The Diamondbacks believe they are not just a solid offensive team – they believe they are an elite one. The reality is that being considered mediocre would be a step up from how they have looked through 34 games.
“This probably takes the cake,” Diamondbacks catcher Stephen Vogt said when asked, after a 5-2 loss to the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night, if he had ever been on a team where perception and reality were so out of whack for an offense. “We’re frustrated, obviously. We’re underperforming. We aren’t playing to our capabilities.”
More than halfway through their season, the Diamondbacks are fielding one of the least productive offenses in the National League. They are not getting on base. They are not hitting for power. They are not scoring runs.
And for as bad as some of their statistics look — .241 average, .314 on-base, .377 slugging — some of them feel misleading. That is, the numbers look better than the games have felt based on the lengthy blackouts that have engulfed the lineup for weeks at a time.
On Saturday, they managed just three hits. They hit one, maybe two, other balls hard that weren’t on the ground. Their approaches alternated between patient and undisciplined, sometimes from at-bat to at-bat, sometimes from pitch to pitch.
“I think, truly, we are one of the best offenses in baseball,” Vogt said. “We just aren’t playing like it right now.”
Perhaps most telling is that the Diamondbacks’ view of themselves does not seem wildly out of line with their capabilities. One of the best offenses in baseball? Perhaps few would have predicted that. But solidly in the upper-third of big league teams? For scouts and evaluators, that likely would have been a reasonable expectation.
They have a lineup filled with hitters who have performed well at the major league level, and though some do not have lengthy track records, many of them were productive just last year, making this season’s dropoff all the more unexpected.
Had the Diamondbacks begun last season with a 34-game stretch like this, it would not have been surprising. They had just parted ways with Paul Goldschmidt and A.J. Pollock. They were counting on a handful of unproven players.
But last year’s team finished tied for the fifth-most runs per game in the league – and the Diamondbacks added to the lineup in the offseason, picking up veterans Startling Marte, Kole Calhoun and Vogt.
The loss was the Diamondbacks’ ninth in their past 10 games. It dropped them to 14-20. They are in last place, 1 1/2 games back of the Giants. Right-hander Luke Weaver had another rough outing, exiting after allowing four runs on eight hits in just three innings.
The Diamondbacks’ lineup, which had opened the year with a two-week dry spell, appeared to be awakening the past few days. But after Saturday, they are hitting just .199 with a .599 OPS the past 10 games.
“Bottom line is,” manager Torey Lovullo said, “we’re getting game-planned and pitchers are going out and executing very well. We’re not making adjustments.”
Vogt mentioned the quality of the pitching the Diamondbacks have faced over the past 10 games, noting how few pitches over the plate – how few pitches to drive – their hitters have seen during this stretch. He also admitted that does not explain everything.
“We need to do better to combat that,” he said. “At the same time, I think we are pressing. We are trying to do too much. We are trying to make up for lost time. And right now we need to snap out of that and get back to doing our thing and believing how good we are.”
They were held in check by a parade of Giants pitchers on Saturday. Right-hander Trevor Cahill, who shut them down last weekend in San Francisco, was in the process of doing so again before exiting with a hip injury in the fourth inning. Five Giants relievers combined to allow just one hit and one walk over the final 5 2/3 innings.
It was the 14th time this season the Diamondbacks have been held to two runs or less.
“Teams are very smart,” Lovullo said. “There are a lot of people who are paying attention to how to throw pitches that are going to get us out. A lot of smart people are paying attention to that and these pitchers are going out and executing a game plan. We’ve got to be mindful we’re not going to get the same pitch every single time.”
Reach Piecoro at (602) 444-8680 or nick.piecoro@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickpiecoro.
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