The San Francisco Giants (17-20, 4th NL West) are in the desert Southwest on Saturday to continue their four-game series against National League West rival the Arizona Diamondbacks (20-18, 2nd NL West). The opening game of the series was won by San Francisco 6-2 on Thursday. San Francisco’s Alex Cobb pitched shutout baseball into the 8th inning and rookie Casey Schmitt hit a two-run homer as one of four hits on the night. San Francisco has won two of the last three while Arizona has lost each of its last three. San Francisco will play without three pitchers as well as position players Luis Gonzalez, Roberto Perez, Austin Slater and Mike Yastrzemski. Arizona will play without four pitchers as well as position players Carson Kelly and Kyle Lewis.
San Francisco is 18th in team ERA at 4.40 and drops to 22nd in WHIP at 1.35. San Francisco's starting rotation has 15 Quality Starts which is 12th but the pitching staff is allowing opposing hitters to .265 at the plate which is 27th. Logan Webb is the leader in strikeouts for San Francisco with 55 and Alex Cobb has a 1.70 ERA to lead all starters. San Francisco will hand the ball to Anthony Desclafani on Saturday. This season the right hander is 3-2 with an ERA of 2.80 and 33 strikeouts.
At the plate, San Francisco has scored the 16th most runs with 165 and is 17th in team batting average at .242. The Giants are 15th in on base percentage at .321 and 9th in slugging percentage with .424. J.D. Davis and LaMonte Wade Jr are tied for the lead in home runs with seven each and two others have hit six home runs apie ce. Davis is the leader in RBI with 20 and Joc Pederson is second with 16. San Francisco has hit 48 doubles, two triples and 59 home runs in 37 games