Diamondbacks have had a problem early in games, which continued in loss to Marlins

The Arizona Diamondbacks have had to play from behind in almost every game for more than two weeks.

Over the past 15 games, including Wednesday’s 8-0 shellacking at the hands of the Miami Marlins, the D-backs have led through four innings only twice. They have trailed by multiple runs eight times.

This stretch includes the final series against the San Francisco Giants during Arizona’s Colorado-San Francisco-Colorado-San Francisco slate of games, which in hindsight might have been a red flag.

Arizona has had the worst offense in baseball during innings 1-4 during that span, hitting .163 as a lineup, according to FanGraphs.

Ketel Marte is 2-for-27, Ryan Waldschmidt 2-for-24 and Nolan Arenado 2-for-21 early in these games. Corbin Carroll and Gabriel Moreno have been the only regulars in the lineup with above-average numbers since the May 25 cutoff date we’re using here.

With runners in scoring position over the first four innings? How about 1-for-26.

That has led to a run differential of 43 to 11. That’s 11 runs scored in 60 innings of baseball, which would average out to 1.65 runs per nine innings.

Before this run of games, the Diamondbacks’ .745 OPS in the first four innings ranked fifth in baseball, and they were 10th in runs scored.

So, how is this happening?

Some of their key hitters have simply cooled off, such as Marte and Arenado, Arizona’s lead-off and clean-up hitters. They supplied amongst the hottest bats on the planet. Ildemaro Vargas continues to struggle after his incredibly great month of April, while Geraldo Perdomo has heated up after moving down in the lineup, which limits his opportunities early in games.

The Diamondbacks also have a designated hitter hole in the lineup, as Pavin Smith has not gotten anything going since coming off the injured list after Adrian Del Castillo failed to grab the bull by the horns when given the opportunity. Perhaps Lourdes Gurriel Jr. could help with that when he comes off the injured list (hamstring), although it took him a while to find his rhythm when he came off the IL earlier this year.

D-backs DHs accounted for a .564 OPS all season, entering Wednesday. To compare, that’s worse than former D-backs pitcher Zack Greinke’s career OPS of .598.

And it just seems that the lineup is not putting opposing pitchers in tough spots early.

Arizona has the second-worst strikeout-to-walk ratio (0.2) in the league in these early at-bats and lowest rate of balls hit to the center of the field. Perhaps there is some misfortune with their babip (batting average on balls in play) being a miniscule .173 when most teams are around .280-.315, but the strikeouts and lack of quality contact beg to differ.

What about pitching?

Well, the Diamondbacks owned an ERA of 5.63 during the first four innings of their last 14 games, but that was before Ryne Nelson gave up seven runs in four frames in Miami on Wednesday. After that, the ERA rose to 6.30.

There are a couple of blowup outings that weigh the numbers down, but the point stands that not much of anything has gone well for the Diamondbacks early in games lately, and that puts pressure on the whole team to consistently have to come back.

They almost did on Tuesday, just like their second game against the Los Angeles Dodgers last week. Meanwhile, other games have gotten away from them like Wednesday’s loss and the first two against the Washington Nationals.

The Marlins scored six runs with two outs in the fourth inning off Nelson to run away from the D-backs, as home runs from Owen Caissie and Kyle Stowers were backbreakers.

With the loss, the D-backs’ record since their 11-2 party against the Rockies and Giants dropped to 3-9, losing three of four series.

Arizona’s record overall is 34-33.

Series finale on Thursday

Arizona’s final game in Miami starts at 10:10 a.m. MST on Thursday.

Merrill Kelly (5-4, 5.71) will start for the Diamondbacks against Marlins right-hander Tyler Phillips (0-1, 2.08).

The game will air on 98.7 and the Arizona Sports app. 

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