MIAMI — Monday is a day that Shelby Miller has been waiting for since he underwent elbow surgery more than 14 months ago.
The Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander will make his first major-league appearance since April
23
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4.89 ERA).
The Diamondbacks, who lead the National League West with a 44-33 record, have won four games in a row.
Now they get back Miller, a 27-year-old former first-round pick who was drafted 19th overall by the St. Louis Cardinals in 2009. He went 15-9 with a
3.06 ERA in 2013, finishing third in the Rookie of the Year voting.
Since then, however, Miller has been traded twice — by the Cardinals to the Atlanta Braves and then to Arizona before the start of the 2016 season.
So far, the Diamondbacks haven’t gotten much return on their investment. Miller went 3-12 with a 6.15 ERA in 2016 and 2-2 with a 4.09 ERA before getting
hurt a year ago, lasting just four starts.
“I definitely have some things to prove over here,” Miller, an All-Star with Atlanta in 2015, told azcentral.com. “I feel I was throwing pretty well last
year. Unfortunately, I got hurt.”
Monday represents a fresh start for Miller
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this year followed by four minor-league rehab appearances.
“I’m super excited to be here,” Miller said. “For me, it’s a huge accomplishment.
“Command was the last thing to come back. But I feel it is there now. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t feel I was ready to pitch.”
Straily, who will be Miller’s counterpart on Monday, faced Arizona earlier this year, allowing one run in 4 1/3 innings of a 6-1 loss to the Diamondbacks
on June 3.
In Straily’s most recent start, he lasted just 1 1/3 innings before he was ejected for the first time in his career, exiting during a 6-3 loss to the San
Francisco Giants.
Straily was tossed out after he hit Giants star catcher Buster Posey with a pitch.
“I don’t know,” Posey said when asked by the media if the hit-by-pitch was intentional. “It sure seemed that way.”
Of much bigger concern for the Marlins (31-47) is the fact that they have lost their past five games when Straily starts. Straily has zero quality starts
during that span.
The Marlins, who are in last place in the NL East, beat the Colorado Rockies 8-5 on Sunday for their second straight win.
Miami finished 5-4 on its road trip to the Baltimore Orioles, San Francisco Giants and Colorado, taking two of the three series. It is Miami’s first winning
road trip of the year.
The Marlins are 11-11 in June, which has already made this their best month of the season. And they have more road wins (17-26) than home victories
(14-21).
Meanwhile, Arizona has a winning record at home (23-16) and on the road (21-17). They are 16-6 in June after a poor May (8-19). The Diamondbacks are
also 3-0 against the Marlins.
Hot Miami hitters include left fielder Derek Dietrich
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.302, and catcher J.T. Realmuto, who went 1-for-3 and is batting .308.
Dietrich batted .476 for the week with three homers and three multi-hit games. Realmuto hit .360 this week with five doubles, one homer, six RBIs and at
least one hit in all six games.
James Shields of the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds play in opposite leagues and rarely see each other, yet they currently have much in
common.
Now that they’re starting to make something out of what appeared to be a totally lost season, they’d like to keep it going.
The Reds got off to the worst start in baseball at 8-27, one so bad that getting to .500 looked to be as much of a challenge as winning a division title
would be for most teams.
But when the Reds (36-48) take on the right-handed Shields and the White Sox on Monday night at Great American Ball Park, in the teams’ first matchup since
2015, they’ll be one of the majors’ hottest clubs. They’ve won 11 of 14 after
taking the final two games of a four-game weekend series against the Milwaukee
Brewers, and interim manager Jim Riggleman now has a 33-33 record for a
last-place team.
Considering that Riggleman took over a Reds team that was 3-15 under former manager Bryan Price, that’s something of an accomplishment. And the Reds own a
6-1 record in interleague games.
“We know we can play with these teams that are in first place in their division,” Riggleman said.
They’re winning now in grand fashion, too. Jose Peraza hit the team’s major league-leading ninth grand slam Sunday in an 8-2 win over the Brewers, their
second in two games (pitcher Michael Lorenzen hit a pinch-grand slam Saturday)
and sixth in 17 games. They’ve already tied a club season record.
“We’ve been getting better at-bats … and we’ve happened to have men on base
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Cincinnati starter Matt Harvey pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings before being lifted after a rain delay, and the Reds dealt Brewers rookie Freddy Peralta
(3-1), who gave up three runs in five innings, his first major league loss.
Peralta allowed only one hit in seven shutout innings against the Kansas City
Royals in his previous start.
“That’s probably the best I’ve felt since 2013,” said Harvey (4-5), who won his third straight start.
Shields (3-9), likewise, is beginning to see a ray of sunshine in what previously was a gloomy season. He’s coming off his best start of the year,
pitching seven shutout innings and giving up four hits Wednesday in a 6-1 win
over the Minnesota Twins. It was his 12th quality start of the season, or five
more than he had all of last season.
Shields still isn’t the pitcher that won 13 or more games seven times from 2008 to 2015, but it hasn’t helped that he’s pitching for a team that’s off to
the second worst start in franchise history. He has allowed a respectable six
earned runs in his last four starts, and twice yielded one or no runs while
lasting at least seven innings.
At age 36, Shields is making adjustments to compensate for his decreased velocity, yet has pitched at least six innings in 12 of his last 13 starts for a
last-place team.
“My body’s feeling really good this year, and this is kind of what I’ve done my whole
career
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Twins. “I strive to go as deep as I possibly can in games and so far it’s been
good.
“I’m not throwing as hard as I used to. If I were to throw over the top, I’d still throw a little harder than I am right now. (But) at the end of the day,
I’m feeling really good with my delivery right now, my mechanics. It’s been a
lot of fun making these adjustments.”
Shields goes against Reds right-hander Luis Castillo (5-8), who was 1-3 with a 6.75 ERA in five June starts. He retired the first 11 batters he faced
Wednesday at Atlanta, only to give up four quick runs on a walk and five
consecutive singles, although the Reds came back to win 6-5.
Castillo is 0-1 in two starts against American League clubs this season, giving up eight runs in six innings. He has never faced the White Sox.
Shields is 18-18 with a 4.57 ERA in interleague play and 0-2 in two career starts against the Reds, the last of which was in 2015.
The White Sox (29-54) ended a three-game losing streak Sunday by salvaging the final game of a three-game series against the Texas Rangers, winning 10-5 as
Avisail Garcia went 4-for-5 with a double and an RBI.
The Reds have won five consecutive interleague games but are facing the White Sox at Great American Ball Park for the first time since 2009. The White Sox are
16-4 overall against the Reds and 10-2 in Cincinnati, though that success there
predated any of the current players.
