Forget about the differential
Although the Diamondbacks had the better record and will have home-field advantage, the Rockies had a much better projected record based on runs scored and allowed.
ESPN’s experts need to pull their heads out of their asses. Had a better projected record? The season is over, why don’t we go with what actually happened which was the Dbacks had the better record. In fact, the best record in the NL. They need to forget about the stupid run differential already. Yes, it normally is a good indicator, but in the case of the Dbacks it isn’t. ESPN might know that if they got rid of their east coast bias, especially NY and Boston, and payed attention to the rest of the country.
The reason for the negative run differential is simple you watched their season, which I’d assume the guys that make their living being baseball “experts” for the top sports network would do. The Diamondbacks long relief sucked. They have really good starting pitching and short relief pitching, but the long relief had issues. A number of times this year the 4 and 5 starts, who are rookies, were banged around early and were pulled in the 2nd or 3rd. The long relief would come in and get battered around. Many of the games had scores like 15-4. Bob Melvin wisely wouldn’t waste his good bull pen pitchers in games that were a lost cause. If you have a handful of games like that, it’s hard to get out of the hole when most of your wins come by 1-4 runs. If you when 2 out of 3 who cares if you were outscored by 5 runs for the series. Winning is what matters