{"id":294871,"date":"2025-09-05T19:05:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T19:05:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/294871\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T19:05:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T19:05:12","slug":"series-preview-46-diamondbacks-red-sox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/294871\/","title":{"rendered":"Series Preview #46: Diamondbacks @ Red Sox"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Ed. Note] I want to apologize in advance for the\u2026 brevity of this preview. I just finished my second straight 14 hr shift, have another ten hour shift that starts in six hours, followed by (Finally!!) getting to fly home for good after almost three months on the road. But there is a preview! It\u2019s just going to be a bit shorter than normal, and I\u2019m going to assume you know what the Dbacks pitchers have been up to recently<\/p>\n

The Diamondbacks are coming into this series as one of the better teams in baseball recently. I know it\u2019s true, but it\u2019s still weird to type. Jim broke it down well here<\/a>, but one of the things that stand out the most is five straight winning or split series, all of which have come against teams better than them in the standings. The playoffs are highly unlikely, between 2-5% depending on the source, but it\u2019s fun to watch them fight still. And hey, who knows, maybe they end up going the 19-2 they need to get to 89 wins and shock the world.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox are third in the NL East, with a record that would have them just a half game back of the Dodgers for the NL West lead and the second NL Wild card. Divisions are fun. They\u2019re coming off a series win against the Guardians, but prior to that they had dropped a series against the Pirates<\/p>\n

Game 1 \u2014 9\/5, 6:40PM \u2014 Eduardo Rodriguez (6-8, 5.40 ERA, 81 ERA+, 1.62 WHIP) vs. Payton Tolle (0-0, 1 GS, 3.39 ERA, 132 ERA+, 0.93 WHIP)<\/p>\n

Tolle made his MLB debut last time through the rotation. He is a much heralded prospect who had a 66% wiff rate against his fastball in his first start. However, the Diamondbacks are a very good fastball hitting team, so that may not be as much of an advantage to him as it could be against others.<\/p>\n

Game 2 \u2014 9\/6, 5:10 \u2014 Brandon Pfaadt (12-8, 5.33 ERA, 82 ERA+, 1.39 WHIP) vs. Lucas Giolito (10-2, 3.38 ERA, 123 ERA+, 1.22 WHIP)<\/p>\n

After an abysmal 2023 and then missing all of 2024 following elbow surgery, Giolito bounced back with the Red Sox in a big way. Since the start of July, the Red Sox have only lost two of his starts, and he has had a 2.84 ERA over that time period. There is probably some good luck in that, however, as his FIP has been almost a run and a half higher over that same period.<\/p>\n

Game 3 – 9\/7, 1:10 PM \u2014 Ryne Nelson (7-3, 3.57 ERA, 123 ERA+, 1.05 WHIP) vs. Brayan Bello (11-6, 3.07 ERA, 136 ERA+, 1.22 WHIP)<\/p>\n

Bello has pitched well this year, but just like Giolito, that FIP is a decent amount higher than his ERA. The results have been undeniable, though, as the Red Sox have won six of his last seven starts. He\u2019s a pretty consistent pitcher. Most days you\u2019ll get about six innings of two or three run ball. There have only been a couple of blow outs too, one a seven run game against the Braves back in May and a five run game last month against the Padres.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to bet against the Diamondbacks right now. Since they \u201csold\u201d at the break, they\u2019ve been playing their best baseball since arguably July\/August of last year. They\u2019re going up against some good pitching in this series, so it won\u2019t be easy, but I do think they keep the streak going and take two of three this weekend.<\/p>\n

0 Comments<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Ed. Note] I want to apologize in advance for the\u2026 brevity of this preview. I just finished my…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2404],"tags":[146,22,4314,5,38,40669,40670,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-294871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-diamondbacks","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-diamondbacks","10":"tag-arizonadiamondbacks","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-diamondbacks","13":"tag-diamondbacks-opinion-analysis","14":"tag-diamondbacks-previews","15":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}