Diamondbacks 7, Cardinals 3: And They’re Off!

Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Game Summary

Brandon Pfaadt, fresh off one of the best starts of his career last week, pitched another gem tonight. To me, it honestly never felt like he was a dominating force in the game, but when you looked at his line at the end of the night, it was a thing of beauty. Pfaadt’s only free pass was a HBP and he scattered 4 hits against 6 strikeouts. It’s true the contact got louder and louder as the 5th, 6th and 7th innings came and went, but the Diamondbacks provided excellent defense behind him (including

a true Web Gem from Alek Thomas) and Pfaadt was able to get the Cardinals to go fishing on his Sweeper more and more as the night went along. In his last 2 starts now, Pfaadt has pitched 15 innings and only allowed 2 ER (1.20 ERA) and has a WHIP of 0.53. He’s allowed no walks in either of those appearances.

The offense has felt like it’s been overly reliant on the long ball for much of the season, but tonight, the Diamondbacks only had 2 extra base hits, neither of them home runs, and still were able to plate 7 runs. They kept building innings by either taking a controlled swing and getting a single or taking their walk and letting the next man do his job behind him. It was a great sight to see and I’m glad the offense didn’t let off the gas entirely after getting 5 early runs because you never know how many runs you'll need with this bullpen. Andrew Saalfrank pitched a rocky but effective 8th inning, but John Curtiss allowed 3 runs in the 9th before dialing up a double play to end the game. It would’ve been a travesty if Torey would’ve had to bring in Ginkel to this game when we started the 9th up 7 runs.

You can’t say this in baseball very often, but right now, every game matters for the Diamondbacks. Every game between here and the Trade Deadline is a chance for the Snakes to prove to Mike Hazen what kind of ceiling this team has. The sprint starts now, and we’re out of the blocks well.

Win Probability and Box Score

Courtesy FanGraphs

Outside the Box Score

• Brandon Pfaadt was extremely efficient in the first inning, getting 3 outs after facing 4 hitters and only tossing 8 pitches. He got 2 1-pitch outs.
• Geraldo Perdomo’s stand up triple in the 1st was a frozen rope into the gap that rolled all the way to the wall in front of the pool. That’s no easy thing to split the gap between Jordan Walker and Victor Scott who are both extremely fast. Lourdes Gurriel was VERY close to an RBI single when he followed Domo with hard grounder (107 mph exit velocity!) between shortstop and second. With only one out in the inning, the Cardinals infield drew in. In that situation, hard contact not directly at a defender usually squeaks through, but Masyn Winn made a stupendous diving grab to keep Domo stuck at third and record the second out of the inning. Perdomo was not able to score in the inning.
• Adrian Del Castillo came back up to the Big Leagues for the first time in 2025 and immediately made his presence felt with a 108 mph liner between the pitcher and second baseman for a single.
• We often hear Bob Brenly encourage the Snakes to “keep the line moving” and build an inning while on offense. In the second frame, the D-Backs did just that. They strung together 4 singles and a walk to score the first 3 runs of the game.
• The Serpientes followed the same formula in the third inning as the 2nd. 2 singles and a walk to lead off the inning resulted 2 runs scored.
• To this point, I haven’t written much about Pfaadt. It doesn’t feel like he’s been dominant or anything, but after 4 innings, he’s only thrown 46 pitches, allowed 2 hits and 1 HBP with no walks. He isn’t generating Whiffs at a much higher clip than his season averages, but he’s not allowing any solid contact at all. The average exit velocity for the Cardinals through the first 4 innings was under 80 mph! For reference, the Diamondbacks average EV was 93 mph.
• Alek Thomas made an absolutely incredible catch in the fifth inning. Jordan Walker hit the first real deep fly ball of the night against Pfaadt to lead off the inning, but Alek tracked it beautifully and at full speed, he leaped up a gloved the ball right as it met the fence. Wasn’t a home run robbery, but it was incredible for Thomas to even get to that spot, then hold on the ball as his body slammed at full speed into the wall.
• Adrian Del Castillo got his third single in the three attempts in the fifth inning. In this plate appearance, he hit a liner that hit directly off the pitchers lower back. The ball bounced far enough away from the pitcher that it was gonna need a smooth, quick throw to get ADC out, but the throw was airmailed to first and Del Castillo made it to second on the throwing error. He then came home on a double down the first base line from Blaze Alexander.
• The contact got a little louder in the fifth and sixth innings against Brandon Pfaadt, but supreme outfield defense and deep outfield fences kept a goose egg on the board. The lowest exit velocity of any of the four balls in play in those 2 innings was 94 mph. After six innings, Pfaadt was still rocking an extremely low pitch count at 69.
• Pfaadt’s seventh inning was easily his worst, but he threw up another zero. It took over 20 pitches to complete the frame and he allowed a 419 foot double off the overhang in center and a hard single to center. That single could’ve scored Willson Contreras from second, but Alek Thomas was charging hard on the play and forced the third base coach to throw up a stop sign. With runners on the corners and still only one out, Pfaadt buckled down and got a strikeout and easy flyout to complete his evening.
• The Diamondbacks loaded the bases with no outs in the 7th, but couldn’t quite capitalize as much as they should. ADC hit into a double play that scored one run, then Blaze Alexander hit the ball hard into the hole between second and first, but Brendan Donovan made a really solid play to glove the ball while running and then squaring and throwing Blaze out. That very easily could’ve been Blaze’s second RBI knock of the night.
• Andrew Saalfrank came on in the 8th and got the first 2 outs fairly quickly, but then allowed a single on what could’ve been the third out if Geno had fielded the groundball cleanly. It would’ve required a really strong throw to make it happen so I’m not surprised it was scored a hit instead of an error when it clanked off his glove, but it still required Saalfrank to go out and try and get another out. He allowed the next 2 batters to reach on a single and 4-pitch walk before he put the inning away with a grounder to Geno and maintained the shut out through 8.

Comment of the Game

A really light GDT tonight with a total of 119 comments at time of publishing. Only two Sedona red comments and ChefAZ had both of them! The comment that I highlight here was in reference to the second inning of this game that I haven’t addressed yet in the recap. For the entirety of that inning (in the field and in the dugout), Perdomo was mic’d up and communicating with Bert and Bob in the booth. Most in the GDT were less than thrilled with this, but Domo is perhaps one of the only players who could pull this off without it affecting his play.

Coming Up

The Diamondbacks face the Cardinals in the second game of this series tomorrow with a 4:15pm first pitch Arizona time. Ryne Nelson gets the ball for the good guys tomorrow and he’ll be opposed by veteran right-hander Sonny Gray who is 9-3 with a 3.50 ERA. Let’s hope we can keep building on tonight’s game to turn this second half into a run to remember!

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