And enough to give Zac Gallen a W that he doesn’t deserve.
It’s always, well, interesting to go and play a series at Coors Field. After the disappointing series loss in Toronto that was at least somewhat mitigated by us taking the last game from the Blue Jays yesterday in fairly convincing fashion, was on to Denver to square off against the historically terrible Rockies tonight in their home park. Zac Gallen had the start for us, while Colorado sent soft-tossing lefty Austin Gomber to the mound for only his second start of the season and his first at Coors. His first start was last week in Atlanta, where he threw five innings of shutout ball, so he came in sporting a shiny and very round 0.00 ERA. Gallen, meanwhile, well. You know.
Still, it’s the Rockies, so it seemed like our chances were good, and sure enough we started the scoring right away, as Ketel Marte led off the game with a double to right center. One out later, Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. drove him in with a single to left. 1-0 D-BACKS
Gallen, meanwhile, looked good out of the gate, needing only six (!) pitches to sit down the top of the Colorado lineup in order. So that was nice.
Randal Grichuk, playing right field today as Corbin Carroll recovers from a left hand contusion sustained on a hit-by-pitch on Wednesday in Toronto, led off the second with a single to left, and was driven home two batters later when Jose Herrera, our starting catcher for the time being, hit an RBI double to left. 2-0 D-BACKS
Gallen was a lot less efficient in his second inning, thanks to a one-out walk and then an incredibly irritating 10-pitch at bat by Rockies right fielder Mickey Moniak. No harm was done, though, and Zac put up another zero.
We didn’t score in the third, despite one-out singles by Gurriel and Eugenio Suarez, who we’ll come back to later that were erased by a Josh Naylor GIDP, Gallen gave them back one run as he surrendered a one-out double followed one out later by a single to right. 2-1 D-BACKS
Of course, it’s Coors Field, so something so mild and sedate wasn’t likely to last, and, well, it didn’t, as all heck broke out in the fourth. We started it, with Randal Grichuk tripling to deep center. Tim Tawa, playing center field tonight as Torey Lovullo rolled out a lineup made up of basically all our right handed bats, walked, and Ildemaro Vargas (remember him?) singled to left to bring home Grichuk. Herrera laid down a perfect bunt to advance Timmy and Vargas, but that turned out to be unnecessary as the lineup flipped over and Ketel Marte sent the first pitch he saw into the seats in left:
Perdomo popped out and Gurriel flied out to center, but finally it was starting to feel like a Coors-sized lead, maybe. 6-1 D-BACKS
But NO! Certainly not. Partly because, well, it’s Coors Field, but more germane for our purposes, well. I’m past trying to put it delicately. Zac Gallen sucks. The bottom of the fourth started with Ryan MacMahon launching a moonshot over the very high right field wall. One out later, there was a Brenton Doyle double, followed by a Mickey Moniak longball over that same right field wall. Mercifully, Gallen managed to record a second out before giving up three consecutive singles and then a Hunter Goodman double. He finally struck MacMahon out to end that debacle of an inning, but not before Colorado had batted around and put up a six-spot to take the lead. 7-6 Colorado
Not to worry, though, because remember we were at Coors Field. Also, well, Geno Suarez was having none of it. The broadcasters had mentioned that Geno came into the day sitting at 298 career home runs, and he led off the fifth by getting his 299th, sending another souvenir into the left field bleachers:
Naylor and Grichuk made two ineffectual outs, but Tim Tawa singled up the middle, and Ildemaro Vargas (remember him?) ended Austin Gombers’s outing with yet another souvenir gifted to the spectators in left:
That at least gave us back the lead. 9-7 D-BACKS
Gallen, meanwhile, seemed to have recovered his composure some after that fourth-inning meltdown, and he pitched a scoreless fifth to bring his own night to a close. Needless to say, it was another terrible outing for him, but he wasn’t going to wind up with another L on his free-agent-at-season’s=end resume. Good for him, I guess.
Quite sensibly, though, the Diamondbacks offense didn’t seem to feel like a mere two-run cushion was enough, so Gurriel singled against one of a number of hapless dudes we saw come out of the Colorado bullpen, and then Geno came to the plate for the second time in two innings, and well, he got himself his 300th career homer!
You gotta love it. 11-7 D-BACKS
Meanwhile, after Gallen left the game, our bullpen got involved, and well, they did their jobs, and they did them incredibly well, in fact. Jose Morillo struck out the side in the sixth, Beeks struck out two of three in a pristine seventh, Kyle Backhus gave up a leadoff single in the eighth but would likely have put up another easy zero anyway but for Gurriel somehow losing a routine fly ball in the lights in left field?!?? That sucked, because they scored it a double when I think it really should have been an error on Lourdes, and instead it wound up being the first earned run Backhus has allowed in his young career. But there was nothing to worry about. We had continued to tack on with two more runs in the seventh, and a run in the top of the eighth, and while we didn’t score in the top of the ninth, even Kevin Ginkel managed to be effective, sitting Colorado down in order in the ninth to secure the victory for the good guys. 14-8 D-BACKS
Whew.
Win Probability Added, courtesy of Fangraphs
Rock GODS: Ildemaro Vargas (5 AB, 3 H, 3 R, 1 2B, 1 HR, 3 RBI, +26.2% WPA), Eugenio Suarez (6 AB, 4 H, 3 R, 2 HR, 3 RBI, +24.4% WPA, 300 career HRs!)
Rock Stars: Ketel Marte (6 AB, 3 H, 2 R, 1 2B, 1 HR, 5 RBI, +16.4% WPA), Jose Herrera (3 AB, 2 H, 1 R, 1 2B, 1 BB, 1 RBI, +10.8% WPA), Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. (6 AB, 3 H, 1 RBI, 1 SB, +10.4% WPA)
Broken Rock: Zac Gallen (5 IP, 7 ER, 10 H, 2 HR, 1 BB, 5 K, -34.6% WPA)
Given that everyone in our lineup got at least one hit, and given that Torey kept his starting lineup in there for the entire game, needless to say there were a lot of pretty key contributions, as can be seen above. Pretty much everyone did their part tonight, save Gallen. Sad to see, but hardly unexpected at this point. Great job by the team, the offense and the bullpen, in picking him up.
It was a nice and lively Gameday Thread this evening, with 289 comments at time of writing. A number of comments went Sedona Red over the course of the game, and while the top vote-getters were our Fearless Leader noting Gallen’s good first inning and another from him predicting doom tonight because I was taking the Friday recap, I’m going to break with protocol a bit and give tonight’s Comment of the Game to Diamondhacks for this lovely Geno-specific offering, complete with image:
Indeed. Happy Solstice to Eugenio Suarez, and to us all.
So. As I noted early in the GDT, 1AZFan1 and I swapped recaps for this weekend, so make sure to stop by and keep him company for tomorrow’s game, as Merrill Kelly takes the mound for us and rookie left hander Carson Palmquist goes for Colorado. Perhaps oddly, tomorrow’s game has a later start time than this one did….first pitch is scheduled for 6:10pm AZ Time. Hope you can join us!
As always, thanks for reading. And as always, go Diamondbacks!