Record: 54-52. Pace: 83-81. NL West: -3.5
The game started out promising enough for Arizona, with Gerardo Parra being hit by a pitch and Aaron Hill singling right behind him. But Paul Goldschmidt ground into a double play, and Eric Chavez ground out to strand Parra at third base.
The Rays, on the other hand, did not strand their first two baserunners. Desmond Jennings led off with a double, Ben Zobrist singled to score him, and one out later, a double from James Loney scored Zobrist from first base. The Rays held on to the 2-0 lead until Yunel Escobar hit a solo home run with two outs in the bottom of the fourth, making it 3-0.
Ian Kennedy ended up striking out seven Rays batters, including striking out the side in the fifth inning, his last. But he threw nearly 50 pitches in the first two innings alone, helped (not really) by back-to-back two out walks in the second. It felt like everything coming off the bats of the Rays were being hit hard, even if they were going for outs. There was some stellar defense tonight from Adam Eaton and Cliff Pennington in particular. Kennedy's final line was 5 IP, 6 H, 3 BB, 3 R, 7 K.
The metaphor that was the lack of power from the Diamondbacks of late took on a new meaning when, in the bottom of the second, lightning struck a substation near Tropicana Field, frying some of the stadium lights and resulting in a 20-minute delay. Somewhat appropriately, the Diamondbacks had a 20-inning scoreless streak from the fifth inning Saturday to the ninth inning tonight. Roberto Hernandez, also known as Fausto Carmona when he pitched for Cleveland, held Arizona to just three hits until the ninth. In addition to the Hill single in the first, Hill led off the fourth inning with another single, and Pennington singled to start the sixth.
Going into the ninth inning, Arizona was down 5-0 (the two extra Tampa runs coming off of Will Harris and Chaz Roe) and on the verge of losing back-to-back shutouts for the first time all season. Parra led off with a single, and with two outs, Eric Chavez blasted a home run high off the right field foul pole. This broke up the shutout, but Hernandez still finished the game, with a final score of 5 to 2.
Source: FanGraphs
Bolt of Lightning: A Hill, +7.4%
Swirling Storm Clouds: P Goldschmidt, -16.7%
Sharknado: I Kennedy, -16.8%
The Roll Call tool seems to be broken, so no roll call or COTD, sorry!