The Diamondbacks will look to cure their struggles on the road and end a three game losing streak away from home. They may find more trouble in Pittsburgh than they bargained for because, despite a 24-28 overall record, Pittsburgh is now 14-11 at home, after beating Arizona yesterday.
Pirates vs Diamondbacks
The most significant problem with the Diamondbacks is that their batters become unreliable away from hitter-friendly Chase Field. At home, their BA is .295 and their OPS is .875, while on the road their BA drops to .223 and their OPS drops to .658. They score the most runs per game at home, 6.03, but the fourth-last away from home, 3.61, which is .15 less than the Padres. When Ivan Nova pitched in Chase Field on May 14th, his performance was, by his standards, subpar: he gave up three runs in six innings. All three runs that he gave up that day came off the bat of Paul Goldschmidt, who hit two home runs. Goldschmidt has hit eleven home runs this season. However, eight of those came at home, and two of them came in Coors Field, which is also a notorious hitters’ park. The most home runs per game have been hit in Chase Field this season, 1.664, while PNC Park ranks 19th in that category with .961 per game. The dimensions of Chase Field encourage more extra base hits. There is less room for error for pitchers in Chase Field, because batters are more easily able to take advantage.
Ivan Nova actually presents an unfavorable match-up for Arizona batters. Arizona is 3-3 in its last six matches against power ground ball pitchers. In those three wins, their ace Greinke outperformed Gerrit Cole and they dominated Tyler Glasnow and Luis Perdomo. The two latter pitchers failed to locate their pitches. They left balls over the middle of the plate, allowing Arizona to make hard contact at a ridiculous 60% rate. Meanwhile, they lost to Trevor Williams, Nova and, most recently, Jimmy Nelson. When figuring out whether Nova will command the plate better than Glasnow and Perdomo, we only need to compare BB/9 rates. Glasnow’s is 5.16, Perdomo’s is 2.70 while Nova’s is just 0.64. Nova is more reliable than Glasnow and Perdomo because of his ability to locate his pitches and command the plate. With his power stuff, Nova is very much capable of pitching well against Arizona. All he needs to do is not have a bad game, particularly at PNC, where he has even more room for error.
Ivan Nova’s counterpart is Robbie Ray. Ray, like Nova struggles at Chase Field. On May 14th, he gave up four runs in just four innings against Pittsburgh. But he is a much better pitcher on the road. For instance, on April 6th he gave up three runs in 5.2 innings at home against the Giants. But five days later, in San Francisco, he gave up zero runs in 6.2 innings. He then faced the Dodgers on the road, giving up one ER in six innings. When he faced the same lineup five days later at home, he gave up five runs in 5.1 innings. Ray has pitched 14.2 straight shutout innings, all on the road. His FIP at home is 5.53, but on the road it is just 2.09. So I expect him to have much better numbers against Pittsburgh in PNC Park. Especially because he matches up optimally against Pittsburgh batters as a left-handed power ground ball pitcher. Against southpaw starters, the Pirates’ are batting just a .214 BA and .679 OPS, compared to .247 and .703 against right-handed starters. Against power pitchers, the Pirates’ OPS is just .658, compared to .817 against finesse pitchers. Against ground ball pitchers, their OPS is just .629, compared to .730 against fly ball pitchers. I don’t expect Pittsburgh to turn these struggles around at night, where their OPS is just .660, compared to .761 in daytime games.
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