I had the opportunity to recap arguably the best game of the season on Tuesday, now I get the opportunity to recap one of the worst.
Lets get straight to the point. As far as Im concerned, this game was
lost as soon as the decision was made to go with a bullpen game. The players aren’t stupid. They know they have one of the worst bullpens in baseball and they flat out did not show up to the ballpark today expecting to win a game.
Jalen Beeks had a promising first inning setting down the Dodgers in order, however he was met in the second inning with a loud home run from Freddie Freeman on a 92 mph fastball that couldn’t get more middle-middle unless you put it on a tee. Torey then pulled Beeks and went to the long man Nabil Crismatt who was also met with a home run on the very first batter he faced of the inning. Dodgers up 2-0.
For the next 2 innings, the Dodgers would proceed to tee off on Crismatt as he would ultimately give up 7 runs (5 earned) over his 3 innings of work. Interestingly enough, Jack Sommers had an interesting quote in the pregame from Torey on how they planned to use Crismatt, “So we’re going to read and react the same way we always do. It’s going to be on him. If he’s out there and he’s effective, we’re going to stay with him. If he starts to wobble a little bit, we have no margin for error. Zip. We’ve got to move fast.” Apparently Torey’s definition of moving fast is leaving him in until the team is down 8-0. Directly going against the quote he just made before the game.
The lone bright spot in this game for the Dbacks may have been Austin Pope pitching a clean 2 innings in his major league debut. In addition Taylor Rashi was also spotless and struck out 6 in his 3 innings. However, I never really know how much value to assign to low leverage innings pitched when the opposing team already has a 8 run lead. Not going to get too excited.
The offense had absolutely nothing for Yamamoto as he cruised through 6IP allowing only 6 baserunners and no runs. The usually shaky Dodger bullpen also had no problem with out bats tonight going 3 scoreless innings. Many fans were pretty critical of the lineup Torey rolled out there today and maybe they had a right to be. Thomas, Tawa, Barrosa, and McCarthy were a combined 1-8 today even after they were a combined 0-10 yesterday. All the while players like James McCann and Jordan Lawlar sat. I do think Yamamoto had his best stuff today so it was a tall task, but I also certainly don’t blame fans for being critical of this lineup.
The Dbacks head to San Diego for the final road trip of the season tomorrow. As of writing this, the Reds had already won so they hold a 2 game advantage over the Dbacks due to the tiebreaker. Fortunately they head to Milwaukee to face the top team in the NL their final 3 games. Unfortunately, the Brewers may not have much to play for. Who knows, maybe it will prove to be a genius move going all in on the Padres series with your starters if they are able to go out and get a sweep in San Diego. Either way, there is still a chance.
On a personal note, it was a pleasure to recap games for you this summer. I appreciate you all for reading what I wrote and the kind comments. My wife and I welcomed our first child this summer and it was a hobby I thoroughly enjoyed to get through some highs and some lows. I hope I get to recap some playoff games as well, but wanted to make sure I thanked you all for welcoming me into this community.
