Wednesday, April 09

Welcome to the D-backs Beat Newsletter! I’m Steve Gilbert and I’ve been writing about the D-backs since 1998. Let’s get to it … 

It was quite a first series of the season for the Diamondbacks, who were on the verge of dropping three of four to the Cubs before Sunday afternoon’s eight-run eighth inning that sent them on to New York feeling a lot better about themselves.

Things moved quickly over the weekend with a lot going on, so let’s go through some things to know about the series:

Eugenio Suárez is still hot
We’ve documented how Suárez was nearly designated for assignment last year before going on a tear at the plate, which prompted the Diamondbacks to pick up his $17 million option for 2025.

Suárez was mashing the ball during Spring Training -- but that’s Spring Training, so you take that with a grain of salt.

Then the regular season began and … wow.

Suárez had three homers in the first two games of the season, matching the club record for homers in the opening two games. Luis Gonzalez also hit three homers in the first two games of the 2001 season, one in which he would go on to hit 57 homers and lead the Diamondbacks to a World Series championship.

That’s not to say that Suárez is going to hit 50-plus homers or that the Diamondbacks are necessarily going to win the World Series, but it does show that he still is in a groove at the plate.

Suárez added another homer in the third game of the season to set a club record for most homers in the first three games.

“He’s on everything," D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. "You can just see it. You start to gain a little confidence and you get in a locked-in position. He’s just on every pitch.”

And if you think there might have been a chance that Suárez's bat would cool off as the D-backs left home, think again. He rallied Arizona in the eighth inning with a decisive grand slam for a 7-5 win over the Yankees on Tuesday night. It was his fifth hit of the season, and all five have been home runs.

Let’s talk about days off

I got a lot of questions Sunday about why Corbin Carroll was not in the starting lineup from fans worried that he was hurt.

He was not.

Lovullo is making a concerted effort in the first week of the season to give his position players a day off. They don’t want them, of course, because coming out of Spring Training they all feel fresh and ready to go.

But last year, after starting Alek Thomas in the first three games of the year, Lovullo thought about resting him for the fourth. Instead, he played him and Thomas injured his hamstring and it started a miserable year for him.

Now, that’s probably not the reason that Thomas got hurt, but it did make Lovullo more concerned about making sure guys get rest early in the season.

As a side note, Lovullo said Carroll popped his head into the manager’s office when he got to the ballpark Sunday and asked, “Can I change your mind?”

Alek Thomas is hot

Speaking of Thomas, after struggling to find his stroke last year after missing so much time due to injury, he started a little slow at the plate this spring.

But Lovullo said he could see the work that Thomas was putting in and felt like he was getting closer and closer to figuring it out.

Jake McCarthy started the first and third games of the Cubs series in center while Thomas got the nods in the second and fourth games.

Thomas went 3-for-4 with a pair of doubles in the second game and then picked up another two hits Sunday, drew a walk and narrowly missed a homer with a sacrifice fly to right that was caught at the wall.

“There [was] at-bat after at-bat with a good approach,” Lovullo said of Thomas during the series. “He's not getting fooled, and he's ready for this opportunity. And that's what stands out to me more than anything. I'm very, very proud of where he's at right now.”

It will be interesting to see how Lovullo splits up the playing time between McCarthy and Thomas as the season goes on, especially if Thomas stays hot. In Tuesday’s series opener against the Yankees, left fielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. got the day off, so McCarthy got the nod in left and Thomas in center.

They need to tighten up the little things

The Diamondbacks came away with two wins in the series with the Cubs, but they didn’t play very clean baseball.

There were a couple of double plays that weren’t turned, a couple of baserunning mistakes, 15 walks allowed and six errors.

Arizona bench coach Jeff Banister welcomed pitcher Ryne Nelson to what he calls “The 1.000 Club” following Nelson’s pinch-hit RBI single Sunday.

Banister played seven seasons in the Minors in the Pirates organization -- six before getting his first, and only, taste of the big leagues in 1991. Banister singled in his only at-bat, giving him, like Nelson, a 1.000 career batting average.

“I’m lobbying Torey to give him another at-bat so we can get him out of the club,” Banister joked.

For the first time in franchise history, some of the Diamondbacks games will be televised on a local network affiliate.

The team and 12News reached an agreement where 10 games will be simulcast over the air this year, beginning with the April 25 game against the Braves.

12News reaches approximately 1.59 million television households across the market and will extend coverage to surrounding regions including all of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and parts of Nevada.

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