The Diamondbacks’ miserable May: By the numbers
May 24, 2018, 9:17 AM
Arizona Diamondbacks shortstop Ketel Marte (4) cannot handle a ground ball hit by New York Mets' Michael Conforto during the eighth inning of a baseball game, Friday, May 18, 2018, in New York. Conforto was safe at first on the play and credited with an infield hit. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
(AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
Thirteen losses in 14 games. A sputtering dead-in-the-water offense. A pitching staff that’s come back to reality and been decimated by injuries to starters.
The Arizona Diamondbacks (25-24) aren’t a third of the way into the season yet have already burned through a buffer for the division lead that they’d built as one of the best baseball teams to begin 2018.
That just means there’s a lot of time to turn things around, and judging them isn’t completely fair until reinforcements arrive from the disabled list.
Still, what could have been an attempt to run away in a sagging division is lost. The month of May is to blame for that. Here’s a look at the month and, especially, the last few weeks as the D-backs take a day off Wednesday before a three-game road set against the Oakland A’s.
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.183
That’s the batting average for the D-backs over the month of May, or .034 worse than the second-to-last Texas Rangers at .217.
.551
Even more sore on the eyes is the D-backs’ OPS of .551, which is hardly rivaled by MLB’s second-worst team, the San Diego Padres at .638. The Cleveland Indians lead the majors at .844.
5-16
Beginning the month of May with a 20-8 record, Arizona had a 5.5-game lead on the Giants and 6.0-game lead on the Rockies. After a 5-16 start to this month, the Diamondbacks trail the Rockies (26-24) by 0.5 games and lead San Francisco (24-26) by 1.5 games as of Thursday morning. Oh, and those Dodgers? They were 8.0 games behind Arizona to start the month but now sit 3.0 games back with a 22-27 record.
22
By the end of the second and final series against the Brewers this season, the Diamondbacks recorded 22 total hits against Milwaukee over six games played. According to STATS, no team in the last 100 years had recorded fewer than 26 hits against an opponent in a six-game season series.
15
Tied for the lowest mark of May, Arizona has hit 15 home runs this month. The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees have 38 each over the same period. For reference, former D-backs slugger J.D. Martinez has 15 home runs this season and 10 this month for Boston.
5
In their last 21 games, the D-backs have scored more than three runs just five times and more than four runs just once.
215
Arizona is second to Texas with 215 strikeouts in May.
73.2
Why the poor offense? It might be oversimplifying it to say the D-backs just aren’t seeing the ball well, but the contact statistics back that up. Until May, Arizona ranked sixth by making contact with 78.7 of the pitches its batters swung at. Now, the D-backs are making contact just 73.2 percent of the time, second-worst in MLB, per FanGraphs.
While the in-zone contact rate dropped from 85.3 percent to 81.9 percent, the out-of-zone swings have been even more harmful. The Diamondbacks made contact with 66.5 percent of out-of-zone balls its batters swung at in March and April and are now making contact just 56.4 percent of the time.
3.99
The D-backs’ 3.99 ERA this month isn’t great but not terrible, ranking 16th among MLB teams in May. Their 1.28 WHIP is 15th. But it’s a far-cry from April when Arizona’s 2.88 ERA ranked second in the majors. The D-backs pitchers have allowed the sixth-most walks (76) after 23 days of May along with 28 home runs, which is also sixth.
10
Arizona hit a franchise-low 10 hits over a three-game series against the Brewers.
197
Arizona has 197 total bases to this point in May, 38 bases off the second-worst team, the New York Mets, who swept the D-backs in a three-game series from May 19-21. The Red Sox lead MLB with 353 total bases this month.
