The Arizona Diamondbacks brought a 28-24 record and a full head of steam to San Francisco on Monday, while the Giants arrived at 22-31 and trying to keep pace after a weekend split with the White Sox. Arizona had just finished a 6-1 homestand with a 9-1 win over Colorado, then opened this Diamondbacks vs Giants rematch with the same kind of pressure it had built in Phoenix last week.
That sweep still hangs over this matchup. The Diamondbacks beat the Giants 5-3 in a walk-off game after San Francisco carried a 3-1 lead into the ninth, a loss that fit a stretch in which Arizona had been getting timely hits and late answers. Corbin Carroll was in the middle of it after going 4-for-4 with two triples and two RBI on Sunday to extend his hitting streak to 12 games, while Ketel Marte came in riding an eight-game hitting streak and a 10-for-16 surge that included the walk-off three-run homer against San Francisco last week.
Arizona's recent surge has been built on more than one hot night. Its 9-1 win over Colorado included 13 hits and seven extra-base hits, and the club jumped to a 7-0 lead by the fourth inning before Ryne Nelson finished a career-best eight innings. That kind of run support has made the Diamondbacks look like the sharper team entering the opener, especially against a Giants club that was trying to reset after scoring 18 runs over two wins against the White Sox, including 10 on Saturday and eight on Sunday.
The pitching matchup offered a useful contrast. Merrill Kelly entered at 4-3 with a 5.71 ERA and a 1.51 WHIP, with 41 innings pitched, 44 hits allowed, 27 strikeouts, 18 walks and eight home runs allowed. Landen Roupp came in at 5-4 with a 3.27 ERA and a 1.15 WHIP across 55 innings, with 61 strikeouts, 21 walks and only two home runs allowed. The numbers pointed to Roupp having the cleaner profile, even as Arizona carried the better record and the better recent results.
The other recent bats around the league underlined how quickly momentum can shift in May. Casey Schmitt had 11 home runs, 29 RBI, a.296 batting average, a.556 slugging percentage, a.260 isolated power, a.387 wOBA and a 152 wRC+, and he homered three times in four games. Rafael Devers drove in five runs with a grand slam on Sunday and hit his fifth home run of May, while Luis Arraez kept a.320/.363/.426 contact base. Tommy Troy also added two doubles in his debut, another small sign that Arizona's lineup depth has been showing up at the right time.
For the Giants, the question was whether the weekend burst against Chicago could travel into a tougher test against a team that had already beaten them three straight in Phoenix. Arizona entered the rematch as the hotter club, with the more convincing recent wins and the more dangerous late-game profile. San Francisco had the better individual pitching line in the matchup, but the Diamondbacks had already shown they could erase deficits, pile up extra-base hits and finish games when it mattered most.
That makes the first meeting in San Francisco less about the standings than the direction of the season. Arizona had a chance to turn its sweep of the Giants into a longer hold on third place in the NL West, while San Francisco needed more than a weekend scoring burst to change the picture. The next few innings would tell whether the Giants could answer the last week or whether the Diamondbacks would keep writing the same story in a new park.
