TL;DR The Arizona offense powered up, the Rangers’ offense sputtered, and a strong combined pitching performance fueled a mini-sweep.
After last night’s “surgical” dismantling of the Rangers both at the plate and on the mound, it could have been easy to see a D-Backs team that was physically and mentally elsewhere. Instead, they set a new club record for extra base hits and overcame an early exit by Merrill Kelly because of a leg cramp. There are positive vibes all over this roster as they enter the final 10% of the season and we’re just here to enjoy them!
The Arizona offense picked up right where they left off last night with an extremely aggressive approach against promising Texas youngster Cody Bradford. Ketel Marte got the party started with a leadoff, first-pitch double down the line, which was followed by a Corbin Carroll triple, and Randal Grichuk’s 200th career home run. Just seven pitches into his outing, Bradford was already in the hole 3-0 and the Arizona bats were just getting started. They would add two more in the next inning off a towering leadoff solo shot from Eugenio Suarez and a combination of an Adrian Del Castillo double and Marte single produced another Arizona run for a fast 5-0 lead. After taking the third inning off for a quick breather, they returned to their antics in the fourth when Marte absolutely demolished a ball to plate himself, Geraldo Perdomo and Suarez – the latter two having reached on respective singles for an 8-2 lead.
Through the first three innings, Merrill Kelly had been cruising in his sixth start back from the IL with just a one-out walk to Nathaniel Lowe and a solo homer to Marcus Semien blemishing his outing. Beginning in the fourth however, the veteran righty began to look increasingly agitated and visibly frustrated as he allowed three consecutive singles to lead off the inning to Wyatt Langford, Adolis Garcia, and Lowe to plate the Rangers’ second run of the game. After striking Josh Jung out on a nasty changeup, Suarez nearly bailed Kelly out of the inning with an impressive cross-diamond double play, but the call was reversed after a Texas challenge. From a viewer’s perspective, it was difficult to tell if Kelly’s frustration was mental or physical, but we quickly got our answer in the next inning. Following his teammates’ fireworks that cracked the game back open in the home half, Kelly promptly surrendered a leadoff walk to Leody Taveras and looked into his dugout with a quiet shake of his head after a handful of additional pitches.
Torey Lovullo, the medical trainer, and the rest of the infield immediately gathered around him for an impromptu medical exam. Kelly continued to shake out his leg while looking progressively more uncomfortable before finally stalking off the mound flanked by Brent Strom and the trainer with an apparent injury. Given the relatively thin state of the D-Backs’ rotation, it was a terrifying development – especially with Kelly’s injury history and late stage in the season. Thankfully, the team provided the aforementioned update following the game that Kelly was simply experiencing cramping in his hamstring and doesn’t expect to miss his next start. Please Merrill, for all of us at home, eat a banana or something! Slade Cecconi was called upon to finish the inning and it was not pretty. We immediately learned that pitching disengagements carry over between pitchers as he “balked” Taveras to second, allowed him to steal third with nary a glance, and then failed to cover first on a Semien groundball to the right side that easily scored Taveras. Langford followed with a bouncing ball up the middle that Perdomo knocked down, but couldn’t corral, which allowed Semien to reach third and quickly score on an awkward double from Garcia that Carroll couldn’t quite reach. Cecconi then loaded the bases by walking Josh Jung before Lovullo mercifully called for Kevin Ginkel to end the outing and the inning.
Following the ugliness, the D-Bats emphatically responded with another three-run homer in consecutive innings – this one courtesy of the rookie Del Castillo who just snuck the ball over the right field fence that turned the game into a laugher with an 11-4 score. Evidently, the D-Backs offense wasn’t done laughing however as they would score a field goal on a pair of doubles from Carroll and Christian Walker, another solo shot from Suarez, and another pair of doubles from Luis Gullorme and Grichuk.
It’s difficult to put into context just how impressive an offensive barrage today’s game represents. In almost every dimension, the D-Backs outperformed the Rangers. There was exactly one inning in which the team failed to score for the entire game. As a whole, the D-Backs had the same number of players with home runs as the Rangers had total runs. There were stars up and down the Arizona lineup with two players nearly hitting cycles in Marte and Suarez. The team’s 14 runs is tied for their fourth-most scored in a game this year and their 16 hits today comes in tied for sixth-most this season. Amazingly, today’s performance doesn’t rank nearly as highly as I initially assumed on the franchise level as the runs come in somewhere in the low 30s while the hits total doesn’t even crack the top 50. There have been some impressive offensive performances put together even by some of the less-heralded versions of the team. We also should rightfully praise the pitching staff as well. After Ginkel entered to clean up Cecconi’s bases loaded mess in the fifth, the Rangers would get just one runner into scoring position over the following four innings – collecting just two hits and two walks apiece from Dylan Floro and Jordan Montgomery. Obviously, missing MVP-candidate Corey Seager hurts the offensive capabilities, but this is still a lineup with dangerous individual batters even if the team’s batting grades out towards the bottom of the American League.
While the team’s offensive output might be difficult to put into context, the rest of the canvas is perfectly clear: with the Padres losing while both the Dodgers and Mets emerged victorious, the D-Backs’ path to a postseason berth is becoming easier to picture. There are just 16 regular season – seven of which will come against division leader Milwaukee Brewers including this weekend’s series at Chase Field. They also have a three game set against the Rockies sandwiched between their matchups with the Brewers that could go a long way towards solidifying their postseason position. It’s fun to see the offense clicking on all cylinders like this and makes me that much more excited for the ever more likely postseason appearance upcoming. I think the team has fully and finally exorcised any lingering demons from last year’s Fall Classic after a game and series like this.
