend, fresh off Dave Roberts guaranteeing on national radio that his team will win the World Series. Even teams like that have bad series from time to time.

Still, the Diamondbacks’ opening series didn’t exactly inspire confidence that the 2022 season will look any different than last year’s 52-win collapse. Here are five storylines from the weekend.

1. Bats scuffle out of the gate

Diamondbacks hitters are 15-for-116 to start the season, which works out to a .129 batting average. It would take 19 consecutive hits to get their team batting average over .250.

Several players are still hitless on the season, including Daulton Varsho and Carson Kelly, who are each 0-for-11. Meanwhile, Ketel Marte is 2-for-15 and Christian Walker is 2-for-12, though it was encouraging to see the latter launch his first homer of the season on Sunday.

The numbers are subpar across the board, but it’s important to keep perspective. The Diamondbacks aren’t the only team that would’ve struggled with Yu Darvish, Sean Manaea and Joe Musgrove over the weekend. They were dialed in. The Padres’ starting rotation is probably top-five in baseball. (That’s why’s I spoke so highly of them in our NL West preview.)

“It’s too early to hit any panic buttons,” Walker said after Sunday’s game. “Just a matter of making adjustments and moving forward.”

If there’s any silver lining to the team’s offensive woes in the first series, it’s that they are second in baseball with 19 walks. That fact is not lost on Lovullo.

“I like our approach. I like what we’ve been doing offensively,” he said. “We’ve been grinding some at-bats and just trying to do our best to see pitches and get on base. I’ve been pleased with it.”

It’s probably only a matter of time until proven hitters like Marte, Kelly and Varsho bounce back.

Concerns surrounding guys like Drew Ellis, Geraldo Perdomo and Cooper Hummel are more valid, as it remains to be seen whether those guys have what it takes to handle major-league pitching.

Hummel’s first big-league homer on Sunday was a step in the right direction.

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2. Defensive miscues prove costly

Three errors in a four-game series isn’t necessarily alarming, but not every defensive mishap gets chalked up as an error. Marte, in particular, had several miscues at second base throughout the series, only one of which officially went in the scorebook as an error. This one cost the team a run.

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There was also this play by Christian Walker, which arguably could have been an inning-ending double play had he touched first and then thrown to second. Instead, Matt Beatty reached first base, and the Padres went on to score two runs on back-to-back RBI knocks by Manny Machado and Jake Cronenworth.

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The Diamondbacks were also sloppy behind the plate. Jose Herrera committed a passed ball in the ninth inning of Saturday’s game that led to a run, and Kelly probably could’ve done a better job blocking a pair of wild pitches that allowed two runners to score on Sunday. One of those two initially reached due to a throwing error by Perdomo.

“It is very bothersome to me,” Lovullo said regarding his team’s struggles on defense. “We’re better than that.”

3. Ian Kennedy, Mark Melancon struggle in season debuts

The Diamondbacks’ most significant free-agent acquisitions made their first appearances on Saturday, and neither performed well.

Entering with the game tied 2-2, Ian Kennedy allowed two runs on two hits and a walk in the eighth inning. His fastball command was erratic, and he struggled to throw a competitive curveball.

Despite a 4-2 deficit, closer Mark Melancon came out for the ninth and allowed a run on two hits. He threw several knuckle curves at the top of the zone that lacked their usual downward bite. Neither Kennedy nor Melancon generated a swinging strike in 42 combined pitches.

Again, it’s too early to press the panic button, but the D-backs haven’t fared well in the reliever free-agent market for a long time, and neither Kennedy nor Melancon inspired confidence out of the gate.

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4. Madison Bumgarner lasts three innings

After allowing only one hit over the first two innings of the season, Madison Bumgarner drew groans from the home crowd by walking four and forcing in a run in the third inning on Thursday. He struck out Wil Myers to stop the bleeding, but he threw 42 pitches in the inning and was unable to come back out for the fourth.

Bumgarner’s pedigree helped land the Opening Day start, but his days as a genuine top-of-the-rotation starter still look far behind. It was encouraging to see his velocity consistently 91-93 mph throughout his appearance, but he struggled to establish an effective curveball or changeup to keep Padres hitters off-balance.

Bumgarner’s relationship with new pitching coach Brent Strom is only just getting started, so perhaps there are still adjustments to be made to help him recapture his former dominance. For now, his pitch mix is uninspiring, and it’s fair to wonder if Thursday might’ve been the last Opening Day start of his career.

5. Caleb Smith unravels early

Following a 1-2-3 first inning, Caleb Smith’s season debut soured quickly as he allowed a grand slam followed by a solo homer in the second inning on Sunday.

A Marte error at second base and a pair of walks by Smith set the table for Jurickson Profar and Jorge Alfaro’s back-to-back jacks. Smith’s had trouble missing armside to right-handed hitters in the past, and those problems resurfaced.

Last year, Lovullo pulled Smith from the rotation after a similarly disastrous season debut. It’s currently unclear if that could happen again.

“We’re going to reevaluate after every start,” Lovullo said on Sunday. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, not just in that one area. We’ve got a lot of talk about today. This team did not play good baseball.”

Last season, Smith went 1-8 with a 6.95 ERA and 1.60 WHIP out of the rotation compared to 3-1 with a 2.70 ERA and 1.15 WHIP out of the bullpen.

Corbin Martin pitched well in long relief on Sunday, allowing one earned run, two hits and two walks over four innings with five strikeouts. He is the clearest candidate to take over in the rotation if the team decides to go that route.

Given the Diamondbacks’ struggles out of the gate in nearly every facet of the game, it’s not hard to see why some fans are viewing the start of the 2022 season as an extension of what happened last year. 

Lovullo isn’t going to stop them.

“They can feel any way they want about how this team plays and performs,” Lovullo said. “I know we’re better than that.”

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