The Arizona Diamondbacks and Washington Nationals conclude their season series with a three-game weekend set in Phoenix that features several of the game’s brightest young hitting stars.
Arizona’s Corbin Carroll, 24, and the Nationals’ James Wood, 22, rank among the National League’s top five in homers.
Carroll, despite being in a 2-for-23 slump, has 16 long balls, good for third in the NL. Wood has 15, tied with the Chicago Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong and the Diamondbacks’ Eugenio Suarez for fourth.
Arizona right-hander Merrill Kelly (5-2, 3.52 ERA) will oppose Washington righty Jake Irvin (4-1, 3.42) in the opener on Friday.
Wood has homered in three of his past five games, including a 448-footer on Tuesday and a 435-footer on Wednesday. On Thursday, as the Nationals won the rubber match of a three-game series against the host Seattle Mariners 9-3 in 10 innings, Wood contributed a two-run double.
Robert Hassell III, another young talent acquired with Wood in the trade that sent Juan Soto to the San Diego Padres in 2022, socked his first major league homer on Wednesday. It was part of his first career three-hit game.
“It’s something I’ve been waiting for,” Hassell said. “You imagine what it’s like and all that, but it finally happened and I feel blessed.”
Washington has won eight of 11 after capturing the series in Seattle. Josh Bell homered in consecutive victories the past two days.
The Diamondbacks have lost two in a row and seven of eight, their only victory in that span coming in the opener of a three-game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday.
Manager Torey Lovullo met with several players in his office on Wednesday morning to discuss the recent stretch before the Pirates’ 10-1 victory behind Paul Skenes.
“We just have to play better baseball. That’s all there is to it,” said Lovullo, whose team is two games under .500 for the first time this season.
“This team is good. We’re going to win games, but it doesn’t happen automatically. I’m losing patience. We have to be better, and I know we are better. We will start to perform at some point. I just want it to happen right now.”
The D-backs were outscored 19-1 in the final 13 innings of the Pittsburgh series. Arizona blew a 6-0 lead on Tuesday, despite starter Corbin Burnes exiting with a 6-2 lead after seven innings.
Arizona’s bullpen ERA is 5.49, the second-highest mark in the NL. Only Washington’s is higher, at 6.08.
The Nationals took two of three in the first series between the teams from April 4-6 in Washington, winning the final two after D-backs second baseman Ketel Marte strained his left hamstring running out a double in the first inning of the opener. The injury kept him out for a month.
Marte missed the final two games of the Pittsburgh series due to an illness, but he could be back on Friday.
Kelly is 3-0 with a 3.79 ERA in three career starts against the Nationals, although he has not faced them since 2023. Bell is 4-for-8 with two homers and two walks off him.
Irvin is 0-2 with a 5.40 ERA against Arizona in four career starts, including a no-decision when he threw five innings of four-run ball in a 6-4 loss on April 4. Carroll is 4-for-9 with two homers off him, and Marte is 4-for-9 with one homer.
–Field Level Media
