Gibson: Defense needs to be checked

It’s time for the Diamondbacks to focus less on the hitting and make an effort to step up defensively.

The D-backs’ struggles at the plate during Spring Training have led to neglecting defense.

“Is your hitter a position player? In general, you’re coming in, you’re working on your hitting, you’re working on your fielding a bit,” Manager Kirk Gibson said before Friday’s game. “They want to hit right now, but we have to play all aspects of the game. We gotta start not taking things off.”

Gibson said that the players are too concerned with their at-bats, and it’s starting to hit their game mentality when they take the field.

“You have a good at-bat or you have a bad at-bat and all of a sudden you go out and you’re not as sharp in the infield or the outfield. We can’t do that,” Gibson said. “We made two mistakes on the bases yesterday, it was just totally a lack of concentration. We have to better at it, we gotta want to be better at it.”

The ball club is looking at a 4-9-1 record going into Friday’s game, and while the pitching staff has a combined spring ERA of 5.73, that’s not an excuse for the defense to take a backseat.

Instead, Gibson hopes an improvement on the field will carry as momentum for the pitchers.

“We need to defend better, we need to make plays. That makes your pitching better. And I’m not just talking about making sure our fielding averages, you know the top of the league,” Gibson said. “I’m talking about we need a big play. I wanna have that ability to make that play. I want to be able to have positive impact on the game in all aspects of the game, and certainly defensively.”

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