Over the All-Star break, I plotted a path for the D-backs to 85 wins. Seven games into the second half, they’re holding steady as they go, having gone 4-3. Indeed, they’re fractionally ahead of the projected schedule, which called for them to win 3.68 games by this point. But no thanks to Taylor Clarke, whose return from the injured list tonight proved little different from his sub-mediocre results in the first half.
When your starting pitcher can’t even get through four innings, it’s rarely a good thing. Indeed, over the last 22 occasions it had happened to the D-backs, dating back to April 2018, Arizona had gone 1-21.