I don’t think it’s a particularly hot take to say that I hate blackouts. They inherently limit the number of fans who can view their team and forces those fans to subscribe to a dizzying number of broadcast services just to watch the games. It’s one of the reasons why I listed their elimination as my number one priority if I were magically granted the role of baseball commissioner for a day. I think it would fundamentally improve the game’s accessibility and by extension its popularity. This is a long-winded
qualifier that I didn’t get to actually watch any of tonight’s game and instead had to piece it together by the Gameday feed and the Arizona radio. It was still a fun game regardless of how it was consumed though as the D-Backs marched onto the same field on which they were shellacked last night and played a crisp team win that was badly needed to set up a rubber match tomorrow afternoon.
To put it mildly, last night’s game was not a shining moment for the Arizona pitching staff, giving up 13 runs on 15 hits and walking an additional six batters. But with the new and improved Eduardo Rodriguez starting tonight and surprise staff ace Michael Soroka starting tomorrow, I felt pretty good coming into the game. Unfortunately, Rodriguez continued his slide of reversion back towards his mean of the last two seasons in the desert rather than the excellent form he showed in the World Baseball Classic and the first three starts of this season. Once again, the veteran lefty struggled with his command, walking four batters and striking out just four while throwing a middling 55% of his 87 pitches for strikes and generating only five whiffs. Those kinds of numbers rarely equate to a good pitching performance and tonight was no exception as he had his shortest outing of the year, but was able to limit the damage from Milwaukee to just two runs. The Brew Crew opened the scoring with a pair of doubles from Brice Turang and Jake Bauers in the opening frame and plated another in the third when Turang doubled home Brandon Lockridge. Outside of those two plays, the home team created plenty of traffic on six hits and four walks, but failed to capitalize on any scoring opportunity – combining for a miserable 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position and stranding 8 runners on the game.
I’m fairly convinced that Milwaukee’s American Family Field (which still feels wrong to write out) sits on top of a magical pitching fount that’s able to turn reclamation projects into dominant relievers that the front office can then flip for more prospects from unsuspecting franchises. But for the first time in a hot minute, the Brewers have multiple exciting young pitching prospects in Jacob Misiorowski, Kyle Harrison, and Brandon Sproat all of whom have had uneven starts to their careers but still have plenty of talent upside. We got to see both sides of Sproat tonight as he completely shut down the D-Backs through the first three innings, allowing just three baserunners, but lost his command and hit a wall in the fourth that significantly curtailed his outing. After collecting his fifth strikeout of Corbin Carroll to open the fourth inning, he gave up a solo home run to Adrian Del Castillo, singles to Ildemaro Vargas and Lourdes Gurriel Jr, and an absolute moonshot of a three-run blast to Nolan Arenado that gave the D-Backs the lead for good. The offense mostly shut down again thanks to the Milwaukee bullpen until the visiting half of the ninth when Ketel Marte and Carroll jacked consecutive homers to pad the lead and make it a much more comfortable outing for Paul Sewald to earn the save.
Sewald’s 13-pitch dramaless save was simply the cherry on the cake for an Arizona bullpen that was absolutely lights out tonight. The unit ended the night by retiring 13 batters in a row and allowed just one baserunner across the final 4.1 innings of the game after Rodriguez exited in the fifth. It’s part of a maddeningly inconsistent pattern for the relief corps that could just as easily be incredible or one of the worst in the entire major leagues. Optimistically though, this period could just as easily be seen as an evaluation period before some of the team’s higher-leverage relief arms return from injury later this season – namely AJ Puk and Justin Martinez – that can further bolster and stabilize the entire unit. If the team can correctly identify which relievers can be the most consistent and find their appropriate roles, the bullpen could be a genuine strength for the team for the first time in a long time.
