Corey Seager’s season-ending Tommy John surgery is a devastating loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, but don’t expect any sympathy from the Arizona Diamondbacks.
After all, the D-backs lost Taijuan Walker for the season to his own Tommy John surgery, wholesale nfl jerseys All-Star third baseman Jake Lamb has played just four games, Steven Souza Jr. (pectoral) hasn’t played in any and they just lost All-Star Robbie Ray for an extended period due to an oblique strain. They’ve weathered all that to become the first team in 111 years to win their first nine series of the season.
The Diamondbacks extended their early lead in the National League West to eight games over the Dodgers. That’s the furthest the Dodgers have trailed entering May since division play began in 1969. As colleague Bradford Doolittle wrote, “Seager’s injury could hardly be more ill-timed, for so many reasons. As it was, the Dodgers led the majors in one obscure metric: projected WAR currently on the disabled list. Justin Turner, Rich Hill, Tom Koehler, Yasiel Puig, Julio Urias and Logan Forsythe comprised a group that hardly had room for a player of Seager’s stature.”
After Seager’s injury, Doolittle ran the Dodgers through his simulation and projected their win total at 85 — down from 88 before Seager’s injury. If Chris Taylor doesn’t start hitting, 85 might even be one or two wins too optimistic. At 12-16 and with that long list of injured regulars, the Dodgers clearly are entering panic mode.
Do the Diamondbacks have staying power at the top? Rotation depth was an area of concern at the start of the season, nfl jerseys from china and Matt Koch, their replacement for Walker, had an 8.40 ERA last year at Triple-A Reno. Now, they’ll have to dig even deeper to fill in for Ray. Former highly rated prospect Braden Shipley is a 40-man roster option, although he has a 6.26 ERA in five starts at Reno (granted, all numbers there are inflated). Manager Torey Lovullo mentioned reliever T.J. McFarland as a possibility.
One key to Arizona’s 20-8 start has been a bullpen that leads the majors in ERA and has yet to blow a save (at any point in the game), the only team with that type of clean slate. The pen did allow three runs on Monday, but Archie Bradley escaped a jam in the eighth when the lead was still two runs, then Brad Boxberger finished it off for his ninth save.
