Despite clutch late home runs from Gabi Moreno and Corbin Carroll, the Dbacks weren’t able to hold off the Dodgers in extras.
This game began as a pitcher’s dual as Ryne Nelson started in the place of the injured Eduardo Rodriguez, and went toe to toe with the Dodgers ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Ryne really had his stuff working as he was able to match Yamamoto for 5 innings allowing only 1 Dodgers run.
Offensively, the Dbacks couldn’t get anything going in the early going as Yamamoto had his stuff working tonight. He even had a no hitter going through 6 innings when Ketel Marte finally broke it up as he almost put a hole in the RF wall with a laser beam single.
Things would stay relatively quiet until the 8th inning when team captain Geraldo Perdomo stayed hot and lead off the inning with a double. Fun new guy Tim Tawa then followed with one of the plays of the game as he laid down a perfect bunt single down the 3rd base line that caught the pitcher and the third baseman in between and advanced Perdomo to third base with no one out. What proceeded would then be a sad state of affairs where the Dbacks would squander 3 straight opportunities to tie the game. Geno popped up harmlessly on the infield, Carroll struck out swinging, they intentionally walked Ketel, and with 2 outs Gurriel struck out.
Going into the 9th inning, it felt as though this would be another sad recap of missed opportunities until Gabriel Moreno came up and tied the game in the 9th inning with a moonshot to left field off of the Dodgers expensive new closer Tanner Scott! Moreno has homered 3 times this season, and all 3 have been against the Dodgers. I mentioned in the thread from last nights game how Gabi pulling a ball into the air to deep left field could be a really good sign that his bat is heating up, and it looks like that could be the case!
The game would go to extra innings and in the top of the 10th after fouling multiple balls off of his body, and getting hit in the forearm earlier in the game, Corbin Carroll hit a massive 2 run home run opposite field to put the Dbacks up 3-1. Again off of the expensive Dodgers closer.
Unfortunately for the Dbacks, the used and abused closer Shelby Miller couldn’t hold the Dodgers in the home half of the 10th. He made some good pitches, but the Dodgers were able to find some grass in the outfield. In addition, a really unfortunate splitter barely grazed the Dodger catcher’s elbow guard forcing in another run. All in all, Miller wasn’t getting hit hard, but the Dodgers were able to battle back and get the win. Torey mentioned in the post game that he thought that having to have Shelby pitch last night played a big role in Shelby not being able to hold onto the lead.
All in all this was a well played game on both sides. You could look back to the 8th inning and the inability to score the runner from 3rd as a missed opportunity, however the Dbacks made up for it later with some clutch hitting. The bullpen all in all was also pretty good for the Dbacks tonight with the exception of Shelby Miller being unable to keep the lead. The good news for the Dbacks is that help may soon be on the way in the bullpen as Justin Martinez hit 102 mph in his rehab outing in Reno. Sounds a lot more like the closer we all know and miss. We will wait and see what next steps look like for him, but this team desperately needs him back in the 9th inning with his swing and miss. That would also bump the rest of the bullpen guys forward an inning to their more respective spots.
Another story line that may be worth talking about here is the usage of Jordan Lawlar. Lawlar who has known struggles against breaking balls from right handers started tonight against one of the toughest breaking ball pitchers in the league while he sat last night against the fresh up from the minors lefty. Seems like an odd way to try and get Lawlar some momentum. In 8 days in the big leagues, Torey has only been able to get Lawlar 10 at bats. Not quite the 3-4 starts per week Torey said he was targeting when he was called up. Unfortunately much of the Twitter verse has already seemingly turned on Lawlar, but I cant imagine it is easy to get in any sort of rhythm offensively playing so sporadically. He did have a couple of really great plays at 3rd base which is an encouraging sign.