What is the story about?
Game Summary
Full recap to follow shortly. Feel free to vent in the comments!
Loss Probability and Box Score
Outside the Box Score
- Geraldo Perdomo got all of his first inning solo homer, a 421 foot shot that left the bat at 103 mph.
- Corbin Carroll now stands alone at the top of the franchise triples list after he followed up Domo’s homer with his 53rd career triple. The triple looked like it might be a home run off the bat but ended up hitting off the top of the wall and the Rays outfielders glove to let Corbin cruise into third. Unfortunately, Gabi and Arenado couldn’t cash in the runner at third with only one out when they popped out to first and second base, respectively.
- Zac Gallen gave up a moonshot homer to Junior Caminero after walking and hitting the first 2 Rays batters of the game. It looked like Zac might’ve got a strikeout a pitch earlier when he dotted the low, outside corner on Caminero, but the umpire didn’t bite and Gabi didn’t challenge and it ended up a 3-1 score the very next pitch.
- Corbin made another outstanding play on defense when he snagged a sinking lined drive leading off the second inning. The catch looked awkward, kinda reaching backward while he started sliding feet first, but he came up with the out.
- Corbin Carroll attempted a steal in the 4th after getting a leadoff single and Gabi drilled a 104mph liner through the glove of the Rays shortstop. If the defender had been able to catch it, Corbin would’ve been a dead duck. Instead, Corbin got a good read on the ball off the carom from the glove and motored into third to set up a prime scoring opportunity.
- Max Kepler nearly got himself an RBI single in his second AB with the DBacks, guiding a humpback liner toward shallow left field, but Junior Caminero made an impressive leaping catch ranging back from his shallow infield starting position and kept a run off the board. He then proceeded to hit himself in the chest and yell several times. He did the exact same thing while rounding the bases after his homer. Not sure I’m a fan of that. He’s a great talent, but I’m glad he’s not on the Diamondbacks.
- After the rough first 3 batters, Gallen started cruising, setting down the next 15 in a row. He was pounding the zone and getting early swings, evidenced by pitch counts under 10 in each of the 3rd, 4th and 5th.
- Gabi’s single in the 6th was a little bloop shot into shallow right field. The Rays RF dove but was nowhere close to catching the ball and the hit bounced back behind him 10-20 feet. Unfortunately, Gabi couldn’t stretch it into a double because he’s apparently nursing a hamstring that he’s under strict orders not to push according to the broadcast team. A pity because Arenado followed up that near-double with a single that may have been able to score Gabi from second.
- Nolan Arenado had another premier defensive play in the bottom of the 6th. After a leadoff double, Gallen gave up a a hard line drive that was between Arenado and the third base line and Arenado made an outstanding dive to catch the ball just before it bounced off the infield dirt. 5 stars!
- Late in a lopsided loss, little things help to remind me I love baseball, even if I sometimes hate the DBacks. Tonight’s treasure was Lourdes Gurriel at the plate and freaking out the home plate umpire. Lourdes was doing his customary wait until the pitch clock was about to run out and the umpire misread Lourdes intentions and called time on the batter. Lourdes was clearly confused but let it ride because it’s a blowout and it’s Lourdes. Coming out of the timeout, Lourdes stared back at the pitch clock until the last second again and the umpire couldn’t help himself and had to look back over his shoulder and see what Lourdes was staring at. Pretty funny. Or funny for a blowout loss. I do love baseball.
Comment of the Game
The GameDay Thread was lively, if not a little distracted. The GTD reached a final tally of 313 comments at time of publishing, though if I had to guess if there were more comments about the game or hippos and tortoises, I’m not sure I could confidently answer. Case in point, COTG tonight goes by popular vote to Sighborg for his this comment on, well, you just had to be there:
Coming Up
The Diamondbacks face the Rays for the second game of this
3-game set tomorrow afternoon with a 3:10pm first pitch Arizona time. Old reliable TBD is listed as the probable starter for the Rays and Jose Cabrera (0-0, 0.00 ERA) making his second big league start takes the ball for the good guys.
