TL;DR: Jordan Montgomery was fabulous, the hitting was timely, and the ending was anxiety-inducing.
One night after winning a “blowout” (by 2024 D-Backs’ standards) over the Reds, the D-Backs earned a series win through a tough, hardfought game against the freefalling Reds. Jeff recapped the offensive explosion last night here and boy was it refreshing to see some actual life out of Corbin Carroll’s bat and the rest of the Arizona offense. It was also a nice palate cleanser to see all the returning faces including Zac Gallen and Paul Sewald both of whom are key cogs on this D-Backs’ roster. Tonight’s win however featured two newcomers to the club in Jordan Montgomery and Eugenio Suarez. The latter of whom has been mired in one of the worst slumps of his career with a miniscule .173/.250/.227 slash line since April 13th. But an eighth inning home run and a dazzling, run-saving play like the one below goes a long way towards re-earning the fans’ goodwill.
Montgomery meanwhile battled through seven innings of yeoman’s work with just two clean innings in his seven innings of work, but he worked to his gameplan: put the ball in play and let the defenders do the work. In past years, and as recently as last season, that gameplan would have worked extremely well as Arizona owned the third-best defense in the National League. Surprisingly, despite the eye test indicating otherwise, the fielding statistics have actually improved as the team sits in second place in the NL by defensive runs saved. Montgomery needed every bit of that defense behind him tonight as he worked through traffic all evening while the Reds managed to run into two outs on the basepaths with two excellent outfield assists from Lourdes Gurriel Jr and Pavin Smith.
Early in the game, the veteran lefty looked to be struggling – especially in the second when the Reds stacked four hits together for an early 1-0 lead that could have been even worse absent the above play from Suarez and a nifty putout from Gurriel Jr. The scuffling left fielder actually had an entire game’s worth of action in the second as he struggled to corral Tyler Stephenson’s leadoff double down the line that allowed Stephenson to reach third. He then nabbed Stuart Fairchild trying to stretch his run-scoring single into a double and then ended the inning on a sliding grab. Whoever said that baseball players aren’t athletic clearly hasn’t been watching recently because this play was plenty impressive even without the sliding catch.
The D-Backs, once again facing a deficit, immediately responded with a leadoff single from Gabriel Moreno followed by a run-scoring double from Pavin Smith to knot the score 1-1. Encouragingly, Carroll worked himself a walk before Ketel Marte managed an infield single to load the bases with just one out and an impressively effective Joc Pederson stepping to the plate. Pederson managed to lift the ball, but not deep enough to score Smith from third and it looked as if the D-Backs would again waste a prime scoring opportunity as they have done all too often over this past rough stretch. Instead, Christian Walker earned a rare RBI walk for a 2-1 lead before a weak Gurriel Jr groundout ended the erstwhile rally. Still, given the way this team has performed in similar run-scoring opportunities over the past several weeks, it was an encouraging sign of the resilience the team demonstrated time and again last year.
Montgomery, having finally been given the lead for the first time in the game, could only make it stand up until the home half of the fourth when Jeimer Candelario crushed a changeup that missed becoming a two-run homer by a couple feet. It was still plenty deep enough for Santiago Espinal to score from first however after he beat out a double play attempt earlier in the inning to tie the score 2-2 again. The Reds would only mount one more scoring opportunity on Montgomery’s watch in the fifth when consecutive double play attempts were not converted from Jonathan India and Elly De La Cruz. Cruz then displayed exactly the kind of game-changing skills he possesses by stealing second and third on consecutive pitches – his major league-leading 20th and 21st stolen base respectively. Spencer Steer would walk and then steal second before Montgomery induced a weak popup from Stephenson to end the threat.
Conversely, the D-Backs managed to tack on runs in the visiting half of the sixth and eighth from some of the least likely sources. In the former, back-to-back singles from Gurriel Jr and Suarez set the table for Gabriel Moreno who dutifully poked a ball through the left side of the infield for a 3-2 D-Backs’ lead. Finally, in the eighth, Suarez again provided the offensive spark as he launched a Lucas Sims’ middle-middle slider into the left field bleachers for a 4-2 D-Backs’ lead. Tonight’s game marked the first multihit game for Suarez since April 30 and his first home run since April 12 – nearly a month between his second and third homers of the season. While it’s certainly a small sample, it’s difficult to overstate the importance of the offensive contributions from Suarez, Gurriel Jr, and Carroll towards the team’s success and all three are starting to show some signs of offensive life.
After Montgomery fought through seven innings of two-run ball and Ryan Thompson navigated a clean home half of the eighth against the heart of the Cincinnati order, Torey Lovullo handed the ball off to Kevin Ginkel for the save. Ginkel has settled back into his 2023 form after some early struggles, but unfortunately, we got the early-season version of the righty rather than the current one. First, he committed one of the cardinal sins of late-inning relief pitching: walking the leadoff batter – Jake Fraley in this case – before allowing consecutive singles to Candelario and TJ Friedl that brought the Reds within a run 4-3. Evidently, Lovullo had seen enough of the Arizona Wildcat product and chose Joe Mantiply to slam the door after Ginkel had given the Reds life with their final two outs. Mantiply managed to strikeout Will Benson on a borderline check swing call and induce a deep flyout to newly entered Jake McCarthy to end the threat and game with a single run difference.
There are plenty of reasons to remain pessimistic about the long term outlook of this team: a lack of offensive production from key players, bullpen inconsistency, and an inability to score late in games. But for tonight at least, the team was able to either overcome or reverse the troubling trends that have bedeviled them over the past several weeks. I firmly fall into the camp that “momentum” is a myth in baseball that has been conjured by fans and media alike, but I also recognize that sports – like all human activity – is inherently psychological and that increased confidence or belief in their collective skills could turn their season around. This series win marks just the third series win of the season to date – with the other two coming against the woeful Rockies – but they have again shown the kind of emotional and psychological resilience that defined their 2023 campaign and will be direly needed for the remainder of the 2024 season. We can only hope they manage to carry that over into a looming matchup with the AL-leading Baltimore Orioles waiting in the wings this weekend.