A combined one-hit shutout from Ryne, Disco, and Gink allowed the offense’s lone run in the 11th to stand up.
Game Summary
The first game after the Diamondbacks officially became ‘sellers’ was not short on drama. The offense, missing one of its key cogs after Naylor was traded on Thursday, looked just a bit off all night long, but the pitching staff more than rose to the occasion. Ryne Nelson led the charge into what generations of future Diamondbacks fans will look back and call the Great Selloff with 6 innings of scoreless, 1-hit ball. He twice had to strand runners at third and walked or hit 3 batters, but he made the pitches he needed to when it mattered and put up zero after zero after zero.
Tony Disco has quickly made his way up my list of favorite Diamondbacks after only being with the team 6 weeks, and nights like tonight are why. He matched Ryne’s effectiveness with 4 innings of no-hit ball. He lost the strike zone in a few at bats, walking 2 and hitting a batter just like Ryne, but he made big pitches to strand runners in scoring position in the 9th and 10th innings to give his offense one more opportunity.
The 11th inning started with the best possible Manfred Man for the Snakes, Mr. Corbin Franklin Carroll. After Ketel earned a lead off walk, Gerry Perdomo hit a deep flyball to center that pushed Corbin to third with one out. Then, Geno followed up with a medium flyball down the right field line that was just deep enough to score the speedy Carroll for our only run. It was fitting that the winning run of the ballgame was scored without recording a hit in the inning. In all, both teams combined for only 6 hits, and both teams were equally incompetent with RISP going 0-for-9. The difference in the game came down to Corbin being fast enough to score on a medium-depth fly out, and then having a good enough arm to scare back to third the Pirates runner on the exact same play in the bottom of the 10th.
The bottom of the 11th saw Kevin Ginkel take the mound for the Snakes and it was, expectedly, not stress free. A deep fly out to center got the Manfred Man to third with 1 out. Then the deciding base running error of the game was made. On a sinking line drive into left, the Pirates runner at third couldn’t decide what to do. Instead of instantly going back to the bag in case of a caught fly, he inched toward the plate. Lourdes Gurriel, having quite the night defensively already, made a fabulous diving grab to get the second out and then began rolling over. Without the benefit of seeing where the baserunner was on the broadcast, I assumed the Pirates runner had begun sprinting home. When Lourdes finished rolling around, he threw the ball in to the infield from the seat of his pants and then the camera shifted to the Pirates runner who was glued to third base still! The boos came raining down from the stands as the Pirate faithful knew what a monumental gaffe had just been made. Kevin Ginkel got a groundball from the next hitter and a putout from third baseman Blaze Alexander to first baseman Eugenio Suarez was the final play of the game.
It was certainly an interesting night for the Diamondbacks, and I fully expect the next week’s worth of games to be equally interesting as players navigate the daily Trade Deadline rumors. Every game has a feeling of ‘this may be it’ for this player or that. It was great to get a win. It will be far greater when this Trade Deadline nonsense is over with and we can all just exhale and stop speculating.
Win Probability and Box Score
Outside the Box Score
- Lourdes Gurriel Jr. started the game off quite well for us defensively. The very first Pittsburgh hitter hit a relatively easy flyball to left, but you could instantly tell the sun was a factor as Gurriel shielded his eyes and looked tense until late in the flight of the ball. While that ball ended up being caught relatively easily, the next one was much more difficult. Andrew McCutchen put his ball into short left field and forced Gurriel to sprint forward while shielding his eyes before making a running grab.
- Lourdes Gurriel’s offense was not up to par with his defense in his first plate appearance. Gurriel watched three 97 mph fastballs float by to strikeout on three pitches. Ryne Nelson only made 10 pitches in his first inning, but the Diamondbacks offense only needed 9 pitches to make 3 outs in the 2nd.
- Tommy Pham got a 2-out triple in the second on an opposite way flyball that reached the tall, right field wall on the fly. Corbin made a nice effort to try and leap and make the catch, but he wasn’t able to get up high enough and the ball bounced off the wall just above his outstretched arm and came bounding back in toward the infield where Ketel Marte was able to get to it and make sure the triple didn’t turn into a inside-the-park homer. Pham was stranded at third thanks to Ketel Marte being perfectly positioned to snag a sizzling line drive and end the inning.
- After 3 innings, the Diamondbacks were being set down in order and whiffing at an astonishing 40% clip. They were swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone at a 53% rate. Comparatively, the Pirates were only swinging outside the zone at a 9% rate.
- Ryne Nelson allowed a runner to reach third for the second consecutive inning in the third, but was able to wriggle his way out again. He was not sharp through the first 3 innings, needing 47 pitches and allowing a BB and HBP, but you can’t really argue with 3 zeroes on the board.
- Geraldo Perdomo grounded into what could have been an inning ending double play in the fourth, but Ketel attempted a steal on the play so was able to get into scoring position safely and keep the inning going for Geno. Unfortunately, Geno couldn’t cash him in as he hit into a rare 1-unassisted ground out.
- Ryne Nelson bounced back nicely from his longer 2nd and 3rd innings with a 7 pitch 4th.
- Lourdes Gurriel ended up earning the D-backs first hit of the night, a 1-out infield single down the third base line. It was a little in-between hopper that the Pirates’ third baseman waited back on instead of charging and, to Gurriel’s credit, he was sprinting hard out of the box and just barely beat out the throw.
- Jose Herrera grounded into an inning-ending out in the 5th, but he looked like he wouldn’t be able to come out on defense in the bottom half of the inning because he was limping pretty severely down the first base line. It appeared that he was in pain before he ever really took a step out of the batter’s box, so kinda odd how he might have been hurt, but he did make it back out of the dugout to his position behind the plate at the beginning of the next inning.
- After needing 47 pitches for the first 3 innings, Nelly settled down considerably and only needed 18 pitches for his next 2 perfect innings of work.
- The Diamondbacks went down 1-2-3 in the top half of the sixth despite Carroll leading off the inning with a single into the right-center gap. Unfortunately, he got a little greedy and tried to stretch his single into a hustle double. On replay, it looked like Corbin was still fast enough to sneak in safely, but he was sliding so hard that his lead foot popped off the bag and the Pirates were able to keep the tag on him through the play to earn the out.
- Ryne Nelson had to labor a bit in the sixth after walking the leadoff hitter, but he finished with a flourish, getting whiffs on slider below the zone to strike out Bryan Reynolds and a letter-high fastball to strike out Nick Gonzales and end his night with 6 zeroes on the scoreboard.
- ADC and Lourdes got back-to-back 1-out singles in the 7th. Both balls were hit into the gap between center and right and I was certainly hoping that ADC would make the turn at second and make it into third with less than 2 outs, but he slammed on the brakes. It didn’t end up mattering as Jake McCarthy followed with a groundout to the pitcher and Tristin English struck out.
- Tristin English duffed his first real chance at a defensive play on the evening when he had to field a hard grounder to his arm side in the 7th inning. Fortunately, Ketel was playing heads up and jumped on the loose ball and delivered a strike to a still running Tony Disco covering from the mound and record the out.
- Tony Disco plunked Henry Davis to lead off the 8th (Davis’ second HBP of the game), but recovered nicely with a bunt popout, strikeout, and a groundout to send the ballgame to the 9th still tied at 0.
- The Diamondbacks started the 9th inning with 2 flyouts to right field, but both pushed Bryan Reynolds to the warning track. So close.
- Tony Disco got the first 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth with relative ease. Then a walk to Oneil Cruz led to an inevitable stolen base of second by Cruz. Now with a man on second and hot-hitting Tommy Pham at the plate, the Diamondbacks nibbled the edges of the zone before intentionally walking Pham after the count reached 3-1. The camera cut to Pham on his way up the first base line and it was very plain he was giving the business to the D-backs dugout on his way to first. He was a very intense and fun player to root for. Wouldn’t be surprised at all if he were to be moved to a contender for the third consecutive Trade Deadline.
- The bottom of the 10th was filled with drama. Henry Davis was initially ruled safe on a bunt to third (with Blaze now manning third and Geno shifted to first), but replay review overturned the ruling after they confirmed Ketel Marte kept his foot on the bag. Still, the Manfred Man was at third with only 1 out. A fly ball to medium-depth right field provided an opportunity for the Pirates to score, but Corbin made a quick and low throw to the plate that scared the Pirates runner back to third. The third a final out came on a routine grounder to short, but as the ball was about to be released by Domo, I remembered that it was Geno at first. Anything other than a perfect throw likely would have been disaster for the good guys, but Domo came through with a perfect throw and the game continued on to the 11th.
Comment of the Game
It was a really light GDT early, but it certainly picked up once the game moved to extras. A total of 180 comments at time of publishing with only a handful of Sedona red comments. COTG goes to Jim with the only comment that received more than 4 Recs:
Coming Up
The Diamondbacks face the Pirates in the second game of this series tomorrow with a 3:40pm first pitch Arizona time. Merrill the Mainstay is the scheduled starter in what may be his last game with the Snakes (assuming he’s still on the team at the time of first pitch). He’ll be opposed by veteran southpaw Andrew Heaney who is 4-9 with a 5.03 ERA. Tune in and enjoy The Mainstay; we don’t know how much longer we’ll have him.