On a whole variety of levels, Merrill Kelly deserved better.
As suggested by Justin’s description of this matchup in his series preview, this one had the makings of a pitchers’ duel. Merrill Kelly has been an utter boss in his last couple of starts, which you would think would give us the advantage, but St. Louis lefthander Matthew Liberatore has been dealing in his first year as a full-time starter for the Red Birds, so it seemed like runs would likely be tough to get for both teams.
We actually got two men on against Liberatore in the top of the first, but he managed to strand both Geraldo Perdomo and Lourdes Gurriel, Jr., and despite facing five batters he only needed eleven pitches total to get in and then out of some nominal trouble. On the flip side, Merrill Kelly did not look at all sharp to start, striking out Cardinals leadoff hitter Lars Nootbaar after going to a full count, and then surrendering three successive hard-hit singles to put the opponents on the board first thing. Kelly ultimately managed to limit the damage to a single run, but by the time he was out of the bottom of the first, he’d already thrown 29 pitches. 1-0 St. Louis
After that, however, the pitchers’ duel did indeed get underway in earnest. Liberatore continued to scythe through the Diamondbacks hitters with disturbing efficiency, shutting us down in the second, third, and fourth innings on 12, 13, and 11 pitches per inning, respectively, while Kelly threw four clean and increasingly efficient innings, in the second through the fifth, with 13, 11, 11, and 10 pitches respectively.
Liberatore had his first and only hiccup when Randal Grichuk stepped to the plate to lead off the fifth, and sent the second pitch he saw in the at bat over the wall in left for his second home run of the year:
That was all we got, but we’d gotten the score back even. 1-1 TIE
Kelly, meanwhile, had his stretch of 14 straight Cardinals retired end on a Lars Nootbaar (typing that name never gets old, I gotta say) single to lead off the sixth, but nevertheless Merrill still managed to have an even more efficient inning, leading Lars Nootbar (see?) standing there when his 7-pitch sixth ended. Liberatore put up zeros himself in the top of the sixth and entered the top of the seventh with 79 pitches thrown. Kelly, despite that unsightly fist inning, entered the bottom of the seventh having only thrown 81.
Liberatore put up another quick zero in the top half. Sadly, however, the wheels kinda came off for Merrill in the bottom half. One could perhaps question sending Kelly out for the seventh, but given that he’d been pretty much locked in after the first and seemed to have plenty left in the tank, it made sense to me. Sadly, St. Louis first baseman Alec Burleson grounded a single through the right side of the infield on the fifth pitch he saw, putting Kelly at 86 pitches on the day and bringing Nolan Arenado to the plate. Arenado hadn’t given Merrill any trouble thus for, though, so Kelly went to work on him with the runner on first. He proved to be a lot peskier in this plate appearance, however, fouling off pitch and after pitch and finally drawing a walk on the tenth pitch of the AB. That put Kelly at 96 pitches, but after a lengthy mound visit, the Diamondbacks chose to let Kelly stay in the game. That was a mistake, as Jordan Walker shot a double into left that got past a diving Gurriel and rolled to the wall. Burleson and Arenado scored, Kelly was finally pulled for Jalen Beeks, and while Beeks put an end to the madness, he failed to prevent Walker advancing to third on a grounder to second, and then to score on a weak dribbler back to the mound. 4-1 St. Louis
So. Was it a mistake to send Kelly out to start the bottom of the seventh? In my opinion, no. Kelly’s pitch count was reasonable at that point, and he had definitely been dealing, and while he’d given up a leadoff single in the sixth, he’d pitched past it with ease. Was it a mistake to leave him in to face Arenado after Burleson’s single to start the seventh? Maybe, because it seemed to suggest that maybe he was running out of gas. Snake_Bitten and I nattered about that a bit in the Gameday Thread, and Snake’s position was definitely that he should have been pulled after the leadoff hit. But was it a mistake to continue to leave him out there after Arenado’s epic AB ended in not the first out in the inning but another runner on base and Merrill now at 96 pitches? I would say, “Absolutely. Without question.”
Whatever.
As it turns out, that wasn’t the end of things, yet, because it turned out that we still had a bit of magic left in us. Ketel Marte led off the top of the eighth against Cardinal reliever Kyle Leahy by doubling over the head of Jordan Walker in right. Perdomo followed by grounding a single to shallow right, advancing Ketel to third. Lourdes hit a fly ball to deep enough center that Marte was able to tag and score. Geno Suarez dunked a single into shallow center to bring Naylor to the plate representing the go-ahead run. St. Louis yanked Leahy and brought in lefty Steven Matz, presumably for the left-on-left matchup advantage. That turned out to be a mistake, however, as Josh responded with a dying liner to shallow right that Walker dove for and missed. It rolled to the wall for a triple, driving in both Perdomo and Suarez:
That put the go-ahead run at third with still only one out in the inning, but Moreno hit a sharp grounder right at Arenado at third, so Naylor was unable to score. This brought Grichuk to the plate for the third time, and any hopes of more Randal heroics seemed to be for naught as he skied a lazy pop fly into shallow center for what looked like an easy out. But.
Naylor scored, obviously, and Grichuk wound up reaching second for what was scored the most hilarous double I think I’ve ever seen. Tim Tawa whiffed for the final out, but we suddenly had our first lead of the ballgame. 5-4 D-BACKS
So onward to the bottom of the eighth, and out of our bullpen came the long-awaited return of Justin Martinez. JMart looked very crisp as he struck out the first batter he faced on four pitches. He looked much less crisp, however, when he then walked the next batter he faced….on four pitches. At this point in the Gameday Thread, our Fearless Leader made a funny “Schrödinger’s Reliever” joke that, alas, got a lot less funny soon thereafter. Alec Burleson ran the count full and then lined a double to center that put runners on first and third. Arenado brought home the tying run on a groundout on the infield, and the Jordan Walker singled to right to drive in Burleson and give the lead right back. We failed to score in the top of the ninth, despite Pavin Smith leading off with a pinch-hit single, so that was that. 6-5 St. Louis
Schrödinger’s Win Probability, courtesy of FanGraphs
Cats Who Wanted No Part of the Whole Box Thing: Geraldo Perdomo (4 AB, 3 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 21.6% WPA), Josh Naylor (4 AB, 1 H, 1 R, 1 3B, 2 RBI, +28.8% WPA), Randal Grichuk (4 AB, 2 H, 1 R, 1 2B, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 1 K, +34.6% WPA)
Live Cat in the Box: Pavin Smith (1 AB, 1 H, +11.5% WPA)
Dead Cats in the Box: Merrill Kelly (6 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 6 K, 1 BB, -12.6% WPA), Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. (4 AB, 2 H, 1 RBI, 1 GIDP, -13.7% WPA), Tim Tawa (4 AB, 0 H, 3 K, -10.4% WPA), Eugenio Suarez (5 AB, 1 H, 1 R, 2 K, -22.6% WPA), Gabriel Moreno (4 AB, 0 H, -23.8% WPA)
REALLY Dead Cat in the Box: Justin Martinez (1 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, 2 K, 1 BB, -54.7% WPA)
It was a pretty well-attended Gameday Thread for a game with a weird Saturday morning start time, with 251 comments at time of writing. Only two comments went Sedona Red, one of which was me making the inevitable “Where’s the loo?” joke about the Cards’ City Connect unis from last night. The other was jeffern’s, and, well, the timing of it was perfect.
Ask and ye shall receive! Maybe you could have also asked for JMart to have a successful first outing coming off the IL? No? No.
Anyhow. I don’t know about you all, but I’m beginning to find it kind of difficult to get excited about turning on a Diamondbacks game these days. It has been a bit of a demoralizing grind. If you’re feeling brave, though, or masochistic perhaps, please join us tomorrow as we try to salvage at least a shred of our pride and avoid the sweep. Brandon Pfaadt will be going for us, Sonny Gray goes for the Red Birds, first pitch will once again be 11:15am AZ time. Hope to see you!
As always, thanks for reading, and as always, go Diamondbacks!