Slade Cecconi was nails again, but it wasn’t enough.
So the Diamondbacks are having a rough time right now, with the offense often not showing up, the starting rotation increasingly diminished by injuries, and our bullpen being, well, our bullpen. After Zac Gallen left last night’s game prematurely with a hamstring issue and Scott McGough came in and did what he often does, things weren’t looking good coming into tonight. Fan morale was low, I imagine, or maybe I’m just projecting. My morale was low.
Tonight’s starter, Slade Cecconi, was a boss for us in his emergency call-up from Reno last Sunday, but, well, he started the year in Reno, and I assume there was a reason for that. Meanwhile, he was facing off against a very promising younger Seattle starter in Geroge Kirby, who’s taken awhile this season to find his footing, but who pitched well enough last season to rack up some votes for the AL Cy Young award. Seemed like it would be kind of a mismatch, and not in our favor.
Needless to say, I was not expecting a genuine pitchers’ duel to break out, but that’s what happened.
Kirby struck out Jake McCarthy, Lourdes Gurriel, Jr., and Ketel Marte to start the game, needing only 12 pitches to do it. Perhaps even more terrifying, 11 of the 12 pitches he threw were four-seam fastballs that he wasn’t even bothering to locate carefully. He just kept pumping them in there, ranging from 97 to 99 mph, and we simply couldn’t hit them. Yikes.
Cecconi took his turn on the mound, and despite a six-pitch AB to old friend Josh Rojas to lead things off, set down the top of the Mariners’ lineup in order with two strikeouts of his own, and only 11 pitches thrown. Dunno. Maybe Slade is ready for primetime.
And so it went from there. In fact, in the early going Cecconi looked like he might get the better of Kirby. Christian Walker led off the top of the second with a truly mighty 12-pitch AB off Kirby, fighting off a lot of fastballs and eventually sending one back up the middle for a single to center. Kirby struck out the next two, however, and Gaby Moreno hit a grounder to short that forced Walker at second, but at least we’d gotten a hit.
Cecconi continued his efficient dominance in his half of the second, retiring the middle of the Seattle order with two more strikeouts and only ten pitches thrown. We had our best chance to scratch out an early run in the top of the third, when Blaze Alexander shot a one-out liner to deep right that came tragically close to being a home run, but hit on the yellow line at the top of the wall and wound up being a mere double. Kirby then walked McCarthy on four pitches before gathering himself and striking out Gurriel and Marte again to end the threat.
Seattle’s first baserunner reached with one out in the bottom of the third on a bunt single by Seattle left fielder Luke Riley, who actually managed to get into scoring position by stealing second. Not to worry, though, as Slade retired the next two batters, putting up another zero and recording two more strikeouts of his own.
Kirby and Cecconi traded donuts on the scoreboard again in the fourth, and Kirby hung another on us in the top of the fifth before Cecconi gave up his second and third hits of the ballgame, which allowed Seattle to get on the board first. Seattle DH Mitch Garver sent a sharp liner down into the right field corner for a one-out double, and Luke Riley managed his second hit, a single into the gap in right center that brought Garver around to score. That was all the damage, but, given how Kirby was rolling, it seemed like that might be enough. 1-0 Seattle
And indeed, Kirby kept on rolling, sitting us down in order in both the sixth and the seventh. Cecconi, to his credit, pitched a perfectly clean bottom of the sixth, and while he was only at 84 pitches at the end of six, that was the end of his start. He finished with even a better pitching line than in his start against San Francisco, ending with 6 IP, 1 ER, 3 H, 1 BB, 8 K and 84 pitches thrown. You can’t ask for better than that. He was, again, a boss.
Bryce Jarvis took the ball for the bottom of the seventh, and well, it didn’t go particularly well. His control was kind of shaky, walking the first batter he faced on seven pitches, four of which weren’t even close to the zone. Then Ty France came up, and Bryce quickly got behind him 2-0, before throwing a meatball right down the middle of the plate that France didn’t miss, depositing it over the wall in left-center. 3-0 Seattle
Here’s the thing, though. Home plate umpire Chad Whitson’s strike zone had been erratic all night to say the least, and had definitely seemed to be getting more questionable, at the expense of Diamondbacks pitchers and Diamondbacks hitters, as the evening progressed. The MLB Gameday depiction of the pitches in France’s at bat are definitely worth seeing, though, as I think they tell a story of what wound up being the pivotal moment in this game:
Both of the pitches that were called as balls clearly caught the corners of the zone; they were damn good pitches, and I’m not sure you can even call them borderline. I would imagine Jarvis knew it, too. He’d just walked the leadoff batter, he certainly didn’t want to give a free pass to the second guy he faced. It kinda seemed like he got fed up and frustrated and said to himself, “What the hell do I have to do to get a strike call here?” and threw the cutter in the middle. That was a mistake, but if either or both of the first two calls had actually been right, the cutter would likely never have been thrown. The crowd is often referred to as the 12th man when the Seattle Seahawks are playing at home. Kinda felt like the Mariners had a 10th man on their side tonight as well, and his name was Chad Whitson. Just sayin’.
Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered at that point, as we still hadn’t managed to get anything done on offense. Happily, that did change in the top of the eighth, as Blaze Alexander managed to draw a two-out walk against Ryan Stanek, the first guy out of the Seattle bullpen. This turned the lineup over for Jake McCarthy, who I think continues to demonstrate that he should be playing close to every day right now:
Jake Rakes. pic.twitter.com/T3Kp6ooRy8
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) April 28, 2024
Assuming the Ty France dinger hadn’t occurred, McCarthy’s triple would have gotten Cecconi off the hook, but sadly, that’s not the way MLB assigns wins and losses. Still, at least we were on the board, though Gurriel was unable to get McCarthy home, flying out to left to end things. 3-1 Seattle
And that was it. Zeroes on both sides in the bottom of the eighth and the top of the ninth, and that’s all she wrote. Cecconi deserved better.
#RobotUmpsNow!
Win Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs
Diamondback: Slade Cecconi (see pitching line above, +14.6% WPA)
Roadkill: The offense as a whole (30 AB, 3 H, 2 BB, 14 K, -51.9% WPA)
For a game where I don’t expect that hopes were all that high going in, we nevertheless had a reasonably lively Gameday Thread, with 162 comments at time of writing. Several comments went Sedona Red, jeffern61 gets this one both by popular acclaim and because, well, duh.
Well said, sir. Well said.
Anyway. If you feel so inclined, stop by tomorrow afternoon to see if we can avoid the series sweep and maybe put up one of our patented 12+ run outbursts that we often seem to include in series that we ultimately wind up losing. That would be fun, right? So Brandon Pfaadt takes the mound for us. Logan Gilbert, another disturbingly promising young righthanded starter, goes for Seattle. First pitch is 1:10pm AZ time. Hope you can join us!
As always, thanks for reading, And as always, go DIamondbacks!