At least we got to see two more Geno bombs.
I don’t think I need to spell out how this one played out, really. Because, trust me, if you’ve been following our scrappy but hapless Diamondbacks this season, you’ve seen this sort of business before, more times than any of us hoped or expected when the season was still new. As our Fearless Leader wisely noted in his remarks at the top of tonight’s Gameday Thread, every time we cough up another stinker against a team that you’d really hope that we’d not be stinking against, it gets harder and harder to avoid acknowledging the increasingly sad reality that a lot of the ballplayers we’ve enjoyed getting to know as we have lurched, increasingly zombie-like, into the All-Star Break and ever closer to the trade deadline will likely be wearing the uniforms of other teams, teams that are actually contending this year, once the calendar flips from July to August.
Who was fun to watch tonight?
That list would start with Eugenio Suarez, who entered the game with 29 homers to his credit. He led off the second with a solo shot to pretty much straightaway center for his 30th of the year:
The next time he came to the plate, with one out in the fourth, he hit another one over the fence in right center for his 31st of the year:
So those were fun.
So who wasn’t fun to watch tonight?
Well, at the top of the list would be Zac Gallen, who after a couple of nostalgically ace-like outings in his last two starts, reverted emphatically to his suckier form in this one. He wound up throwing 28 pitches in the first inning, which to be fair is not unusual for Zac even what he winds up pitching a good game. It took him four batters and nineteen pitches before he recorded his first out on a Taylor Ward grounder to third after Zach Neto singled and then Gallen walked Nolan Schanuel and Mike Trout to load the bases for left fielder Taylor Ward. Ward hit a grounder to third that maybe should have been a double play, but wasn’t, thanks to a pretty feeble Ketel Marte throw to first that failed to beat the runner. Zach Neto crossed the plate, Nolan Schanuel advanced to third, Mike Trout was forced at second but runners were on the corners. Gallen did clean things up after that, with a three-pitch K and a flyout to left for the third out to keep any more runs from scoring, but gave the Angels an early 1-0 LAA lead.
He did follow that with 1-2-3 innings in the second and third, and the Suarez dinger in the second evened things up for a 1-1 TIE, and then the Suarez dinger in the top of the fourth made it 2-1 D-BACKS.
That lead, sadly, was short-lived, as Zac surrendered back to back doubles to Ward and Jo Adell to tie things up, and one out later gave the lead back on Jorge Soler sacrifice fly to right that, despite a pretty good throw to the plate by Corbin Carroll, scored Adell. Then he surrendered the third double of the inning to Travis D’Arnaud, the villain of last night’s ballgame, and then a Luis Rengifo single that drove in D’Arnaud before finally retiring Neto to end things. 4-2 LAA
A leadoff single to Schnauel, followed by a Trout homer to right center started off the bottom of the fifth, and while Gallen retired the next three batters to complete five innings of work, the lead had expanded and rendered his five innings of work truly dismal. 6-3 LAA
Was There Anyone Else Fun to Watch?
Well, Andrew Saalfank pitched two scoreless innings of relief, so that was kinda fun, but aside from seeing his rather remarkable curve ball in play again, that was mostly fun for the hilarious jokes about his bad gambling choices We also staged a rally in the top of the eighth, thanks to a Corbin Carroll double that was some serious hustle business, followed by a bunch of walks, a James McCann infield single and an Alek Thomas bases-loaded walk that allowed Suarez to score his third run of the game, that was all more due to meltdown wildness by the Angels bullpen. bringing the score to 6-5 LAA.
Anything Else Not Fun?
Why yes! I’m glad you asked! After we’d pulled to within a run, Juan Morillo came out for the bottom of the eighth and, perhaps in the interest of keeping us from dropping to a 11-20 record in games decided by one run, coughed up four more runs on five singles and a botched fielder’s choice attempt to bring the score to its final tally of 10-5 LAA. Needless to say, we did nothing more in the top of the ninth, and that was your ballgame.
Loss Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs
High Fun Quotient: Eugenio Suarez (3 AB, 2 H, 3 R, 3 RBI, 2 HR, 1 BB, +25.2% WPA)
Not Much Fun: Juan Morillo (1 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 1 K, -12.5% WPA), Gerardo Perdomo (3 AB, 0 H, 1 K, 1 BB, -20.0% WPA)
Utterly Devoid of Fun: Zac Gallen (5 IP, 8 H, 6 ER, 1 HR, 2 BB, 3 K, -38.6% WPA)
It wound up being a pretty busy Gameday Thread, especially for such a disappointing game, with 309 comments at time of writing. Kind of thin on the Sedona Red, but CotG goes quite deservedly to AZNailgal520 for this righteous appreciation of Randal Grichuk and critique of his utilization by the team in 2025:
Okay, so once more with feeling….join us tomorrow as we try to avoid being swept in a weekend series, this time by the Halos of Anaheim. Merrill Kelly goes for us, José Soriano goes for the Angels, first pitch is scheduled for 1:07pm AZ Time. It’s the last ballgame before the All Star Break, so try to drop by before baseball goes on its five day hiatus.
As always, thanks for reading. As always, go Diamondbacks!