A tale of 2 games for the Dbacks as a great beginning to the game turned into another nightmare finish.
The series finale against the Rays started off so promising for the Dbacks as they got out to an early 3 run lead and Corbin Burnes didn’t give up a hit until the 4th inning. However all of that early momentum seemed to vanish immediately as Burnes seemed to lose command of the strike zone and the offense got just 2 hits past the 2nd inning. Even the usually strong defense seemingly went to sleep in the second half of the game as they committed 3 costly errors.
A more troubling trend perhaps was the bullpen and its inability to hold a lead. The Dbacks currently have 4 blown saves in their last 6 games. Even more frustrating for Dbacks fans is all of this coming on the heels of AJ Puk going down with an injury that the team has yet to comment on in regards to how long he will be out.
The story of this game was nearly Ryne Nelson saving this team single handedly. Nelson came in to pitch after Jalen Beeks was struck in the arm by a 95 mph liner from Chandler Simpson, and was completely dominant dotting the corners with his high octane fastball for 2 innings. However, he was the benefactor of some of the errors and seemed to run out of steam allowing the Rays to tie the game in the 9th. Unfortunately in extras, the only arm left for Torey Lovullo was JP Feyereisen who threw some BP fastballs to Morel and he hammered a 2 run home run that proved to be the nail in the coffin.
This game for Corbin Burnes was definitely a step in the right direction as his final line of 5.1 innings of 1 ER and 8 strikeouts is hardly anything to shake a stick at. That being said, he almost looked like 2 different pitchers in this game. Early on, Burnes was completely unhittable and looked much like the pitcher we though we were signing this offseason and was raking up the strikeouts. However the second half of his outing, Burnes threw as many balls as strikes, walked a couple of batters, and committed an error.
The offense was also Jeckell and Hyde as they came out in this game and scored a couple of early runs against one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball in Drew Rasmussen, and then all of a sudden went completely silent getting only 2 hits past the 2nd inning.
The bright spots in this offense tonight were: getting off to a quick start and pushing Rasmussen’s pitch count up early, Alek Thomas’ RBI double, and fun new guy Tim Tawa. Tawa continued his hot start to his career hitting his 4th Home Run in the 5th inning off of Rasmussen and now leads MLB Rookies in home runs despite only being up briefly.
Fortunately, Torey updated us in his postgame conference that Jalen Beeks will be ok and he just suffered a bruise. Unfortunately, this bullpen has quickly went from a strength of this team to a major question mark due to injury and fatigue and back to back extra inning games. Don’t be surprised if the Dbacks reach down to their farm to pick up another arm in the coming days. Fortunately Kevin Ginkel made his first rehab start today in Reno. Unfortunately, he got hit hard and walked a couple of guys. Because Ginkel may need another outing to tune stuff up, a name I’d keep a close eye on would be lefty Kyle Backhus.
The other troubling trend to keep an eye on with this team is the middle of the order drop in production. Specifically, their big right-handed bats Gurriel, Suarez, and Moreno have been nonexistent as of late. This offense has seemingly become very reliant on home runs from Corbin Carroll to score and has struggled to manufacture offense due to the void that currently exists in the middle of this order. For me when this offense is rolling, guys are focusing on having productive at bats and moving runners along with aggressive baserunning. Not standing around on the bases waiting for home runs. What do you guys think?