Week and a half into the season and the Arizona Diamondbacks lead the NL West. Mostly from wins they picked up against San Diego and Los Angeles.
Because...why should anything about this season be predictable?
The Diamondbacks, who are appropriately playing the Brewers, one of the other best NL teams of the first week and a half of play, rose up in an inexplicable way to begin the season. Firstly and most impressively, their top player of the stretch was not a poster boy like Ketel Marte, nor an ace like Zac Gallen, and not even a rookie like Corbin Carroll...but shortstop Geraldo Perdomo. Pedromo currently has a .438 average, leads the team in RBIs with 8, and leads the team in WAR with 0.9. Considering how tricky it was for the defensive youngster to find the plate last year, this is a welcome development that also makes the D-Backs a little less worried for what happens after Nick Ahmed's rocky 4-year-deal runs out at the end of the year.
Ahmed, meanwhile, is also doing well to begin the season, and is looking healthier than he has since the 2020 season. And weirdly, one of the other 30something infield options, Evan Longoria, has also had an excellent start to the season, hitting .429 with 2 homers and 6 hits in 14 at-bats. Like Ahmed, you really want Longoria to stay healthy for as long as possible knowing what's often the case, but these numbers are definitely helpful now. Plus, Corbin Carroll has already stolen 5 bases, Drey Jameson has been stellar in relief and is now getting moved to the rotation, and former Blue Jays third-stringer Gabriel Moreno has been looking very good covering for Carson Kelly.
And then you also have Merrill Kelly, Josh Rojas, Ketel Marte and Jake McCarthy, who seem to be picking up where 2022 left off and rounding out the team. There's some people who've gotten off to worrying starts, and while Zac Gallen I imagine is gonna snap back to normal, Christian Walker returning to hitting below the Mendoza line I could have told you was gonna happen. But the bottom line is that more people on this Diamondbacks team are producing promising results, especially the young guys, that I can't exactly count this team out going forward, even knowing that April numbers often don't translate to full season greatness.
The D-Backs have been building, slowly, for the last 3 or 4 years, and for something to finally look decent now is not only understandable but refreshing. I don't know if other division series' is gonna level them a bit, or if this Brewers series is gonna be the wake-up call they needed, but seeing this team playing this well, and seeing who exactly is showing up, is a nice change of pace.
Coming Tonight: A third-baseman who apparently just needed a year to adjust to playing in Toronto, judging by how incredible he's been so far.
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