A shutdown performance by the bullpen and Ketel’s 4-hit night powered the D-Backs to a mile-high W
Game Summary
This was an odd night in the Rocky Mountains. The runs were flowing generously all around in the first third of the game, in other words, perfectly normal. Then, the faucet was somehow turned off and never really came back on again.
The Diamondbacks offense got started against Carson Palmquist, the young Rockies starter who has been overmatched so far this year, by loading the bases with no one out in the first. The Snakes would only get one run out of that. Then in the second, they manufactured a second run when Tawa, who stole second base, came home on a ground rule double by Ketel Marte. The third inning? A third run was scored, of course, this time via home run number 301 for Geno. After that inning, the steady strikes of the offense dried up save for a Domo dinger in fifth which accounted for the winning runs of the ballgame. The Snakes were able to get runners on, sure, but they just couldn’t get a big knock to give the team some breathing room for when the bullpen would inevitably have to come in and trade outs for hopefully as few runs as possible.
On the pitching side, Merrill started the game off just as wobbly as his counterpart, matching him 3-3 in runs allowed after the first 3 innings. Merrill was able to right the ship, though, and had his pitch count at 86 when it came time for him to step back out on the mound in the 7th inning. The GDT spidey-senses were tingling with his return to the mound in the 7th, and not without reason. Coming into tonight, Merrill has logged 3.1 innings pitched in 7th innings this year and he owns a 13.50 ERA in them! This 7th inning appeared to be going the same direction as those others when he let the first two Rockies reach and he was pulled in favor of Ryan Thompson. With that bit of news, I was more than prepared to be writing an obituary for tonight’s recap, with time of death clocking in around the bottom of the 7th. I was pleasantly surprised then when Ryan Thompson recorded this first out with a stupendous pickoff move to second base! Now with only 2 outs to get and no runner in scoring position, Thompson set to work retiring the only 2 batters he needed to face to get out of the 7th inning and preserve our 2-run lead (and lower Merrill’s 7th inning ERA, to boot). Jalen Beeks only needed 7 pitches for his 3 outs in the 8th and Shelby Miller struck out the side in absolutely dominant fashion after the first hitter reached second on an infield single and throwing error by Ildemaro Vargas.
Coors Field doesn’t seem to be the place you’d expect to go for your bullpen to turn things around, but this is now two straight nights of excellent relief pitching at the hitter’s haven in Denver. Hopefully, this is the start of a trend!
Thanks again to Dano for being willing to swap recap nights with me!
Win Probability and Box Score
Outside the Box Score
- Geraldo Perdomo followed up Ketel’s missile-like leadoff double with a rogue bunt that luckily resulted in no outs. He popped the bunt straight up, but by some miracle it landed just outside the glove webbing of the charging pitcher and stopped dead in the grass like an approach shot at the US Open. Better to be lucky than good in this case, Domo!
- The Snakes first inning at bat left a bit to be desired. They did score a run, but after the first three hitters reached base, loading the bases for Mr. 300, I was expecting a bit more than a single run in that inning. Sac Fly, shallow fly out and ground out to third got the Rockies out of the inning with minimal damage.
- Merrill Kelly only let the first two Colorado batters reach in the first before retiring the next 3 in a row, besting his Colorado counterpart, but Kelly’s 2 hurt twice as bad Colorado’s opening 3, as both runners came home to score on a bomb to the left field seats. Merrill needed 23 pitches to retire the side.
- Tim Tawa had a big stolen base in the second inning that led to him scoring the tying run. With 1 out, he easily stole second. After Aramis Garcia struck out, Ketel launched another missile to the warning track, this time in left center instead of straight away center, and it one-hopped the wall for a ground rule double. If Tawa hadn’t stole second, he would have been stuck at third.
- Merrill came out for the bottom of the third with a 3-2 lead and that lead vanished on a trio of batted balls that touched infielder’s gloves. First, a bunt to the third base side by the Rockies 9-hole hitter resulted in a runner on base after Merrill got to the ball in good shape but dropped it during the transfer. Then, Kelly gave up a rocket lined up the middle that Ketel deflected on it’s way to center field, giving the runner the opportunity to advance all the way to third. With runners on the corners, Kelley got a groundball double play, but the runner from third was able to score and tie the game.
- Big and not-so-fast Michael Toglia stole second easily off our new backstop, Aramis Garcia, for the Rockies second stolen base of the night with one out in the fourth. He then moved to third on a weak ground out to second, and the only thing that kept him from scoring was a sparkling play at third by Ildemaro Vargas where he charged in to the grass on a slow bouncer and rifled a strike to first while still hunched over and running. Superb play!
- Ketel Marte got his third double of the night on a blooper to short left that I can’t even say was no man’s land. The third baseman never could find the ball in the air so he dropped away, but both the shortstop and left fielder could have made the play but the shortstop unexpectedly gave way to the outfielder and the outfielder couldn’t recover in time to make the catch. That mental error turned Geraldo’s following blast into the right field bleachers into a 2-run homer instead of a solo shot!
- Tim Tawa got the first hit of the night for anyone in the bottom 5 of the lineup tonight during the 6th inning where he hit a sharp grounder to the hole between short and third. The shortstop made an excellent play to field it and then throw a dart to first, but Tawa was too quick up the line and he beat it out.
- After a long first inning, Merrill settled down nicely and only needed 63 pitches to complete the next 5 innings, an average of 12.6 pitches per inning.
- Ryan Thompson was called in to clean up Merrill’s mess in the 7th inning, coming on with runners at first and second and nobody out. The batter squared around to bunt and Ryan made his outrageous pickoff move to second (if there’s a better pickoff move to second base I’d love to see it) and caught the runner napping. Now, with only 2 outs to get and no runners in scoring position, Thompson was able to make the requisite outs without a run scoring. A rare bullpen shutdown!
- Alek Thomas came on to pinch hit in the 8th for Randal Grichuk as a defensive/platoon replacement. He reached on a Fielder’s Choice to first base, but he made up for it somewhat by making an excellent base running play to get himself to third with less than two outs on a single to left-center field by Vargas. For a guy who has as much speed and base running ability as Alek, I’m always surprised he doesn’t steal more bases. Unfortunately, that smart base running went for naught as Pavin and Tawa both struck out to end the inning.
- On a nearly identical play to his spectacular play earlier, Ildemaro Vargas had a chance to get a quick leadoff out for Shelby Miller in the ninth. A slow bouncer to the edge of the infield grass had Vargas charging and fielding and throwing all in one motion, but instead of a dart to first, he threw low and wide away from Pavin with the ball caroming up the baseline and allowing the leadoff man to reach second base.
Player of the Game
It would seem sacrilegious to not award Ketel Marte with the POTG after reaching 5 times and recording 3 doubles, but he actually didn’t lead the team in Win Probability tonight. That honor belonged to Ryan Thompson who came in to a bit of a mess and was superb in cleaning it up. Everyone in the GDT, and probably everyone in the Diamondbacks dugout, was prepared for at least 1 run to score that inning, and very likely thought it would be worse than that. Thompson has lowered the bar for expectations with his blowups earlier this year, but this game should serve as a reminder that over the past month, he’s posted a 0.90 ERA and a 1.77 FIP, both top marks in the bullpen over that span. He’s had some ill-timed inherited runner’s score, but he’s also posted a strand rate of 82% in the past month, also the top mark in the bullpen during that time.
Comment of the Game
Another solid night in the GDT with a total of 292 comments at time of publishing. Plenty of Sedona red to choose from, but this one from The-Icon encapsulates the feelings of the entire fanbase, I’m sure:
Coming Up
The Diamondbacks face the Rockies in the final game of this mile-high series tomorrow at 12:10pm Arizona time. Brandon Pfaadt gets the ball for the good guys tomorrow and he’ll be opposed by right-hander Antonio Senzatela who is 2-10 and has a 6.72 ERA. Sweep?