D-Backs searching for missing power production from lineup
Stephen Vogt’s high and deep drive died at the warning track on Friday night, coming to rest in the glove of San Francisco Giants right fielder Mike Yastrzemski. It was the final swing of the game. It also was the closest the Diamondbacks came to hitting a home run.
For the 14th time in 27 games this season, the Diamondbacks did not go deep. No team in the majors has played more games without hitting a home run. In an era known for the long ball, it is a staggering number for a team that entered the year with such high hopes for its offense.
“I think we’ve run across some pretty good pitching,” Diamondbacks hitting coach Darnell Coles said. “But I think it’s just a consistency of getting in your hitting position, getting the right pitches, setting the pitcher up to where you do things to give you the best chance to be success instead of the other way around, where he’s dictating to you what he wants to do.”
The power outage is particularly stark when compared to a year ago. The 14 games represent 52 percent of the Diamondbacks’ schedule. Last year, they went without a home run in just 31 percent of their games. They also have seen a drop off in the number of games in which they have hit multiple homers, going from 38 percent of the time last season to just 22 percent this year.
The lack of pop has contributed to a Diamondbacks’ offense that ranks in the bottom half of the league in runs per game and in the bottom third in slugging. They also rank among the bottom third of teams with the number of games (12) in which they have scored three runs or less.
The issue is one the Diamondbacks have been trying to address. On Monday, they made a move that seemed surprising on its face, sending down rookie Andy Young, who had taken mostly competitive and productive atbats during his brief stay in the majors, to make room for slugger Kevin Cron, who was said to be swinging the bat well at the club’s alternate site.
The move has not paid off – Cron entered Saturday night hitless in eight plate appearances since the promotion – but was done with one thing in mind, General Manager Mike Hazen said.
“We haven’t hit a ton of home runs this year,” Hazen said. “We’re looking for ability to drive the baseball in that (designated hitter) spot, when we’re not using it to get guys off their feet and rotate that guy through. We’re still looking to add some impact to our offense.”
In Hazen’s mind, the club’s offensive turnaround in the roughly two weeks preceding the roster move was due, in large part, to a bunch of hitters stringing together hits at a level he wasn’t sure his team could expect to continue.
“We know how the game runs now,” Hazen said. “Getting four singles to score a run is not a sustainable way of driving offense. Getting on base, hitting for power, driving the baseball – something we have done with our lineup in the past and are capable of doing and have shown spurts of this year, but we’re pushing for more.
“We’re pushing for more impact. We’re pushing for more consistency. I think if you talk about wanting to be a playoff team, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to expect that on a more consistent basis.”
To that end, Hazen might try to find that missing power on the trade market if the team’s internal options don’t show more signs of life. This year’s trade deadline is set for 1 p.m. on Aug. 31.
So far, the players the Diamondbacks counted on for the bulk of their power production last year have failed to replicate it this year. Eduardo Escobar hit 35 homers, Ketel Marte 32 and Christian Walker 29. This year, Escobar has three and Marte and Walker each have one apiece.
The Diamondbacks’ 14 games without a homer are one ahead of the Cleveland Indians at 13. The Colorado Rockies are third with 10. On the other end of the list, the New York Yankees have failed to homer in just three of their 25 games.
“I think if you’re a club that hits the ball out of the ballpark like we are, I think when you aren’t hitting two- or three-run home runs, sometimes it’s tough to score runs,” Coles said. “When you’re not hitting home runs, you’ve got to figure out ways to score runs and manufacture runs and we haven’t done a good job.”
The Diamondbacks offense this season has lived on the extremes, generally looking either unstoppable or completely inept rather than something inbetween. Coles thinks it has been a matter of not having enough hitters swinging the bat well at the same time.
“We’ve had probably an eight- to 12game stretch where we were real good at that,” he said. “Then the rest of the time it’s been a battle, even though we’ve won some games doing some different things.
“But, ultimately, when you have four or five guys clicking at the same time you have a better chance of scoring runs. We haven’t done a good job of that as a whole. We’re not going to stop working at it. We’re going to continue to grind on it and hopefully get it worked out and hopefully that starts tonight.”