If you blinked, you might have missed it—but the Arizona Diamondbacks actually got some good news from their bullpen yesterday. After Zac Gallen could only manage 3.2 innings, the relief corps stepped up in a big way. Brandyn Garcia made his season debut and needed just 20 pitches to record six outs. Alongside Ryan Thompson and Kevin Ginkel, the trio combined for 4.1 innings on only 53 pitches. That efficiency was a welcome sight after Gallen labored through 95 pitches in his shortened outing.

But let's be real: this has been a brutal stretch for Arizona's pitching staff. Over the last ten games, starting pitchers have posted a staggering 11.08 ERA—that's 48 earned runs allowed in just 39 innings. To put that in perspective, no other team's starters have an ERA worse than 5.79 over that same span. The Diamondbacks are more than five runs worse than the next closest team through two full turns of the rotation.

The bullpen hasn't been perfect, with a 5.25 ERA during that stretch, but they're actually outperforming half a dozen other teams. For the season, Arizona's rotation now sits at a 5.36 ERA—the worst in franchise history, surpassing even the dreadful 2021 squad. Meanwhile, the bullpen's 4.85 ERA is almost identical to last year's mark.

Given all this, it's pretty remarkable that the Diamondbacks are still above .500—even if just barely. The only other teams with an overall ERA above five are the Nationals (15-18) and Astros (12-21), and both of them are scoring more runs than Arizona. Based on runs scored and allowed, the D-backs "should" have a 13-18 record, which would be the fourth-worst in baseball. If the rotation doesn't turn things around soon, that ugly reality might start matching the actual standings.