Struggles against left-handers continue for D-Backs hitters
The Diamondbacks’ offense has been shut down this season by Clayton Kershaw and Julio Urias, Kyle Freeland and Jesus Luzardo — and, now, by Sean Manaea. All are left-handed. All have played a part in handing losses to the Diamondbacks.
After falling 5-1 on Thursday night to Manaea and the Oakland Athletics, the Diamondbacks are winless in six games this season against left-handed starting pitchers.
Most of those six starters are well regarded in one way or another. Kershaw is one of the best ever. Freeland, Manaea and Urias each have some track record of success. Luzardo was considered one of the better pitching prospects in baseball entering this season.
But Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo did not seem to be in the mood on Thursday night to tip his cap. Instead, he said, he wanted to “put it on us.”
“I feel like you can run up anybody and we’re going to beat them,” Lovullo said. “That’s what I think of our team. With all due respect to the lefties we have faced, I still believe in these guys to execute a game plan.”
A year ago, the Diamondbacks crushed left-handed pitching. No team in the National League fared better than their .275/.342/.472 line.
With so many hitters coming off dominant seasons against lefties — Ketel Marte, Eduardo Escobar, Carson Kelly and Christian Walker among them — the Diamondbacks put much of their offseason focus on strengthening their lineup against right-handed pitching.
But, so far, last year’s results have not carried over. Kelly is 2 for 17 (.118) this year. Escobar, who homered to drive in the Diamondbacks’ lone run off Manaea on Thursday, is 5 for 22 (.227). Marte has just two extra-base hits against lefties, both doubles. And Walker is 4 for 19 (.211) after hitting two balls hard against Manaea but having nothing to show for it.
“I feel like the change of speeds front-to-back, maybe the back-foot slider, might be giving us some problems,” Lovullo said. “We’re definitely getting pitched to. We’re getting gameplanned. But we have some really good, capable, right-handed hitters who will make the adjustment.”
Six starts out of 26 games can be considered a small sample size, but so can the entire baseball season in 2020. Still, the Diamondbacks are not producing, with just .212 as a team with six doubles and three homers in 184 at-bats off lefty starters.
“It’s not like we can’t handle lefties,” Walker said. “It’s just kind of the way it’s been going for us. If anything, maybe we’re seeing lefties really well and we’re trying to do a little too much, trying to force it and not let the game come to us.
“I don’t like feeling complacent or content with anything like that, but at the same time you’ve got to be fair to the hitters and chalk it up to baseball being difficult sometimes.”
The Diamondbacks did hit some balls hard off Manaea on Thursday only to watch Athletics’ defenders convert them into outs. They also squandered a leadoff double by Marte in the fourth, the heart of the order going down in order to end the inning.
Meanwhile, the Athletics’ hitters had no such trouble against lefty Alex Young, bashing two homers off him in four innings, one each by Matt Chapman and Matt Olson. Chapman added a second homer off reliever Yoan Lopez in the eighth.
After splitting their four-game, home-and-home series with the A’s, the Diamondbacks head across the Bay Bridge to open a three-game set against the San Francisco Giants on Friday night. On the bright side, they’ll see a right-hander on Friday. But they’ll likely face a lefty on Saturday — and will probably see Freeland again next week when the Colorado Rockies come to Chase Field.
Lovullo believes his team’s past success against lefties is reason to be optimistic that they’ll eventually find their stride against them this year.
“I thought when we were in summer camp that left-handed pitching was going to be something that we were going to feast on,” he said. “That hasn’t been the case. We’re going to have to make adjustments.”