Diamondbacks Game Preview #154: 9/25 vs Giants

Sep 25, 2022 - 6:31 PM

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Thanks to Spencer for pinch-hitting on the previews the past couple of days. We were off to Los Angeles for the Rammstein show. It was great, but damn - California is terrible in so many ways. Quite glad to be home and in a place where gas is not still $6 a gallon, or parking costs $60. Anyway. The D-backs come into the final contest of the year at Chase Field with their record perched on a knife-edge: over the first 80 games, the team has won forty and lost forty, so this will decide whether or not the team has a winning home mark. That’s something they failed conspicuously to do in 2021, going 32-49, but even as the team has struggled of late, home territory has generally been a boon to Arizona.

Across all of the majors this year, there’s 54 point split in winning percentage at home (.527) compared to on the road (.473). With nine games lever, the D-backs currently sit 75 points better, and that’s actually low by their standards. Last year, the gap was 148 points: the overall mark may have been dire, but the Diamondbacks were still 32-49 at home. It was the 20-61 record elsewhere which was the killer. The same goes in 2020’s shortened schedule, where Arizona actually ended above .500 at home, going 16-14, but were 9-21 elsewhere. That’s a split of 233 points. It seems a recent change, with a smaller than average gap in 2019 (37 points) and a negative split in 2018 (40 wins at home, 42 on the road).

All told, from the start of 2020 through today, Arizona has been 135 points better at home: .461 vs .326. The only teams with a bigger split are, you won’t be surprised to hear, the Colorado Rockies, who are at 177 points (.529 vs. .352), and the Phillies’ 141 points (.585 vs. .444). The Astros come close, at 131 points - maybe there’s still some trash-can banging still going on in Minute Maid Field? New York also seems to provide a big advantage to both the Yankees (135 points) and Mets (110). The smallest gap belongs to the Cleveland Whatevers, who are just two points better at home over the past three seasons. Oakland (11 points) and Milwaukee (18) round out the bottom three.