Diamondbacks, Madison Bumgarner's Spring Start Rained Out
The Diamondbacks were scheduled to play two spring training games at Salt River Fields today. The first game against the San Francisco Giants was scheduled for 1:10 P.M., but the team has announced the game is canceled. As it's supposed to rain even harder in the evening according to the weather report it is almost certain the second game against the Milwaukee Brewers scheduled for 6:40 P.M. will be canceled as well.
Madison Bumgarner, who was scheduled to start the first game has only appeared in one Cactus League game so far. His most recent outing came in a backfield B game last week against a lineup of Chicago Cubs minor leaguers. As reported by Nick Piecoro of AZ Central, Bumgarner has been working on a new cutter grip. The pitch has been showing sharper break in his early efforts with it. It's getting late in spring training now, and the rainout today could have negative impacts on his season preparation. Presumably he'll have to do some indoor throwing to get his work in, but that is far less than ideal. Unless they push him back to tomorrow he'll probably then only have time to squeeze in two real game outings prior to the start of the regular season in Los Angeles on March 30th.
Brandon Pfaadt is scheduled to start the night game. He is in competition for the fifth starter's spot in the rotation and is coming off a rough outing his last time out. As reported yesterday, it's getting down to crunch time for Diamondbacks spring competitions.
With two games on the docket today, and some critical pitcher evaluation work to be done, the inclement weather comes at an especially bad time for the Diamondbacks.
This story will be updated when the evening game status is clarified.
