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April 2021: Looking back on the last happy month of Diamondbacks baseball
The date is April 30, 2021.
After back-to-back wins over the Colorado Rockies, the Diamondbacks are 14-12.
Less than a week ago, they shut out the Atlanta Braves on the road in both games of a day-night doubleheader. Madison Bumgarner threw a seven-inning no-hitter in one of them.
Following a disappointing 25-35 finish in 2020, expectations for the team are low. But as the first month of the season draws to a close, the Diamondbacks are better than we thought. Baseball in Arizona is fun again.
Okay, sure, maybe fourth place in the NL West doesn’t jump off the page. And a .538 win percentage may not be playoff worthy when it’s all said and done. But the Diamondbacks have outscored their opponents by 10 runs, powered by one of the league’s most prolific offenses to date.
Offense
Several players have made key contributions, but nobody’s hitting like Carson Kelly, who has a .340/.507/.717 slash line with nearly twice as many walks as strikeouts in 19 games. He already has 1.4 fWAR. At the moment, Kelly has a higher OPS than Paul Goldschmidt since the trade with St. Louis.
Meanwhile, Eduardo Escobar appears to have snapped out of his 2020 slump, batting .253/.312/.535 with seven homers in the first month. Asdrubal Cabrera has a .385 on-base percentage as the everyday third baseman. David Peralta leads the team with 22 RBI, and he’s batting a solid .284/.346/.495.
Just imagine where they’d be with a full month from Ketel Marte, who went down with a hamstring injury after just six games. He was batting .462/.500/.846.
Pitching and defense
Not as much is going right on the other side of the ball, but the defense has been excellent. In the month of April, the Diamondbacks tied with the Nationals for the most defensive runs saved in baseball.
On the pitching side, there are a few early bright spots. Caleb Smith has a 2.30 ERA, pitching predominantly out of the bullpen. Zac Gallen has a 2.16 ERA in three starts. Taylor Widener has excelled in his role in the starting rotation, with a 2.82 ERA in four starts. Perhaps his 88.2-percent strand rate is unsustainable, but it’s hard to argue with the results.
Merrill Kelly and Madison Bumgarner have ERAs of 6.33 and 5.58, respectively, but both appear to be victims of bad luck. Bumgarner is coming off back-to-back excellent starts, which is encouraging.
The bullpen, meanwhile, has been something of a mess with Joakim Soria, Tyler Clippard and Chris Devenski logging just 3.2 combined innings due to injury. But the bullpen was never going to be a strength, and they could always make a move at the deadline if they’re still in the hunt.
Clubhouse dancing
The Diamondbacks may not be the best team in baseball, but they sure are having fun. They’ve made a tradition of releasing a team dance video after every win.
It’s hard to blame them. They’re 14-12 despite missing significant time from several key contributors. It’s worth dancing about.
We all know how the story ends. After their promising start in April, the Diamondbacks stumbled to a 38-98 record the rest of the way. In June, they set a record for the longest road losing streak in MLB history at 24 games.
They went from tied for first in defensive runs saved in April to finishing 27th in the league. Their offense went from tied for first in runs scored to 25th. In retrospect, perhaps we should have seen it coming.
But none of that takes away from the fact that on April 30th, Diamondbacks fans were having a hell of a lot of fun watching their team. Moving into 2022, that has two simple implications.
First, stay away from declaring who the Diamondbacks are — whether good or bad — after a month. That’s not rocket science, but it’s a trap fans fall into every year. Heck, the Braves — who went on to win the 2021 World Series — were just 12-14 after the first month. Baseball is like that. It’s why teams play as many games as they do.
Secondly, it gives hope that regardless of how well the Diamondbacks play in 2022, there will inevitably be moments throughout the year in which fans are enamored of their baseball team.
It’s not easy to support a team whose biggest hope is the unpredictability of the game. The D-backs probably won’t be good, but you never know. We’ve heard that adage more than a few times with this team, and we may be stuck with it for another season or two after this.
But the Diamondbacks are in a better position than some. They have seven prospects on Keith Law’s top 100 list, and most are reasonably close to breaking into the majors. Nothing screams you never know quite like calling up highly-ranked prospects. Coming off a 52-win season, the Diamondbacks are almost certain to improve, and that improvement may be more substantial than we expect.
Until then, enjoy the fun — and hope that in 2022, it lasts more than a month.
Follow Jesse Friedman on Twitter
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