Diamondbacks Game Preview #160: 10/3 @ Brewers

Oct 3, 2022 - 10:30 PM

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According to Google, it would take you about 27 hours to drive the 1,800 or so miles from Phoenix to Milwaukee. I’m fairly sure the D-backs won’t be bussing it, but it’s still a long way from home for the final series of the year. It’s a bit of a rarity for Arizona to have to do that. Even if they don’t end the schedule at Chase Field, the makers usually have it so that their final series is against another National League West opponent, presumably to try and make for excitement in the final games. Indeed, only on one other time since 2009 has Arizona had to change their clocks for the last series, in 2017 when they played in Kansas City. Nine of the eleven previous final stands for the D-backs had been at home.

This is the 25th season for the D-backs, and the great majority, seventeen of them, have ended with games against divisional opponents. But it hasn’t been an even split within the NL West, with a heavy bias towards the Rockies (six times) and Padres (seven). We’ve only finished against the Dodger and Giants twice; we haven’t done so against San Francisco since back in 2005. Indeed, Arizona will now have had as many season-ending series in Milwaukee, as against the Giants here OR in San Francisco. Of the other opponents outside the NL West, we’ve also seen St. Louis twice, both times at Chase Field. along with series on the road against the Royals and Cubs, and at home versus the Nationals and Astros.

But this will be the furthest from home the D-backs have ever played game #162, obviously tying the 2001 series, also in Milwaukee, the opening season for what was then called Miller Park. The D-backs clinched the NL West title with a 5-0 victory in the first game, behind a complete-game three-hit shutout from Randy Johnson Curt Schilling Albie Lopez. I think it’s fair to say they took their feet off the gas for the remaining two games, particularly the finale started by, um, Eric Knott. After taking a 4-0 lead, the D-backs surrendered a ten-run fourth, on their way to a 15-5 loss. Knott allowed eight runs, but after errors by Craig Counsell and Mark Grace, all were unearned . That’s a line no NL pitcher has had in the past 15 years.