The bats really never got going, and our first inning pitching woes manifested again today.
This was a deeply peculiar baseball game to me. We had last year’s hologram pitcher, Eduardo Rodriguez, taking the mound for us, facing off against Mitchell Parker, one of the Nationals’ more promising young pitchers, in a duel of left handed pitchers. As 1AZFan1 noted in their exemplary series preview, this looked to be a tough one for us, as Parker kept the Phillies scoreless through nearly seven innings in his first start of the season, while ERod was, well, ERod.
That said, if I were to tell you that one starter struck out 12 of the 15 batters he faced, while only surrendering four hits and one solitary walk, I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that I was talking about the winning pitcher. If I told you that his opponent only struck out two while walking four, you might assume that he was the less effective pitcher, especially considering numbers that I just shared for the first pitcher.
Well, both of those assumptions would be wrong.
Mitchell Parker was indeed as tough as advertised, to the point that he only faced two batters over the minimum in his first five innings of work, and only surrendered one hit. That one hit was one of the nice moments in an otherwise disappointing start of the game: after the first eight Diamondbacks sat down in order to start things off, newly called up second baseman Tim Tawa came to the plate for his first AB in the Major Leagues, and promptly lined a single into shallow left. It was a cool moment for the kid, and very nice to see.
Meanwhile, Eduardo Rodriguez didn’t look terrible, but he got into trouble pretty much immediately in the bottom of the first. He struck out CJ Abrams on six pitches, then surrendered a double down the left field line to Washington second baseman Amed Rosario. He then recorded his second strikeout, catching Nathaniel Lowe looking at a changeup. Sadly, Josh Bell drew a six-pitch walk, and left fielder James Wood barrelled up a rocket that sailed over Alek Thomas’s head and rolled to the wall in center field for a double. That scored Rosario and Bell, and brought Nats right fielder Alex Call to the plate. Call laced an opposite field single to right, which drove in Wood. Thankfully, however, Corbin Carroll made a nice play and a nice throw into the infield and we managed to catch Call in a rundown as he tried to take second base. 3-0 Washington
Weirdly, ERod sorta cruised for awhile after that. He struck out the bottom of the Nationals order in the second, and when the lineup turned over to start the third, he sat them down in order as well, with two more strikeouts recorded. He encountered some more trouble in the fourth, as Josh Bell (not renowned for his speed on the basepaths) led off with a triple to left center, and was driven home one strikeout later by another Alex Call single to right. That brought the score to 4-0 Washington, though around the base hits, ERod once again managed to record three strikeouts in the inning.
His pitch count was creeping up there, though, so the fifth inning was his last inning of work; he retired the Nationals in order again, with two more strikeouts, to bring his total to 12 Ks on the afternoon and finishing with a pitching line of 5 IP, 4 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 12 K and 90 pitches thrown.
We finally got on the scoreboard in the top of the sixth, not because we’d figured Parker out but because Parker started to run out of gas, though he’d only thrown 64 pitches at that point. Tim Tawa took a four-pitch walk to lead off the inning, and after Geraldo Perdomo fouled out to first, Corbin Carroll followed with a walk of his own. Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. lined out to center—another in a series of hard-hit balls that Diamondbacks hitters had managed off Parker, but had the misfortune to hit right at Nationals defenders. Randal Grichuk, however, shot a single back up the middle to drive in Tawa and advance Carroll to third. It was all we got, but at least the shutout was off the table. 4-1 Washington
Parker’s day ended after six innings, thankfully, and we scratched out another run off Washington’s bullpen in the top of the seventh. Gabi Moreno hit a one-out single to shallow right, and advanced to third on Alek Thomas’s single to deeper right to put runners on the corners for Tim Tawa. Tawa delivered (sorta) hitting a grounder that was nearly an inning-ending double play, but Timmy busted it out of the box and down the line and just beat the throw. And thus he gained his first MLB RBI:
We didn’t get any more runs across, despite Moreno drawing a two-out walk, but at least we were chipping away. 4-2 Washington
Sadly, our eighth inning magic failed to manifest, despite Pavin Smith (pinch hitting for Randal Grichuk because there was now a lefty on the mound for Washington) reaching with one out on an error. Josh Naylor instead grounded into a double play, so it was on to the ninth inning.
Our bullpen, incidentally, had been doing its job quite nicely, with Bryce Jarvis putting up zeroes in two innings of work and Joe Mantiply doing the same in the bottom of the eighth. Things started off promisingly enough, too, with Eugenio Suarez drawing a leadoff walk. Torey Lovullo replaced him with Garrett Hampson as a pinch runner, which turned out so well last Saturday, but Hampson didn’t screw things up too much this time. He took second on a wild pitch, and while he missed advancing to third on a wild throw to second by the Nats’ catcher that sailed into the outfield, he managed to advance to third on a Moreno fly ball to deep right. Alek Thomas singled up the middle, driving in Hampson, bringing Tim Tawa to the plate with one out and a chance to be a big goddamn hero. Sadly, Tim couldn’t quite rise to the occasion, instead popping it up in shallow right. This turned over the lineup for Perdomo, though, and we still might have closed the gap. But. Thomas tried to steal second, and failed, getting thrown out for the final out of the ballgame. 4-3 Washington
Win Probability Added, courtesy of Fangraphs
Good Trouble: Alek Thomas (4 AB, 2 H, 1 RBI, +11.6% WPA)
Bad Trouble: Eduardo Rodriguez (pitching line above, -21.2% WPA)
The Gameday Thread was much more lively and populated this afternoon, happily, though I’m not sure it was anymore exciting or engaging than last Saturday’s game. Nevertheless, we got to 315 comments by time of writing, and while I’m not sure I’m quite there yet myself, I will give the Comment of the Game to our Fearless Leader for this one, that appeared right after the inning-ending double play in the top of the eighth:
Like I say, I’m not quite there yet, but I’m getting closer, and 9 recs surpassed the rest of the Sedona Red comments by a wide margin. So. Let’s hope you’re wrong, Jim.
Anyway. Washington has tied the series, so that means that we head into Sunday with a series on the line again. This time it’s the rubber match, with Corbin Burnes going for us and the Nationals sending the feared and inscrutable TBD to the mound. So who knows? Because it’s a Sunday game on the east coast, it’s rather an early start, with first pitch scheduled for 10:35am AZ time. I didn’t get to see Burnes’s first start, so I will do my best to be there. As AZNailgal520 in today’s thread, coffee and Baileys is always an option.
As always, thanks for reading, and as always, go Diamondbacks!