Record: 63-61. Pace: 82-80. Change on last year: -6.
Afternoon baseball! First doubleheader in Chase Field history! Tyler Skaggs making his major league debut! Excitement aplenty! We're all hyped for it, right?
Well, okay. After the past two days of baseball, perhaps we're facing a little fatigue. It's a little demoralizing, giving up nine runs in an inning one night and then blowing a 5 run first inning lead the next. And after how the Bauer Hour didn't quite live up to future expectations, we were probably a little cautious.
But don't worry, Snakepit. Just relax. Let Tyler Skaggs take care of it.
Okay, let's just jump straight to the main event here. How did Skaggs look? Pretty good. I'm no pitching scout, obviously, but his curveball should probably be described as wicked, bordering on cruel and unusual punishment at some points. He seemed to have some control problems at times- the only really glaring note in his line is the five walks given up. But he held the Marlins to only 3 hits over 6.2 innings and gave up 2 earned runs. Small sample size, obviously, but Skaggs looked good, and did what he needed to do to get his first career W in the bigs.
Now, how did the game actually play out? Well, Skaggs started his career off by striking out Gorkys Hernandez. Huzzah! And as we all marvelled at the name Gorkys, Skaggs then gave up the first hit of his career to Donavan Solano. Booo! Alas, our hopes that Skaggs might make his debut with a perfect game were quickly squashed, and by a guy who sounds like the antagonist of a John Cusack '80s film. But Skaggs was not shaken, getting the next two batters to ground back to him for quick outs, and the game continued on.
In the bottom of the inning, the Diamondbacks gave some flashbacks to last night's game with quick scoring. Gerardo Parra singled to right field to lead off the inning, and Aaron Hill followed him with a home run that landed in the Diamondbacks bullpen, 2-0, Diamondbacks before we'd even gotten an out! But that was all the Diamondbacks would manage, as the rest of our offense went down quickly.
Sadly, Skaggs scoreless streak in the majors was not long for this world. I'm not sure one inning even actually counts as a streak. He gave a leadoff walk to Giancarlo Stanton, and before we could even think "leadoff walks always score, unless they don't," Justin Ruggiano launched a home run to deep center field. The Marlins couldn't add on, thanks to a great defensive play by Jason Kubel in left field, but the Diamondbacks didn't do anything in the bottom of the inning, so we were tied up after two.
The third inning brought some excitement- not all of it about the actual players. With two outs, Jose Reyes tried to steal second for the Marlins, but was thrown out at second base. He wasn't the only one- Ozzie Guillen seemed to take some exception at the play, possibly that the batter had tried to call time, and was eventually tossed between innings. Hey, it's not an official series against the Marlins unless you're reminded that Ozzie Guillen is in their dugout, right? In the bottom of the inning, the Diamondbacks managed to strike again. And by Diamondbacks, I mean the exact same guys who did it before. Gerardo Parra gave us a one out single and then swiped second on what might have been a questionable safe call. Aaron Hill came to the plate and singled to left field to bring Parra in to score. Hill was thrown out trying to take second, but we still had a 3-2 lead, and they can't take that away from us.
No, really. They couldn't. Tyler Skaggs wouldn't let them. He got three fly ball outs in the fourth, working around a walk, and then struck out the side in the fifth inning. Skaggs looked like he might be in trouble in the sixth after giving up two walks to start the inning, but a double play ball and a infield pop up meant Florida couldn't do anything about it. He got the first two outs in the seventh before walking Donnie Murphy and getting pulled for Brad Ziegler, but the Skaggs gave us a good, solid outing for his first time in the bigs.
And the Diamondbacks needed that, because after Hill's single in the third inning, the team wasn't exactly lighting up the Marlins pitchers. In fact, Hill's hit was the last one Arizona got until the seventh inning, where Montero hit a one out single. The only saving grace? The Arizona bullpen wasn't giving up much more. Ziegler gave up a single to the first batter he faced, but got a K to end the inning. David Hernandez sent the Marlins down 1-2-3 in the eighth, and then J.J. Putz came in for the ninth to close it out, giving up a two out single to John Buck, but getting the last out to get the save.
A solid day from our pitching, and an offense that, save for Hill and Parra, seems to have forgotten that there was a day game. Our #3 through #8 hitters combined to go 1 for 18. On a day like that, you need a good start if you're to have any chance of winning, and Skaggs was able to deliver for us.
Not a bad thread for a weekday afternoon, passing 600 comments, with AzDbackfanInDc edging imstillhungry95 by a scant few posts, and DivineWolfwood taking third place. We also heard from Clefo, Augdogs, blue bulldog, sonic barracuda, snakecharmer, BigLeagueAZ, blank_38, Bcawz, kishi, onedotfive, Zavada's Moustache, JoeCB1991, piratedan7, biggoron, Jim McLennan, dbacks79, Turambar, rd33, GuruB, asteroid, hotclaws, Circa4life, shoewizard, azwebber, egboyz, and newcomer Medusas_Daughter- welcome!
No comments went green in the thread, but since there was some dissent last time there wasn't a comment of the day, please accept this replacement: the video for Corry Brokken's Net Als Tooen, the winning entry of the 1957 Eurovision contest. Enjoy, and congratulations to the Netherlands for their win 45 years ago.
Next game starts in a couple hours- Wade Miley takes the mound in the night half of our doubleheader, hoping to salvage a series split from the Marlins.