No, there were no fisticuffs or anything in this one. There were two instances of flagrant theft, but each side committed one, so I suppose it balances out. And once again, despite the baseball world and many of us assuming that our Sneks were done for the year after the Great July 31 Fire Sale, we have secured another series win against another contending team tonight by beating the Boston Red Sox. That makes it, what, five series wins in the last six, with the only other one being the series split
we pulled off against the Milwaukee Brewers a couple of weeks ago? Not too shabby, Diamondbacks. Not too shabby.
Anyway. After Eduardo Rodriguez’s surprising 6-inning outing of one-run ball last night, today it was Brandon Pfaadt’s turn to take the mound. This was Brandon’s first start since his abysmal month of August, during which he was lit up for 21 earned runs over 30 2/3 innings spread across six starts. His August ERA clocked in at a cool 6.16, and tonight he was up against Boston’s second (or third) best starting pitcher, Lucas Giolito, who pitched over 37 innings in his six starts in August and sported a 2.37 ERA over that span. So it wasn’t looking like a favorable pitching matchup going in, to say the least.
But no worries, it was all good! Pfaadt pitches much better at Chase Field this year, as it turns out, and he seemed to be feeling right at home as he pitched clean and very efficient frames in the first and the second, putting him at 22 pitches after two.
Giolito, meanwhile, proved to be less-than-advertised tonight. Aside from a one-out walk to Ketel Marte in the first, he escaped unscathed, though it took him 21 pitches to record his first three outs. The bottom of second was even worse for him, though to be fair it wasn’t all his fault. Adrian Del Castillo singled to right center to lead things off, James McCann followed with a single to center, and after Alek Thomas struck out, Tyler Locklear drew a walk to load the bases with one out. That brought Jake McCarthy to the plate in a big moment. And Jake, well….Jake hit a tailor-made double-play ground ball to Trevor Story at shortstop. Or it would have been tailor-made, but Story clanked it:
Just those two runs would have been enough for the eventual victory, as it turned out, but the lineup flipped over for Geraldo Perdomo, who hit a sacrifice fly to right to score Locklear from third. 3-0 D-BACKS
It turned out to be really good for us to put up a crooked number there, because after recording two outs in the top of the third, Pfaadt started to flounder a bit, as we have seen him do about nine or ten batters in on numerous occasions this year. A two-out double that bounced off the third base bag and rolled up the line into the left field corner, followed by a single to center to drive that runner in, got the Red Sox on the board, and while that was the only damage done, Pfaadt needed 22 pitches to get through the third, doubling his pitch count over the first two frames. 3-1 D-BACKS
He also had a shaky time in the fourth, thanks to a one-out Trevor Story single and then a two-out grounder to third on which Blaze Alexander airmailed a throw to first to put runners on the corners. No damage was done there, but again Brandon had to work, throwing 22 more pitches to put his total at 66 for the game. No harm was done, though, and we tacked on another run in the bottom of the frame, thanks this time to singles by McCann and Locklear (sandwiched around the inevitable Alek Thomas out), followed by Jake McCarthy actually getting a hit, a single to left that drove in McCann. 4-1 D-BACKS
And it was pretty much smooth sailing after that. We almost got a fifth run in the bottom of the fifth on a Corbin Carroll fly to deep right center that should have been over the fence for his 31st of the year, but the first robbery of the night happened, with Boston center Fielder Ceddane Rafaela as the perpetrator:
Credit where credit’s due—that was a helluva catch.
So we would have to wait a bit longer for our fifth run of the game. Meanwhile, Pfaadt settled down again in the fifth and the sixth, and finished his night with a pitching line of 6 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 7 K, 0 BB, and 96 pitches thrown.
Jake Woodford pitched a scoreless top of the seventh, and we got our fifth and final run in the bottom of the frame, thanks to a leadoff Perdomo walk, a Ketel Marte fielder’s choice, a Corbin Carroll double that got Marte to third, and a Blaze Alexander sacrifice fly to plate Ketel. 5-1 D-BACKS
And that brings us to Jalen Beeks, who entered to pitch the top of the eighth for us. Remember, last night was when the Red Sox put up four runs to get back into the game against Bryce Jarvis. Beeks was facing the top of Boston’s lineup tonight, and after recording the first out, he threw three pitches to Alex Bregman, the third of which Bregman launched out to left for what looked like a no-doubter home run. There had been some pinch-hitting and lineup-shuffling shenanigans by the Diamondbacks in previous innings, so Blaze Alexander was patrolling left field at this point, and, well, we got to witness the glorious second robbery of the ballgame:
That was a thing of beauty. Blaze Alexander definitely wasn’t ready for prime time in 2024. But this year? Oh yeah. Hell yeah. Wow.
Anyway, that was pretty much that. John Curtiss came in to pitch the top of the ninth in a non-save situation, and retired the BoSox in order to give us another W and another series win!
Win Probability, courtesy of FanGraphs
King of the Hill: Brandon Pfaadt (pitching line above, +22.4% WPA)
Algorithmic Artefact: Jake McCarthy (2 AB, 1 H, 2 RBI, +20.2% WPA)
Nothing against Jake here, but as I understand it, the maths that underpin the FanGraphs WPA calculation don’t really factor in defense (or errors) at all, and heavily favor hitters who drive in the game-winning RBI, no matter how it is that they did it. So really, from a certain perspective, that +20.2% WPA for Jake should probably be an additional -20.2% WPA for Trevor Story, because it was his error in the second that allowed the game-winning runs to score for the Diamondbacks. But no, on the other side of the WPA chart, Story only rated a desultory -3.3% WPA.
Ah, advanced metrics. Gotta love ‘em. Anyway.
It was a congenial and well-populated Gameday Thread for a Saturday night, with 263 comments at time of writing. Top vote-getter for tonight’s Comment of the Game was kilnborn, for this true observation after the game had come to an undramatic close:
Very true, but it’s a kind of weird that I for one wouldn’t mind getting used to. Not that there’s any chance of that, at least as long as Mike Hazen has something to say about it. Tra la.
So once more we find ourselves going into Sunday with a chance to complete a series sweep. We haven’t managed it the last few times, but let’s bust out the brooms once again and see if we can’t get there tomorrow. Brayan Bello goes for the Red Sox, Ryne Nelson takes the mound for us. First pitch is scheduled for 1:10pm AZ time, so if you can pull yourself away from the riveting hand-egg contest that will be taking place between the Arizona Cardinals and the New Orleans Saints, you should really stop by. It would be lovely to see you!
As always, thanks for reading. And as always, go Diamondbacks!
![Current Diamondbacks 40-man roster [last change: 9/5]](https://glance-mob.glance-cdn.com/public/cardpress/binge-magazine-card-generation/spaces/US/en/sb-nation/images/ppid_2cf3d240-image-175711081801662411.webp)
