The Dbacks really needed to bounce back from the rough series start last night and would be leaning on the hot hand of Zac Gallen to get them there. Unfortunately for the Dbacks, Zac Gallen did not have it tonight and the Dbacks offense struggled to get much going.
In the Bottom of the first inning, he started the game off with walk, walk, and a home run putting his team immediately in a 3-run hole. Certainly not something that is acceptable at this level when games mean this much this time of year.
In Gallen’s defense, umpire Doug Eddings was all over the place in this one. Some of the pitches he was missing were not even close.
Also in Gallen’s defense, at least he was able to pitch into the 7th inning. Especially considering the rough start and the very inconsistent zone from Eddings. Gallen walked 3 batters, but they bookended his start as he walked his first 2 batters and his last batter. In the end it was the 2 home runs yielding 4 of the 5 runs that Gallen gave up that proved to be insurmountable.
The Dbacks offense didn’t show up until the 5th inning with back to back doubles by Tawa and Lawlar to put the team on the board 4-1. The Lawlar RBI double came off the bat at 105 mph and hit halfway up off the wall in CF. Unfortunately, Gallen would immediately give the run back 5 minutes later on a home run to the leadoff hitter Patrick Bailey. His 2nd in as many games.
The following inning the Dbacks would be able to get another run back thanks to a single from Ildemaro Vargas making it a 5-3 game. It really had the feeling at this point that the 2 teams were competing and exchanging punches inning for inning. The Dbacks appeared to be generating a little momentum.
That is until the Giants brought in a guy making his 8th career appearance at the big league level who had Dbacks batters trying to catch up to 101 mph fastballs and flailing away wildly at sliders in the dirt. The rest of the at bats against Giants relievers looked much the same for the rest of the game as whatever momentum that may have been building was lost.
In the 9th inning, Jake McCarthy got the inning started with a leadoff single on a blooper over the 3rd basemen. Adrian Del Castillo was able to follow that at bat with a walk. For a moment there, it almost seemed as though they were setting themselves up for some late inning dramatics. However in a real head scratcher, Torey Lovullo pinch hit for the veteran James McCann with the 28 year old rookie Connor Kaiser who popped up the bunt attempt allowing the Giants to get the first out of the inning at 3rd base. In a way, a perfect exemplification of how this team has been playing the past couple of games not being able to execute the fundamentals and relying on guys you’ve never even heard of before.
Corbin Carroll continued to be hitless in the biggest series of the season so far, while Ketel Marte was 0-5 on the night.
To me this series thus far has felt a lot like the phrase, ‘its not about who you play, but when you play them’. The Giants offense once again slugged their way through our pitching staff at a night game in San Francisco where the ball typically doesn’t fly well. Its clear the Giants are locked in, and don’t seem to be too intimidated by this Dbacks team. And just like that the Dbacks went from being a game over .500 to 2 games under.
