The Arizona Diamondbacks are 50 games into the 2025 season, approaching Memorial Day having yet to consistently put opponents away with a decent-yet-middling 26-24 record.
Their potential is evidenced by the club’s top-five scoring offense, a starting rotation trending in the right direction and a competitiveness against the toughest early-season schedule in the league by winning percentage.
Walking around the clubhouse on Wednesday, that sense of “we have not played our best baseball yet” appeared to be a common sentiment.
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Starting pitcher Corbin Burnes: “I think we’ve seen it in stretches where we played some really good baseball and then played some not really good baseball. I think if we can put it all together and get things rolling, we can be a pretty scary team.”
Reliever Jalen Beeks: “I think we’ve battled really well. I think we haven’t really played as good as we could have. Not saying guys haven’t played well, we just haven’t put it all together every game. I just think there’s been so many missed opportunities. … I think when we turn it on and get going, we’re one of the best teams in the league.”
Manager Torey Lovullo: “We’re in a good spot, but I want us to play complete games every single night. We’re gonna stick to that standard.”
The Diamondbacks started the year 4-2 and have since struggled to completely put the .500 mark well behind them. They are 10-10 over their last 20 games and 14-16 over the past 30.
The adversity the team has faced is clear. Star second baseman Ketel Marte missed nearly a month with a hamstring strain. The bullpen has not been the same since co-closers A.J. Puk and Justin Martinez last pitched in the same game on April 17, before they suffered respective injuries. Marte is back, Martinez is returning on Friday and Puk is expected to get back sometime in late June.
The schedule, meanwhile, has included three east coast road trips and an opposing win percentage of .515.
At the same time, to Beeks’ point, there have been so many opportunities missed in a season that certainly cannot be described as mundane. The club has collected jaw-dropping losses, losing games in which it scored 10 runs in an inning and Eugenio Suarez hit four home runs.
Just in the past week, Arizona took an 11-6 lead over miserable Colorado and lost. Three days later, the D-backs blew a 3-1 lead in extra innings against the Dodgers.
The Diamondbacks’ record could look a lot different, as they have played 31 games decided by three runs or fewer (17-14) and 16 one-run games (8-8). Only 11 teams have played that many one-run games.
Imagine if they were 4-0 when they’ve scored 11 runs this season. How much better would their first 50 games feel if they held a 29-21 record?
Instead, they’ve gone 1-3 in such ballgames.
These defeats can stir up anxieties stemming from the end of last season, when the D-backs missed the postseason by a tiebreaker, and any one game could be revisited as the culprit.
“Last year’s season is funny in a lot of ways because the ending of it creates this perception — and it’s something we buy into. We always believe every game’s important — but the ending of last season makes it feel like any game we don’t capitalize on in April and May is definitely going to come back and cost us,” assistant general manager Mike Fitzgerald told Arizona Sports’ Wolf & Luke.
“We were 25-32 last year. We had a losing record in July. We ended up getting hot in the second half of the season. We put ourselves in a situation to be one game shy. There were a ton of things we could have done better through July that we didn’t take advantage of. I think we’re doing a better job of not having those things cost us games. But with that being said, there’s plenty of areas we can improve.”
No doubt the Diamondbacks have ironing out to do, but there are reasons to maintain the same optimism that most of the fanbase shared before the season began. Let’s go through it piece by piece:
D-backs offense is still humming
The Diamondbacks once again have one of the top-producing offenses in MLB. They rank fifth in runs, third in OPS, fourth in home runs and first in doubles. Corbin Carroll (2.2 rWAR) and Geraldo Perdomo (2.6 rWAR) look like All-Stars. Gabriel Moreno and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. have heated up in May after slow starts.
And the Diamondbacks have a league-leading six players with an OPS+ of 120 or better in at least 100 plate appearances — that’s tied with the Dodgers and Cubs. OPS+ compares players on a scale with 100 being league average.
So, why hasn’t the offense felt quite that electric every day, like it did last summer?
The D-backs have been one of the least successful teams with runners in scoring position. They are batting .231 (24th) with an OPS of .694 (20th) with runners in those situations. Now add two outs to the mix, and Arizona is hitting .189 as a team.
The offense has been good but not top of the league like it was last season, and that lack of execution from getting the ball deep enough for a sac fly, dropping a perfect bunt or coming up with a clutch two-out hit is a missing link.
The Diamondbacks did not expect to be the league-leading scorer again, focusing this offseason more on pitching to provide better balance than last year. The pop has been there for the lineup, and it’s hard to complain about a top-five offense, but it has to come through with runners aboard to find more consistency.
Starting pitching and defense inconsistencies
Here’s where the season started off quite poorly. Through the first two weeks of the season, D-backs starters had a National league-worst 5.43 ERA. The starting rotation was expected to be one of the best in baseball after adding Burnes on a $210 million deal.
Several defensive blunders, meanwhile, potentially cost them games.
Both elements have mostly stabilized.
Burnes, Brandon Pfaadt and Merrill Kelly in particular have been fantastic. Burnes and Kelly own a 1.59 ERA in 45.1 combined May innings, while Pfaadt has six quality starts this season (tied for 12th in MLB).
Eduardo Rodriguez landing on the IL has opened a spot for Ryne Nelson, who threw five innings of one-run ball against the Dodgers on Tuesday. What happens when the struggling Rodriguez gets back if Nelson is humming could be cause for tough conversations, a good problem to have if such a thing really exists.
Zac Gallen has continued to battle for consistency. He’s thrown three absolute gems against New York teams (19.2 IP, 2 ER) and three stinkers (15.2 IP, 17 ER) that elevated his ERA to 5.14. He’ll start on Friday to kick off the next 50 games.
Overall, Arizona’s starting pitching has done its job keeping the team in ballgames of late. In May, Arizona starters are fifth in MLB in innings, and the defense has backed them up.
“Much better,” Lovullo said on Wednesday regarding how his club has trended.
“I think it starts with the pitching and defense. We’ve gotta tighten up things in the bullpen, no doubt about it. … We’re two men down and hopefully one’s coming back very soon. And that may help remedy it quickly. I feel good about the way we’re picking up the baseball. We’re playing full speed on defense.”
Bullpen injuries have hit Arizona
The team’s obvious weakness since Puk and Martinez were banged up has been the bullpen, which ranks 28th in MLB with a 6.39 ERA since April 18.
A reason for optimism is that this team has not sported its complete bullpen all year, and getting Martinez back inches closer to that goal.
Shelby Miller and Beeks have been tremendous late additions that showcase how volatile a bullpen can be, as have the struggles of Ryan Thompson and Kevin Ginkel on the flip side. Ginkel appears to be turning a corner with five straight scoreless outings.
How the Diamondbacks work Martinez back in will be something to watch these next few games, as they threw Ginkel into the fire pretty quickly after his own lengthy IL stint.
Martinez has not been down for quite as long, and if he can claim that closer status with Beeks, Miller and Ginkel filling in high-leverage roles, there are reasons for optimism there. Kendall Graveman continuing to get his feet wet and Juan Morillo developing add depth, while the club could really benefit from Thompson (7.50 ERA) righting the ship.
Are the Diamondbacks in position to compete for the postseason?
Entering Memorial Day weekend, the Diamondbacks are five games back of the Dodgers in the NL West and two games back of an NL Wild Card spot.
They are far from buried and will get some softer stretches in the schedule coming up after this weekend in St. Louis.
FanGraphs gives them a 50.5% chance to make the postseason in a very competitive NL, and Baseball Prospectus has their odds at 53.9%. Their schedule is the fifth-easiest the rest of the way (.485), although their September slate looks daunting.
Overall, the first 50 games have been a roller coaster that has left fans underwhelmed to frustrated, but there’s not a lot of reason to panic in that clubhouse.
“Good things happen when you play hard and work hard,” first baseman Josh Naylor told Arizona Sports on Wednesday. “I don’t even know what our record is at this point. I don’t really care. I just focus on August, September, the most important months, and if we continue to play hard, we’ll be in a good position in those months.”
We’re just waiting for that run, that 10-20-game stretch in which they put the .500 mark firmly behind them.
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