Series Preview: Arizona Diamondbacks (51-67) vs. Cleveland Indians (59-59)

Pitching Match-Ups

Josh Collmenter (8-6, 4.09 ERA, 4.31 SIERA)  vs. TJ House (4-3, 4.13 ERA, 3.39 SIERA)

Collmenter is the kind of pitcher any team would love to have. In sense he’s the D-Backs’ version of Carlos Carrasco right now. He can slip into the rotation if need be, he can relieve in most any situation and with his strange delivery honed from throwing tomahawks as a youth, it’s effective. I think the Tribe should go after him somehow if only for that reason, but it’d be hard because he seems to be the exact player Kurt Gibson loves. Gutty, intense, does whatever the team needs. I love the guy, he’s fascinating to watch. The main reason he’s started 25 games this year is their entire rotation got hurt or traded away. Don’t expect more than six innings of decent ball, though again, that motion could screw with Cleveland hitters.

For all the woes the Indians pitching staff has suffered this year, from Masterson imploding to McAllister just being kind of terrible to Salazar regressing, House has been a nice little surprise. He’s little more than a mid- to back of the rotation starter, but he’s comported himself well. He’s got a 2.45 ERA over two since coming back to the team and though four runs scored with him on the mound against Cincy, he was better than that. He’s not going to wow, we can all understand that, but the Diamonbacks’ offense isn’t exactly stupendous. If nothing else he’s getting good experience against NL teams. It’s good practice for the All Star Game and the World Series.

Vidal Nuno (2-8, 5.01 ERA, 4.21 SIERA) vs. Trevor Bauer (4-7, 4.52 ERA, 4.06 SIERA)

For the life of me I cannot figure out how Vidal Nuno got traded from the Yankees pretty much straight up for Brandon McCarthy. In 23 career starts he’s been worth 0.1 wins above replacement. He’s prone to give up homers, 1.5 per nine innings, and he’s headed to a place where the ball flies. Kevin Towers got robbed. Again. He doesn’t throw that hard, his fastball topping at 92.3 mph and hanging around 89, and according to Fangraphs all his pitches bring negative value. While I’m not the most learned man when it comes to those advanced ratings, it makes me wonder how in hell he’s in the majors. It takes all kinds I guess. The bad news: he’s left-handed. So I’ve answered my own question, and started assuming this will be a low scoring affair. These subpar lefties man, they’re killers.

Plain and simple, I want a revenge game from Bauer. This is the first time he’ll face the club that dumped him because they didn’t like the way he thought, and it’d be the dopest thing ever for him to go out there and throw a shutout, 12 K’s, just dominate Arizona. I’m sure he has no ill will, but he’s still a competitor, somewhere in the back of his mind he’s gotta be stewing. A little, at least. He was not pretty last time out at Yankee Stadium, but hey, maybe being on baseball’s biggest stage got to him. It’s every young player’s dream to play at the Stadium, right? Settling in is key to him, the first inning or two always seem to bite him. Perhaps he’s too keyed up. That will settle, in time. Home cooking and the team that didn’t want him – that’s a recipe, I hope, for Bauer to dominate..