I was pretty excited about this game, after our offense suddenly found itself in the same ballpark as our defense and our pitching last night. Eduardo Rodriguez, my favorite hologram—everybody’s favorite hologram, actually—was going for us after nearly pitching a complete game in his last outing versus the Mets, while the Rockies had Tomoyuki Sugano, a second-tier Japanese import who made his major league debut last year at age 35 as a member of Baltimore’s undistinguished starting rotation, taking
the mound for them. Per DBE’s invaluable series preview, this game looked like it would be the toughest of the series, but after last night’s game, I liked our odds.
But baseball is a funny game, and it will disappoint you sometimes.
Things seemed to be starting off on a good note for us, with Ketel Marte seeing five pitches to lead off the game before sending a rocket of a line drive into right where it was, for once, not caught by a defender who was exactly in the right place, but instead dropped for a single! Sadly, however, Corbin Carroll then swung at the first pitch he saw, lining it hard to second base and doubling off Ketel. This was made even more painful when Geraldo Perdomo lined a hard single to center that could have probably scored Marte, had Marte still been on base, which he was not. Gerry stole second base, at least, before Nolan Arenado flied out to left for the third out.
ERod, meanwhile, had a distinctly rough go of it in his first inning of work. He was greeted with a single, a ground rule double that bounced over the left field wall, and an RBI single to center that brought in the first run of the ballgame before Eduardo had even recorded the first out. A second RBI single with one out brought in a second run, and while he struck out the next two batters to end the frame, the Rockies had hung 31 pitches on him already and two Colorado runs were already in. 2-0 Colorado
Happily, however, at Coors two runs doesn’t tend to mean a whole lot, as we got one of the runs back right away. Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. went opposite field for a one-out double to left in the top of the second, and Jose Fernandez singled to right to advance Lourdes to third. Brian McCann came to the plate, and Fernandez broke for second. Rockies’ catcher threw to second, and as soon as he popped up Lourdes broke for home plate. Jose beat the throw to second for our second stolen base of the game, and Lourdes, somewhat surprisingly, beat the throw back to Goodman for our third stolen base and our first run. Baseball really is crazy sometimes….if you tell me that you had “Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. steals home” on your bingo card, I will know that you are lying:
McCann eventually lined out to center, allowing Fernandez to take third, but Ryan Waldschmidt struck out looking to leave him standing there. 2-1 Colorado
ERod’s rough time continued in the bottom of the second, with a leadoff double to Rockies’ third baseman Kyle Karros, followed immediately by old friend Jake McCarthy singling to left to drive Karros in. Perhaps because he felt bad about it, but more likely because he is still Jake McCarthy and so he will do boneheaded things, Jake tried to stretch him single into a double, and was thrown out easily by Gurriel. The Colorado lineup turned over, and Eddie allowed another single, but then he got his act together and shut that business down. 3-1 Colorado
After that, not much happened for awhile. We got runners on base in the third and fourth, but left them there on base with nothing to show for it. Hologram Eddie finally stabilized, putting up zeroes and actually recording a perfectly clean 12-pitch inning in the fourth. Finally, in the top of the fifth, it seemed like our bats might finally get going in earnest, as the top of our lineup came to the plate for the third time and greeted Sugano with back-to-back doubles by Ketel Marte and Corbin Carroll. Ketel’s was particularly crazy to me, as he hit it to pretty much straightaway center and it bounced over the wall for a ground rule double. Carroll’s sounded like it was maybe a home run off the bat, but wound up hitting maybe two thirds of the way up Coors Field’s tall right field wall:
A one-pitch lineout by Perdomo and an Arenado ground ball to first ended the threat right there, but at least we’d scratched out another run, right? 3-2 Colorado
Well, that was pretty much all she wrote, at least in terms of our offense. The Colorado bullpen got involved after the fifth inning, and an assortment of arms you’ve likely never heard of put up zeroes the rest of the way. ERod wound up getting through five innings for us, and even coming out to record the first out of the sixth, before giving way to our bullpen, which did a comparably good job, with one glaring exception.
Brandyn Garcia came out to start the bottom of the eighth, and I guess the thin air in Denver really did not agree with him, as he utterly failed to record an out. The first three batters to face him went single-walk (of the unsightly four-pitch variety)-single to load the bases, and then he hit Colorado DH Mickey Moniak to bring the Rockies’ fourth run across the plate. So out came Garcia, and in came Kevin Ginkel with nobody outs and the bases loaded.
And that brings us to what has to be the real highlight of this game: Ginkel was masterful in getting out of the mess with no further damage. First he induced a grounder to second from Ezequiel Tovar. Ildemaro Vargas threw home to get the lead runner, Brian McCann threw quickly to first to force Tovar for the unusual 4-2-3 double play. It was actually called that way, too, on the field, but the Rockies challenged and replay clearly showed that McCann’s hurried throw pulled Fernandez off the bag. So Ginkel shrugged, struck some dude out on four pitches, and then got Kyle Karros to ground out for the third out of the inning and keep the score within reach as we went to the top of the ninth. 4-2 Colorado
As you know by the headline, we did not finish things off heroically, as much as I would have liked to see that happen. To their credit, though, we did show some fight in the ninth against former Rockies starter and apparently now Rockies bullpen power arm (?!?) Antonio Senzatela, who apparently can hit 99 on the radar gun now that he’s no longer having to try to pitch 5+ innings at Coors. Ryan Waldschmidt stroked a one-out single to left to bring up Ketel Marte as the tying run. Marte, happily, didn’t try to hit himself a six-run dinger, but instead took what Senzatella gave him, which was a four-pitch walk to bring the winning run to the plate with one out. Sadly Corbin Carroll struck out looking after running the count full, to bring Perdomo to the plate with a chance to be the big damn hero. Gerry, to his credit, fought mightily after falling behind in the count early, fouling off five straight pitches at one point and then, finally, on the tenth pitch of his at bat….flying out lazily to center field.
I mention this, though, because at the risk of offering up another bit of “well, the offense isn’t there yet but they’re showing signs of turning a corner” commentary, this was the first game in awhile in which I’ve seen our hitters, especially those at the top of the order, take patient at bats and see a lot of pitches:
- Marte had a six-pitch AB to start the ballgame;
- Carroll saw seven in the course of drawing a one-out walk in the third;
- Perdomo had pretty short ABs for most of the game, but perhaps made up for it with the ten pitches he saw as he was recording the final out of the game;
- Arenado saw six pitches each in two different ABs;
- Gurriel hit his second inning double on the sixth pitch of his AB, and hit a two-out single on the eighth pitch of his AB in the top of the eighth;
- Ryan Waldschmidt drew a six-pitch walk in the seventh.
My point is that, while the results weren’t there in terms of what you will see in the box score, I feel at least like it’s very good to see our batters not just flailing at the first or second or third pitch, plate appearance after plate appearance. I hope that will continue, and I hope that, if it does, we’ll eventually start seeing better results. Here’s hoping, anyway.
Loss Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs
Positive Contributors: None, as no player, pitcher or hitter, managed better than Ketel Marte’s +7% WPA
Negative Contributors: The offense (33 AB, 9 H, 2 R, 5 BB, 4 K, -54% WPA)
As dismal as this game was, it was broadly reflected by the attendance and engagement in today’s Gameday Thread, which at time of writing has a whopping 98 comments (and I’m pretty sure half of them were mine, because I needed to do something to entertain myself while watching the game). As above, so below, or something like that. In any event, a handful of comments did manage to go what passes for Sedona Red these days, so by popular acclaim CotG goes to AZNailgal520 for this disappointingly apt assessment of our backup catcher’s recent contributions:
It is sad but true. Anyway.
Tomorrow is the rubber match, as we try to secure what feels like it would be our first series win in awhile. Michael Soroka takes the mound for the Snakes, while Michael Lorenzen goes for Colorado. First pitch is scheduled once again for 12:10pm AZ time. Join us if you feel so inclined.
As always, thanks for reading. As always, go Diamondbacks!
