The Dbacks played a pretty complete game Tuesday to clinch a series win against the Mariners.
The Dbacks kept it going beating the Mariners tonight at Chase Field 10-3 securing a series win.
The game probably didn’t deserve to be as lopsided as the final score would indicate as Brandon Pfaadt gave up plenty of hard contact in this one. Despite the hard contact, Pfaadt was able to hold the Mariners offense scoreless until the 6th inning when Pfaadt did what he does and allowed back to back solo home runs to start the 6th which would end his night at 5IP 2 ER and 4 Ks securing his 8th win of the season. Really strange season thus far for Pfaadt as he is currently tied for the NL lead in wins with his 8th picked up tonight despite sporting a 5.50 ERA. All and all, the Mariners probably deserved to score more runs tonight with 12 hits and all the hard contact.
On the offensive side, Alek Thomas continued his upward trend for this team going 3-3 with a home run. He reached base in all 4 of his plate appearances and scored 4 runs. It was also great to see Gabriel Moreno back in the lineup again tonight after missing a couple of games with some hand swelling and immediately see him smoke a 3 run home run at 110 mph!
In addition, despite missing a few games with ‘hamstring tightness’ recently, Corbin Carroll contributed 2 triples in this one taking possession of the league lead in triples with 8. As a team, I thought the offense had a great all around approach tonight leading to them scoring runs in 5 different innings highlighted by a 5 run 6th.
Not going to lie, the first reliever brought into the game tonight for the Dbacks I had never even heard of before tonight. I feel like this is a perfect representation of how things are currently going for this Dbacks bullpen. To the bullpens credit, Torey was able to eat up 4 innings of 1 run ball tonight with just 2 relievers giving the rest of the pen a night off. With all the hardships this unit has faced, giving credit when it is due.
For me, Gabi coming back and showing that he can still hit the ball incredibly hard after the injury scare is one of the highlights of the game for me along with the upward trend of Alek Thomas. Thomas has long since been a guy this team has been waiting to put it all together, and if he can keep the production going, that would be a huge shot in the arm for a team that hasn’t had much break their way this season. Especially after moving Perdomo to the 3 hole, Thomas was really able to make a lot happen and set up the top of the order well in the 9 spot tonight. Cautiously optimistic he can continue this as he is 9 for his last 22 with 2 HR’s.
All and all, this turned into one of the ultra-rare blowout victories for the Dbacks. Even though the Mariners likely deserved to score a few more runs in this one, this feels like some positive momentum getting a series win against the Mariners after getting swept by the Reds. The Dbacks will go for a sweep of their own and to get back to .500 tomorrow afternoon. Lets see if this team can finally sustain some momentum for a stretch and go on a run they so desperately need.