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Ketel Marte took just three pitches on Saturday to end a home run drought that had reached seven straight games for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Marte saw two balls from Philadelphia Phillies starter Taijuan Walker before he crushed Walker’s first strike 406 feet out to right center field. It was Marte’s second on the year, his first since March 27 and the team’s first since April 2.
Wake-up call 📞 pic.twitter.com/amHrdJfCwT
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) April 11, 2026
Arizona was surviving the drought, winning five of the seven games during the stretch.
Marte’s 14th career homer as the game’s lead-off hitter had a full-circle feel, as he was traded with Walker to the Diamondbacks from the Seattle Mariners on Nov. 23, 2016. Arizona sent out a package headlined by Jean Segura, who was coming off a season where he led the NL in hits.
Corbin Carroll was back in the lineup as a designated hitter after missing the previous two games with a tight hip flexor, and he made it a two-run first inning after his four-pitch walk preceded an RBI single by Adrian Del Castillo.
While the Diamondbacks broke their streak of no home runs hit, the long ball came back to bite them in the third inning as Brandon Pfaadt was tagged for back-to-back homers by Kyle Schwarber (three-run) and Bryce Harper.
Arizona sought a series win on Saturday that would give it two straight.
Catch the rest of the action on 98.7, the Arizona Sports app or online.
A big debate surrounding the Arizona Cardinals (and their fans) heading into the 2026 NFL Draft is whether they should actually pull the trigger on Alabama’s Ty Simpson in the first round.
Ask The Athletic’s Dane Brugler, though, and he isn’t sold on a Day 1 projection for the quarterback prospect.
“There’s no substitute for experience,” he told Arizona Sports’ Bickley & Marotta on Thursday. “He graduated from Alabama before he threw his first touchdown pass. That’s tough. You can start to make compromises when maybe he has the physical traits of an Anthony Richardson when you have that size, that speed, that arm. Ty Simpson doesn’t have that.
“He does do a lot of NFL things. I think the way he navigates the pocket. You watch the first six games of the year, you think, ‘This is an NFL starter. This is someone we want on our team.’ Then you look at the back half of the year, you just can’t ignore that part of it. When the run game wasn’t going, the offensive line wasn’t holding up, a lot more was put on the quarterback to get things done. It was a lot of mixed results from Ty Simpson. In my opinion, I think he’s a second-round player. I think there’s a chance we go into Friday night of draft weekend with Ty Simpson still on the board.”
Could LSU's Garrett Nussmeier be a late-round QB option for the Cardinals this NFL Draft?@dpbrugler joined @Bickley_Marotta and dove into some of the signal-caller possibilities later on in the draft.
Full interview: https://t.co/Phktr6ikpT pic.twitter.com/yZHZTlwyar
— Arizona Sports (@AZSports) April 9, 2026
Experience, or lack thereof, continues to be a main talking point when it comes to Simpson and his 15 career starts at Alabama. The track record of first-round quarterbacks with fewer than 20 starts since 2006 has a lot to do with that.
Compiled by ESPN’s Jeff Legwold, the nine first-round quarterbacks with fewer than 20 starts taken since 2006 have combined for just seven Pro Bowl nods and one All-Pro. Former Cardinals franchise quarterback Kyler Murray represents two of those Pro Bowls.
As far as a second contract with the team that drafted them, only three (Murray, Ryan Tannehill and Cam Newton) put pen to paper.
Just that alone will give scouts and general managers pause before even looking into the rough back end to last season. There’s also the price tag of getting Simpson. No matter if it’s a first- or second-round pick, it’s premium draft capital that could be used to address offensive line or pass rusher.
While a lot of the talk has centered on Simpson, he’s not the only quarterback the Cardinals could or should consider this draft.
Why not look later on in the draft at LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier, who Brugler believes “would make sense” for Arizona?
“He’s the type of quarterback that’ll throw into games and throw you out of games. That’s why we’re talking about him as a third- or fourth-round pick and not a first-round pick like we thought he potentially could have been over the summer,” Brugler said. “He’s another guy that grew up around the game, dad is a longtime college and NFL coach.
“There’s a lot to like about his command, the way he operates and his ability to distribute the football all over the field. If you’re looking for someone realistically who can start games for you, I think Garrett Nussmeier would be in that mix.”
Nussmeier is coming off his fifth and final season at LSU, where he completed 67.4% of his throws for 1,927 yards and 12 touchdowns to five interceptions.
ESPN’s Jordan Reid has Nussmeier as his third-ranked QB prospect this draft ahead of Miami’s Carson Beck.
Brugler doesn’t stop short with Nussmeier, either, offering up two developmental options even later in the draft.
“If you’re looking for more of a developmental option — high-risk, high-reward — Drew Allar would make sense from Penn State,” Brugler said. “It was such a bummer for him that he missed the second half of his senior year with the ankle injury. He didn’t really get a chance to show what he could do down the stretch.
“Cole Payton from North Dakota State is another one of those developmental guys that has a long way to go but is a really good athlete and what he put on film this year at the FCS level definitely has your attention. We’re talking early Day 3, Day 4 types. Chances are they’re not going to turn into NFL starters but if you want to throw a dart, those guys make sense.”
The Phoenix Suns are going to be far more interested in a game going on elsewhere Friday while they take on the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Portland Trail Blazers will host the Los Angeles Clippers, and the winner will likely take the eight seed in the NBA Play-In Tournament to face the Suns on Tuesday. A Clippers win clinches it, while the Blazers would then have to also beat the tanking Sacramento Kings on Sunday to secure their fate.
While Phoenix has had its own problems the last two months, this draw is rotten luck. Both teams are flat-out bad matchups, particularly Portland.
But which one should the Suns prefer to face?
The timeline we will be focusing on for both teams is over a two-month period, since Feb. 6. It is the most helpful and convenient for a few reasons we will get to.
The Clippers are 18-12 since while the Blazers are 17-12.
To start, Phoenix has not seen a proper version of what these two teams are now.
The Suns played either group just once over that time, taking a 92-77 loss to Portland in Phoenix on Feb. 22. Blazers star Deni Avdija played one minute in that one and Devin Booker was out for the Suns. Avdija also didn’t play in the Suns’ Feb. 3 win over the Blazers while a 25-point loss to L.A. two days prior also did not feature Booker.
Go back before that and the last time Phoenix played the Blazers or Clippers was in late November. So in general, the Suns really don’t know either squad all too well.
The Clippers in that Feb. 1 win still had James Harden on their roster, who they traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers in a return that included point guard Darius Garland. They also shipped out All-NBA center Ivica Zubac and got back picks, plus wing Bennedict Mathurin.
Portland on that Feb. 6 date got back 2023 No. 3 overall pick Scoot Henderson, who has shown more and more flashes the last year of meeting that potential. It has also been without scoring guard Shaedon Sharpe for all but one of the games since then, thanks to two different injuries. Sharpe, however, was upgraded to doubtful for Portland’s loss on Wednesday, so perhaps he could return for the play-in tournament or sooner.
The biggest difference in either team is its star power, and this was a lot more of an argument before that date. But not now.
Across that two-month span, Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard is averaging 28.5 points, 6.6 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.7 steals per game while shooting 51.5% from the field, 38.7% at 3-point range and 86.4% on free throws.
The boogeyman that the Suns briefly saw in the first round of the 2023 playoffs who completely took over and won Game 1 of that series before later getting injured is back. Some will go as far as saying he’s even back to his 2019 levels when he carried the Toronto Raptors to a championship.
Needless to say, Phoenix has zero answers defensively for Leonard. He’s one of the five best players in the league at the moment and the thought of his terminator-like dominance in a play-in format should terrify Suns fans.
Avdija was an All-NBA lock at the halfway point of the year, but a nagging back injury has affected not only his availability but quality of play.
Since Feb. 6, he is posting 20.9 PPG after a 25.5 PPG number in the games prior. His 3P% has free-fallen from 35.6% to 19.6%.
With that said, Avdija has played 16 straight games now and in his last four is at the more customary 27.3 PPG. In some ways, he’s a worse matchup for the Suns than Leonard, because Avdija is right there with anyone when it comes to drawing fouls via downhill drivers. He is one of eight players in the NBA making at least 15 drives per game, and his 19.5 lead the league, becoming the first to top Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in six years. And Avdija is far bigger, 6-foot-8 and 228 pounds.
That is the argument for an anti-Blazers draw.
They’ve been top-3 in drives per game both before and after this Feb. 6 date. We saw the likes of Toumani Camara, Jerami Grant, Jrue Holiday and others give the Suns a whole lot of trouble, a handful of players you wouldn’t describe as slashers but under this directive become the exact matchup problem that has plagued Phoenix all year.
Henderson would be a huge part of a hypothetical matchup, because that is his primary M.O. like Avdija. He’s turned into one of the focal points of Portland’s offense without Sharpe and is at 14.4 PPG in his last 28 games.
The Suns’ problems with size and on-ball defense in general would flare up majorly. In another bad sign, the Blazers are fourth in offensive rebounding rate since Feb. 6. Donovan Clingan (4.4 OREB/G) has been great down the stretch and Robert Williams III (3 OREB/G) has been providing decent spurts. Both of those types of bigs, a behemoth and an energetic bruiser, have had success against the Suns.
Now, the Suns could choose to contain Portland’s pressure and interior presence with extra help defense, but its shooters are knocking down shots lately. Grant (6.4 3PA/G, 41.8 3P%), Holiday (7.3 3PA/G, 40.8 3P%), Camara (7.3 3PA/G, 40.8 3P%), Henderson (5.4 3PA/G, 35.5 3P%) and Clingan (3.4 3PA/G, 37.5 3P%) are all shooting it well currently. The Blazers are fifth in their percentage of shots at the rim, and use that to be fourth in the percentage of their shots from 3. Problematic!
Grant, it should be noted, is dealing with a right calf strain and has missed the last five games.
What that whole matchup problem does is make a mediocre Blazers offense better than it is. Across that timeline, they are 17th in offense while getting back to their identity last year on the other end, where they are sixth in defense.
The Clippers are more consistent. They are 10th in offense and ninth in defense over that time. To continue on that theme in the last two months, they are sixth in turnover percentage and fourth in how many they force.
L.A. is second in free-throw rate, another stylistic gaffe for the Suns this year. Mathurin is one of the best around, sporting 7.7 FTA/G, right ahead of Leonard’s 7.1 FTA/G. Both would pose serious issues in that department.
And Garland with his overflowing juice as a ball-handler with lots of shake and paint touches has been putting up great numbers in a Clippers jersey. He’s at 20.4 PPG on 48.9%/45.8%/83.8% shooting splits. That’s on over seven attempted 3s a game.
How about some weaknesses?
For the Blazers, it’s taking care of the ball. Even without a more volatile decision-maker in Sharpe, they are still last in turnover percentage. That is where the Suns could get back to doing what they did best in the first half of the year, and their numbers started getting back on track in March, too.
L.A. doesn’t have size. Trading Zubac and losing promising rookie Yanic Konan Niederhauser for the season has the Clippers only playing Brook Lopez as the team’s 5, and he’s a pick-and-pop guy offensively while doing his best at his age in his patented drop coverage on the other end. The Clippers rank bottom-10 over that span in rebounding rate on both ends.
Despite lots of what we built up as a Portland squad that poses a ton of problems for what the Suns struggle with, the team to avoid is still the Clippers. They have Leonard in a one-game environment, who the Suns do not have the defensive personnel for, plus tons of postseason experience across the roster. On top of that, Ty Lue is constantly lauded for his playoff gameplans and adjustments, which he could be cooking up against a first-time head coach.
With that said, the Blazers would be a difficult draw as well. If anything, in the event that the Suns lose on Tuesday, their fans should be rooting like hell for Stephen Curry and the 10th-seeded Golden State Warriors on Wednesday.
Startup drafts are the foundation of every dynasty fantasy football league, and one wrong turn can set you back for years. Whether you’re chasing a win-now roster or building a long-term powerhouse, having a clear strategy is critical. To help you navigate the board, we asked our Featured Pros for their best dynasty startup draft strategies, from balancing youth and production to knowing when to zig while your league mates zag.
What is one thing fantasy managers should do (or try to do) in a Dynasty Startup Draft?
“In a dynasty startup, keep your tiered rankings close, as they’re your most valuable draft-day tool. When the last player is available in a particular tier, don’t hesitate to get aggressive with your trade offer to grab them. Conversely, if you’re on the clock and several players in your tier are still available, consider trading back a few spots to gain additional roster value while staying within that same tier.”
– Jim Moorman (Dynasty Football Factory)
“Win now. Too many managers try to fence-sit between winning now and going for a championship. Odds are you are better off trying to build a win-now roster during the dynasty startup draft as the older, aging players fall.”
– Andrew Erickson (FantasyPros)
“When a fantasy manager is approaching a dynasty startup, they need to think about the future as well as the present. A lot of owners go into the draft thinking that they are going to win in a few years and draft the youngest team possible. That is setting a team up for losing. Always play to win. Go into the draft trying to build with players who are young as well as seasoned veterans. Owners should begin a league, trying to get that championship in year 1, and a diverse lineup will accomplish that! Along those lines, don’t build a team of older veterans to win now and then set a team back for years when their productive year(s) end.”
– Adam Dove (The Fantasy Couriers)
“The goal of a dynasty startup is to walk away with the most valuable assets, not the best lineup.”
– David Heilman (Dynasty Trade Calculator)
“In a Dynasty startup draft, you should prioritize a ‘Youth and Value’ strategy to build a sustainable foundation for your roster. Focus on securing elite young anchors like Bijan Robinson or Jahmyr Gibbs, who offer high-volume production at the premium running back position. Complement these picks by targeting ascending wide receivers like Emeka Egbuka, ensuring your core remains competitive for years to come. Mid-round selections of dynamic quarterbacks such as Jayden Daniels and high-upside tight ends like Colston Loveland or Tyler Warren establish the true heart of your team. By balancing positional scarcity with long-term potential, you build a roster that possesses both youth and the talent for immediate and future championship potential.”
– Lawrence Iacona (Gridiron Experts)
“A lot of managers are privy to this by now, but I always try to trade down if the situation makes sense. I like to rank my players into tiers, and if I can slide back, load up on extra assets, and still land someone from the same tier, then that’s a move I’ll do all day long. You want to give yourself as many swings as possible at good players. Trading down in the first couple of rounds can help you pile up startup picks in the middle rounds, and if you play it right, maybe even net you some future draft capital too. Also, don’t leave the draft without a few of your guys. This game is supposed to be fun. Snag a player or two from your favorite team, or a guy you like rooting for. After all, you are the one managing the squad — might as well have players you actually like watching on Sundays.”
– Wolf Trelles-Heard (FantasyPros)
“Trading back in the first few rounds to accrue picks in the top 50 is a good one. But I’ll give you my preference, and that’s to fade running back. Zero RB is okay, but grabbing a stud early with a Hero RB strategy is better. Get one reliable guy and then load up on dominant WRs that are roughly 27 years old or younger. Stay young and build your depth elsewhere, taking value on vets if it presents itself to round out your roster. My preference is the productive struggle, so I’m looking at 2-3 years out to be a dominant squad. That means RB assets are less valuable than great WRs and TEs who can become exceptional. Build everywhere else and load up late on RB. It’s been a winning strategy for me more than any other.”
– Jeremy Shulman (Fantasy Football Universe)
What is one thing fantasy managers should avoid doing in a Dynasty Startup Draft?
“Don’t be overly concerned with roster construction early on, especially if you’re drafting in April with five months before you need to field a starting lineup. Focus on taking the highest value players available and address positional needs through trades later. This applies to the quarterback position in Superflex formats as well. Historically, securing two quarterbacks in the first three rounds has been common practice, but that thinking has shifted. The market suggests quarterback ADP is falling, so there’s no need to force the position early. There are plenty of quality values at quarterback later in the draft, so trust the board and don’t reach for the position unless it makes sense.”
– Jim Moorman (Dynasty Football Factory)
“Filling out your roster based on needs. Throw your roster needs out the window. BPA. Just like we recommend real NFL teams do. Dynasty leagues are meant to be for trading, so you can always make moves based on needs later down the line. During the Dynasty Startup Draft, your goal should be to acquire as much value and talent as possible, regardless of position.”
– Andrew Erickson (FantasyPros)
“Don’t overvalue veterans; using early draft picks on players that will lose value in year two is a bad strategy.”
– David Heilman (Dynasty Trade Calculator)
“Fantasy managers should avoid strictly drafting the “best player available” without regard for overall roster construction. While talent is vital, ignoring positional balance often leads to a lopsided team with significant gaps that are difficult to fix via trade. For instance, loading up exclusively on elite wide receivers might leave you with a bottom-tier backfield that stunts your weekly scoring potential. This lack of flexibility can trap you in a cycle of losing, where you are forced to overpay later just to field a functional lineup. Instead, you must remain disciplined and mindful of your starting requirements to ensure your roster is competitive across every position from day one.”
– Lawrence Iacona (Gridiron Experts)
“Avoid the temptation to burn early-round draft capital just to trade up a little. Too many times, I’ve seen managers give away premium startup picks just so they can move up a little bit and select their target, only to look up at the end of the draft and realize their roster is thin and lacking firepower. As a general rule, never give up a pick in a round — always move back. Even if it’s a multi-round drop, at least you’re staying on the board. Treat startup picks like gold and hold them tight. And one more thing: don’t overpay just because you like a player or because he plays for your favorite team. It’s fine to pick your guys, but make sure you don’t do it through team-colored glasses.”
– Wolf Trelles-Heard (FantasyPros)
“Avoid a win-now build that relies on aging assets that are cheaper than they should be. A team built around Matt Stafford, Christian McCaffrey, Derrick Henry, Davante Adams, Mike Evans, and Travis Kelce can absolutely win you a ship in 2026, but the risk involved is far from worth it. These players may have more than one year left of top-end production, but the injury and age-related decline concerns far outweigh the chance you win in year one. Instead, build your win-now squad on younger players and mix in a few vets. Keep your pipeline flowing and remember that an entire squad built on value doesn’t guarantee the return you’re hoping for if Father Time is looming.”
– Jeremy Shulman (Fantasy Football Universe)
“Avoid starting with a lot of running backs. Sure, running backs are kind in fantasy football, but they are valued differently in dynasty fantasy football. Think of dynasty fantasy football in three-year cycles. Many running backs are around and peak (and fall off) within three years. Wide receivers, tight ends, and quarterbacks generally have longer careers and are on dynasty teams longer. It is okay to start with a “stud” running back, but follow him up with a nice stack of the other positions, or a team will have too many holes to rebuild after the running backs fall from the top of the board. (Personally, I like to build with wide receivers and lower-tier running backs because they can be replaced more easily and many of them pop off for teams.)”
– Adam Dove (The Fantasy Couriers)
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