D-backs' surge shakes up NL Wild Card race

The National League’s top five teams this year, you probably saw coming. Division leaders the Dodgers, Braves and Cardinals, the Wild Card-leading Nationals and Cubs … not a lot surprising there.

The first team chasing them? Maybe not so expected. The D-backs underwent a significant reconfiguration this winter, then followed it up by dealing Zack Greinke at the Trade Deadline. And they’re 3 1/2 games out of a Wild Card spot, ahead of several teams that had much more winter and spring hype -- including the free-spending Phillies and the reigning Central champion Brewers.

It’s real, too. Arizona is tied with the Cardinals with a plus-79 run differential, by far the best of any NL team not currently in playoff position. After bouncing within a few games of .500 all year, the D-backs are now six over. Here are two hidden reasons why they’ve been able to do that, and one reason why they can keep it up.

Baserunning and speed: Stealing bases may seem like a lost art, but if you can do it with a high success rate, it’s still valuable. And then there are all the other subtleties: Taking the extra base when you have the opportunity, not taking the extra base when it doesn’t make sense, and the like.

It’s all valuable, and the D-backs are good at all of it.

They’re 10th in the Majors in steals, but more important, first in success rate. They have by far the best success rate of any team with at least 50 steals, and they have 76. That’s been worth 7.1 runs, per FanGraphs, a full run better than any other team in the Majors. They also lead the Majors in FanGraphs’ UBR, a measure of value added on the bases on non-stolen-base plays. Put another way, they’ve added 18 runs on the bases, or nearly two full wins.

And that’s not even the only way they’ve added value with speed. They’re also tied with the Twins for second in the Majors in triples with 35, behind only the Rockies, who play half their games in baseball’s most triple-friendly ballpark.

Defense: There’s another place speed helps you, and that’s in the field. And quietly, Arizona has also been an excellent defense team. While defensive efficiency rates them as merely decent, other metrics peg the D-backs as one of baseball’s best defensive teams. And that agrees with the eye test for a team featuring good to plus defenders at second base, shortstop and center field.

They rank second in the Majors in FanGraphs’ “Def” defense metric, behind the Indians, and third in the NL in Baseball Info Solutions’ team defensive runs saved. Making the most of your baserunners, while preventing opponents from making the most of their batted balls, is a good start toward winning some games.

Schedule: One reason to believe the D-backs will keep doing it? Look at the next 3 1/2 weeks. The schedule is very, very friendly. They have two series left with teams even on the fringes of contention -- one at the Mets, one at home against the Cardinals. Twelve of their final 22 games are at home.

The D-backs don’t have any head-to-head games with the Cubs, but aside from that, this is the schedule you’d draw up if you had the chance.

And speaking of the Cubs, their slate is rather more daunting. They play Milwaukee this weekend plus two series against the Cardinals, and 13 of their final 23 are on the road (and don’t even ask about the Phillies’ schedule).

Award battle of the week: Cy Young

Good luck figuring this one out. It’s kind of a mess. Different pitchers lead the league in five of the most prominent categories: wins (Stephen Strasburg, tied with Max Fried), ERA (Hyun Jin Ryu), strikeouts (Jacob deGrom), WAR (both versions) (Max Scherzer), and innings (Madison Bumgarner).

Most advanced metrics favor Scherzer -- not just WAR, but fielding-independent stats like xFIP and SIERA, and rate stats like strikeout percentage and strikeout-to-walk ratio. But Scherzer gives up nearly 30 innings to Strasburg, deGrom, Bumgarner and Patrick Corbin.

So maybe the compromise candidate is deGrom -- fifth in ERA, second in WAR, third in the fielding-independent numbers. Or maybe Walker Buehler or Corbin comes on strong and turns the whole thing upside down. It’s a race worth watching.

Stat of the week

By going 1-for-4 with no strikeouts on Thursday, Anthony Rendon extended an impressive streak. It was his eighth straight game with at least one hit and no strikeouts, all of them starts. The last NL player with a longer streak was Joey Votto, who went nine straight in June 2017.