We\u2019ve all been there. Probably, as D-backs fans, more often than we would like. You reach a certain point in the season, look at the standings and realize that this is not going to be the Diamondbacks\u2019 year. Maybe you keep watching games; maybe you watch fewer of them; maybe you switch over to just checking the box-scores at the end of the night, and find other ways to occupy your free-time. Even here on the SnakePit, I\u2019ll admit that there have been seasons – 2021, most obviously in recent history – where the site has basically been running on the writing equivalent of muscle memory.<\/p>\n
What would make you check out on the 2026 season early?<\/p>\n
Time to \u2018fess up. There\u2019s no denying, it will be an uphill struggle for the D-backs this year. The Dodgers are very heavy favorites to run away with the division – Fangraphs currently projects them to win the NL West by fifteen games. To a certain extent, I\u2019m consequently already checked out – or, at least, less invested in the regular season than I would want to be. Because the outcome of the NL West feels about as close to pre-determined as possible. The wild-card chase is rather more nebulous: I\u2019ll see if we are in the hunt there when we get Corbin Burnes and Justin Martinez back.<\/p>\n
But at what point would you find yourself looking at other sports or pastimes?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019ve all been there. Probably, as D-backs fans, more often than we would like. You reach a certain…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2404],"tags":[146,22,4314,19173,5,38,4],"class_list":["post-572757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-arizona","tag-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-arizonadiamondbacks","tag-az-snake-pit-community","tag-baseball","tag-diamondbacks","tag-mlb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116070859890723008","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572757","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=572757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}