Zac Gallen and D-backs Look for Series Sweep over Rangers

The Texas Rangers (72-53) visit Chase Field to play the Arizona Diamondbacks (65-61) at 6:40 P.M. tonight. The Rangers lead the AL West, barely over the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners. The D-backs compete for an NL Wild Card spot as they are over 10 games back of the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West. They are hoping that the Giants and Reds both lose tonight as then an Arizona win will vault them into the third playoff spot.

The Diamondbacks coming off an extra-innings walk-off win versus the Rangers on Monday night. Whereas last night was a bullpen game for the D-backs, tonight is not. They have their ace and CY Young candidate Zac Gallen on the mound. The Rangers are countering with long-time former foe Jon Gray.

Let's get some fun notes out of the way before getting to pitching matchups. Ketel Marte hit his 99th home run as a member of the D-backs placing him ninth all-time. Tommy Pham's game-winning RBI double extended his hit streak to 12 games. That's good enough to be the longest active hit streak in the MLB right now. Last night's win in extras moved the D-backs to 3-3 on the season in those games and to 2-2 in franchise history versus the Rangers. It was the first time in franchise history that Arizona beat the Rangers in extras in Chase Field. The team is tied for fourth-most in the NL with 32 comeback wins.

Some notes on the pitching staff. As you might've noticed, the pitching has been superb as of late for the D-backs. Since August 17th, according to the D-backs communications staff, Diamondbacks' pitchers boast the lowest WHIP (0.93), ERA (2.35 over 46 innings), and the fewest hits allowed (24). That's pretty impressive considering they've had three bullpen games since August 17th.

Pitching Matchup

Zac Gallen is coming off a great but scary start against the Padres last week when he went 6.1 innings and gave up just three hits, one run, and struck out three despite some very loud contact. He's not given up a home run in three straight starts. Gallen is top-five for hardest contact allowed among qualified starters, yet he still has an ERA of 3.17 over 162 innings and 26 starts. He's struck out 168 and has a 1.05 WHIP.

Gallen has managed to work around the loud contact often, so long as it stays in the park. It's impressive that a pitcher can still dominate using his elite control and aggressive pitching nature despite allowing so many home runs and hard contact. It speaks to his mentality that he isn't scared to pitch to contact and trusts his defense behind him. Plus, he's still striking out better than a batter per inning while limiting his walks to counter-balance the contact.

Gallen is throwing his 4-seam fastball 48.2%, of the time , his curveball at 23.9%, changeup at 13.4%, cutter at 10.3%, slider at 3.8%, and sinker at 0.4%. Gallen has effectively mixed his pitches at an elite rate to keep hitters off balance and never know what's coming. He’s decreased his cutter usage from 2022 by four percent while increasing his slider up three or so percent. So long as these balls keep finding gloves, Gallen's on his way to winning the CY Young or at least a top-three finish.

Meanwhile, for Jon Gray, he's having a strong August. He's thrown 19.1 innings in August and has given up 15 hits, six earned runs, four walks, and 17 strikeouts. On the year, he has a 3.52 ERA over 22 games with an 8-6 record, 127.2 innings, and 106 strikeouts to a 1.19 WHIP. Gray is well-versed against the D-backs from his days in Colorado prior to 2022. Of course, he faced Arizona earlier in the season in Texas on May 2nd. He went 5.1 innings and gave up eight hits, four runs, one walk, and struck out two.

In his career against the Snakes, he's pitched 19 games against them and has 103.1 innings with a 5.66 ERA, 93 strikeouts, 33 walks, and a 5-7 record. At Chase Field, he has a 4.68 ERA over nine games and 50 innings. He has 55 strikeouts, 13 walks, and a 4-3 record there. On the season, he's throwing his 4-seam fastball at 42.2%, slider at 31.5%, changeup at 11.9%, sweeper at 8.1%, and curveball at 6.4% of the time.

Lineups

Due to Gray's history with the NL West, the D-Backs batters have a history with him. Ketel Marte is hitting .419 over 31 at-bats with two home runs. Jace Peterson is hitting .300 over 10 at-bats, and Walker has a .385 average over 26 at-bats with two home runs. However, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. has one hit in seven at-bats and Pham is hitting .071 over 14 at-bats. None of the Ranges have more than eight at-bats versus Gallen except for Corey Seager. Seager is hitting .333 over 18 at-bats.

Bullpens

The D-backs used nearly their entire bullpen yesterday, but having an off-day prior to that, everyone should be available. That's huge for Manager Torey Lovullo as he can still use his best pitchers, Justin Martinez, Paul Sewald, Kyle Nelson, and Kevin Ginkel. Nabil Crismatt has yet to make his D-backs debut. The Rangers barely used their pen yesterday, but Aroldis Chapman might be down due to his throwing two innings yesterday.