Nabil Crismatt in his 3rd start of the season went 6.1 innings giving up only 2 ER as he had his stuff working once again. After the extra innings loss last night, it was huge to have Crismatt continue to come up big and pitch into the 7th inning. He really has been a diamond in the rough for
this team as he was picked up off of the scrap heap following the trade deadline and has come up with big start after big start.
Just like the last time Crismatt pitched against the Brewers, the rookie Taylor Rashi came in to relieve him and pitched another multi-inning save. According to our very own guru team over here at AZ Snakepit, it was the first time in 40 years that a pitcher started off his major league career with consecutive 6+ out saves. The Crismatt/Rashi duo really has been making it look pretty easy.
Ketel Marte absolutely has the Rangers’ number this season, and he was the difference maker for the offense again tonight. With a tie game in the bottom of the 7th inning, Marte followed up a pair of singles from Jorge Barrosa and Jordan Lawlar with an absolute rocket for a 3 run home run putting the Dbacks up 5-2. This was following a double from Marte earlier in the game that set a DBacks statcast record with a 120 mph exit velocity.
The other storyline of this game as alluded to earlier was Jordan Lawlar picking up his first 2 hits of the season tonight. I know there has been much made about the question marks surrounding the lofty prospect’s big league offensive potential, but neither of the hits he had tonight were cheapies. The first was a double coming off the bat at 108 mph and the second hit was a single at 105. He still has a lot to prove, but hopefully tonight was enough to get the monkey off the young prospects back and allow him to play a little more free and easy. I did think it was a little interesting that when he was asked about his offense coming around in the postgame presser, he credited him getting regular playing time recently. This has been a notable critique of Lawlar’s brief big league stints so it will be interesting to see if he is in the lineup again tomorrow and how much regularity he sees from here on out.
Tomorrow the Dbacks have a chance to win the series with the red hot Zac Gallen taking the mound against the Rangers’ Jack Leiter. Lets keep it rolling and get back to .500!
