Zac Gallen continued his tear in the state of New York this season and the offense did just enough for the Dbacks to win their first series at Citi Field since 2017.
Zac Gallen looked like ZAC GALLEN and the Dbacks won their first series at Citi Field since 2017! The timing of this is also incredible since the Mets have the best record in the League and have been red hot all while the Dbacks have been slumping. This seems a lot more like what we thought this team was going to look like the past 2 days with Corbin Burnes and Zac Gallen for sure.
Gallen threw 6 innings of 1 run ball and struck out 8 Mets. His lone blemish was the most expensive home run in baseball history. Gallen relied heavily on the fastball/curveball combination throwing them 48% and 29% respectively. He really had the Mets batters guessing north and south as his fastball had great ride with 16 inches of IVB AVG and was as high as 21 inches and his knucklecurve was completely filthy. Most importantly for Gallen was he threw strikes and got ahead of guys and was able to get through 6 innings on just 90 pitches.
The other story of the day was the news of Justin Martinez going to the IL with right shoulder inflammation. And Shelby Miller picked up the slack and was in complete control shutting down the Mets in the 9th inning. How crazy would it be if the universe comes full circle and Shelby Miller turns out to be the savior of the 2025 Dbacks? With this team down both Puk and Martinez, we need a hero in the toughest stretch of our schedule and the very same Shelby Miller from all those years ago could be that hero. If you are asking me, he definitely deserves more of these opportunities as we wait for JMart and Puk to get back.
Offensively, the team did just enough scraping across just 2 runs through the first 6 innings due to some timely hitting by Alek Thomas and a Sac Fly from Eugenio Suarez. Thankfully, our middle infield tandem of Geraldo Perdomo and Tim Tawa contributed some much needed insurance runs with a pair of solo home runs in the 7th and 9th innings respectively. Both players have contributed some much-needed thump with Ketel Marte being out.
As I mentioned in the intro, the last 2 games have felt a lot more like what we thought we were getting out of this season with Burnes and Gallen. As we can see, this Dbacks team can beat anyone especially when they have their starting pitching. If Gallen and Burnes have turned a corner and this is what we are going to be getting from them from here on, look out! The Dbacks could be back to being dangerous!