The Diamondbacks have reached the kind of pitching problem every club hopes for: too many starters coming back, not enough obvious room for all of them.
Arizona is still chasing a playoff spot, but the rotation picture has changed fast as the season winds down. A few weeks ago, the team had to patch together two bullpen games just to get through matchups with the Philadelphia Phillies and the Kansas City Royals. Now the injured list is thinning, and the club is staring at a decision it did not have before.
Corbin Burnes, back after being away for over a year, made his season debut Tuesday in Kansas City and gave Arizona three scoreless innings. He finished with two strikeouts, two walks and two hits allowed, and manager Torey Lovullo said Burnes will start again next week against the Miami Marlins.
That return only adds to the logjam. If the Diamondbacks do not want to move to a six-man rotation, they may need to keep leaning on piggyback starts, with two pitchers sharing one game. That raises the question Arizona now has to answer: who opens the game, and who follows?
Zac Gallen and Michael Soroka are part of that conversation too after both came back from injury. Their first piggyback trial came in Game 3 in Kansas City, and it wasn’t the cleanest outing for the club. Gallen gave up two runs in 3.1 innings and allowed plenty of hard contact, while Soroka gave up a three-run homer in the loss over 4.0 innings.
Even so, the important part for Arizona was length. Both pitchers showed they can handle meaningful innings, and both look stretched out enough to work deep into games. The challenge now is figuring out which one gives the Diamondbacks the best chance to cover the most outs efficiently.
“We’ve got to make that decision. Who’s going to help us get the most outs and pitch deep into the game?
And it’s a hard decision,” Lovullo said pregame Friday night. “Both have given their heart and soul to this team for the entire year and battled injuries.
So we’re going to thoroughly look at everything that we possibly can… I believe the decision is going to be a very hard one, but we got to win baseball games, and whoever helps us win baseball games by starting and going deep into the game by limiting runs. That’ll be the key factor.”
For the Diamondbacks, the shortage is over. The issue now is sorting through the surplus. And with the season entering its final stretch, they may not have long to settle on the answer that gives them the best shot to win.
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