Walker’s Walkoff sends D-backs fans home buzzing.
A better recapper would include many bee- and insect-related puns throughout this post, but it is well past my bedtime and I sadly do not have the mental bandwidth to rise to the occasion. Please feel free to add your own puns to the comments to compensate for my lack of wit =]
Jordan Montgomery was our probable starter for tonight’s contest, but I guess we learned why starting pitchers are listed as probable and not for-sure, as Monty was scratched due to a lengthy delay caused by a swarm of bees congregating on the net behind home plate. Much bee-related punnery ensued in the GDT over the next hour and fifty-five minutes as Pitters passed the time waiting for the swarm to be vacuumed up and play to begin.
Brandon Hughes, still smelling like Sky Harbor after getting called up from Reno earlier in the day, got the unexpected call to open the now-bullpen game for the Diamondbacks, and he was fantastic against the vaunted Dodger MVPs. He got Mookie Betts to strike out for the first time in two weeks, then gave up a weak seeing-eye single to Shohei before striking out Freddie Freeman and retiring red-hot Will Smith to finish his day of work.
The Dodgers were able to keep their original starting pitcher for the night, young Landon Knack. Jake McCarthy smashed a 105.9mph line drive in the D-back opening at bat, just off his hardest hit ball of the year, but it was right at the Dodger right fielder for Out #1. Lourdes and Marte couldn’t get aboard either. 1-2-3 went the Snakes.
Bryce Jarvis came on in the second and went back to being the pitcher we were seeing at the beginning of the season. Jarvis pitched 3 innings with no runs and only one hit and walk while also racking up strikeouts of Hernandez, Taylor, Betts, and Ohtani. Excellent work by the young man tonight when we needed all the length he could give us.
The Diamondback offense couldn’t break through in the second or third, but Christian Walker led off the fourth inning with a missile to left field. Walker is on one of his heaters right now, and it couldn’t come at a better time with the Dodgers and Padres in town this week. He now has a homer in two of his last three games, and his fifth homer put the Serpientes on top 1-0. Eugenio Suarez doubled with one out in the fourth but was left on the base paths by Moreno and Corbin. Still, we had the lead.
Justin Martinez came on to try and secure a shutdown inning in the top of the fifth, but tonight was not his best night. Martinez went Walk, Single, Bunt/Forceout at third, Walk before giving the ball to Torey and asking Joe Mantiply to clean up his bases loaded mess. Oh, and Shohei/Freeman are the first two guys Mantiply was scheduled to see. Good luck! Well, Everyday Joe was a little wobbly to start, throwing a wild pitch on his second pitch of the appearance which brought a run in to score, but he found his groove and struck out Ohtani and retired Freeman on a flyball to center and the Dodgers came away with a single run. Tie ballgame going into the bottom of the fifth.
The Diamondbacks couldn’t muster any offense at all in the fifth as Knack got his 1-2-3 shutdown inning. To the sixth inning we go, and Mantiply returns to the mound to try and keep the game tied. Will Smith tattooed a pitch into the right-center gap that grazed the laces of Corbin’s glove on its way to the wall for a leadoff double. Corbin has really played a good centerfield in place of Alek Thomas, earning 2 Outs Above Average out there per Baseball Savant, but that is one that Alek just might’ve got to, and it would’ve saved the D-backs a run if he had. With a runner on second and no outs, Mantiply got Teoscar Hernandez to groundout before allowing Kike Hernandez to single to right. Fortunately, the ball was hit too hard for Will Smith to score from second, so the Dodgers had runners on the corners and Max Muncy at the plate. Muncy hasn’t hit lefties well at all this year, but it didn’t really matter because Muncy wouldn’t have to put the ball in play for the Dodgers to score. Mantiply balked, scoring Smith from third. Fortunately, Mantiply kept the damage to one run as he struck out Muncy and was helped by his defense when Newman and Walker teamed up on a sparkling play to retire Dodger rookie Andy Pages. As great a job as the Diamondback bullpen had been doing limiting hard contact from this nightmarish lineup, it hurt to be down a run because of a wild pitch and a balk. It felt like we were giving cheap runs to an offense that has no need of them, and that’s not a good way to win a ballgame.
So, the home offense came up in their half of the sixth down by a run and they did their best to erase that deficit. Ketel Marte chased Knack from the ballgame with a leadoff single, but Walker and Pederson struck out to bring Geno Suarez to the plate with two outs. Geno smoked a single to center, and because there were two outs, Ketel was running hard on contact and was able to make it to third. Gabi came up and worked a fantastic at bat to earn a walk and load the bases for Corbin. It felt like this was going to be the moment that Carroll finally broke free from his sophomore slump and would put the D-backs in front of our hated rivals. Alas, this was not to be that at bat, as Corbin bounced out to first base and the Snakes went to the seventh down a run.
Ryan Thompson came in for the seventh and pitched a clean, 1-2-3 inning needing only nine pitches to do so. Pavin Smith pinch-hit for Newman and got a single to the hole between second and first. Not through the hole, but to the hole where Miguel Rojas could field it but not get a throw off in time. Blaze Alexander made his way to first to pinch run for Pavin, but there was nothing doing in this inning. McCarthy bunted Blaze to second well enough, but Gurriel and Marte couldn’t come up with the big knock and the game went to the eighth with the D-backs still down 2-1.
Thompson came back out for the eighth and faced the minimum thanks to an inning-ending double play erasing a one-out walk. Light work for the submariner tonight. The Diamondbacks came up in the eighth and finally showed off some timely hitting! Joc smoked a one-out double into the left-center gap, then advanced to third on a ground out by Geno. Down a run, with a runner on third and two outs, Gabi finally took a turn down Gabi Lane, stroking a single between second and first to score Joc and tie the ballgame. Corbin came up next, roped a double down the right field line and into the corner for a double. Unfortunately, Gabi seemed to slow up coming around second and that may have cost him a chance at scoring the go ahead run. Blaze couldn’t extend the inning further, but the game had been tied and Corbin and Gabi each had big knocks which could be huge for this offense if they are starting to come into form. Corbin had four at bats tonight, and three of the four would be classified as Hard Hits, being over 95mph exit velo. His average exit velocity on his four balls in play tonight was 98.6! Keep it coming Corbin!
In the ninth inning, we gave the ball to Ginkel, and he worked a scoreless, but not smooth, inning. In the bottom of the ninth, we had the top of the lineup coming to the plate, but our 1-3 hitters just couldn’t get anything going, meaning we were headed to free baseball. On a day where first pitch was delayed almost two hours already, this recapper was not particularly excited, especially when seeing the Snakes’ pitcher for the top of the tenth: Scott McGough.
With the Manfred Man on second and the top of the lineup coming up, prospects looked grim to extend our perfect Tuesday record. McGough walked Betts to leadoff the inning, then got Shohei to bounce into a potential double play to second, only to have Blaze drop the ball on the transfer. Ohtani is certainly fast and there is no guarantee that Blaze would’ve turned that play, but another defensive clank by the rookie is not helping his argument for playing time. Freeman came up with runners on the corners and one out and McGough walked him, loading the bases for Will Smith. The Smith at bat started out with an automatic ball due to a pitch timer violation on McGough, and the game appeared to had run its course. The GDT was mentally preparing for the bullpen to finally let go of the rope after a valiant effort against one of the best lineups in baseball. Then, McGough got Smith to fly out and Teoscar to pop out and that was that. A run scored, but it was nowhere near the dumpster fire that many fans were expecting. We were still in this!
Christian Walker came up with Ketel at second to start the bottom of the tenth and Walker hit third pitch he saw 426 feet into the left field bleachers, walking off the Dodgers in a game where the bullpen pitched ten innings and allowed only 3 runs. This is the second game in the last three now that we’ve been able to scratch and claw our way to a one-run victory, which is the type of game we weren’t winning at all through this first month of the year. Hopefully, this signals a corner turned.
Players of the Game
Christian Walker, 3/5, 2HR, 3RBI, .585 WPA
The Bullpen: 10IP, 5H, 2ER, 9K. Great work on short notice!
Comment of the Night
With nearly 450 comments, and many of those going red, this was going to be a tough contest to decide. Using my editorial license, I’m awarding two COTN, one for the pregame bee delay and another for the game itself. The pregame winner was Smurf with this gem:
And the COTN winner for the game goes to lunch_meat for his prescient comment before Walker’s walkoff and his subsequent reaction:
Jordan Montgomery will reportedly get the ball in tomorrow’s rubber match against Yoshinobu Yamamoto. First pitch is scheduled for 6:40pm pending any insect related delays that may occur.