Was it a mistake to tell Barry Enright he'd made the Diamondbacks' rotation? It certainly seemed so after the first three batters of this evening's contest for Chicago went homer, triple, homer. Three runs and eleven total bases recorded before Enright got Carlos Quentin to ground to third for his first out of the game. Ouch. Let's just pretend those first three hitters never happened, shall we?
A decent effort from Barry Enright, pitching into the sixth inning before he seemed to tire, giving up a couple of late runs on three hits there, leading to him getting relieved by Carlos Rosa. He left with a final line of 5.1 innings pitched, allowing three runs on six hits and two walks, striking out two.
There. That's much better...
Of course, the reality is uglier: nine hits and six runs in 5.1 innings, and half-a-dozen of those hits went for extra bases, including a couple of homers. That's been Barry bete noire this spring - much as it was at the end of last season - with Enright's giving up five long-balls in 22.1 innings, which is quite a hefty rate. After him, Carlos Rosa tidied up the sixth inning, Sam Demel allowed a solo shot to Quentin in the seventh,and David Hernandez finished things off, wiggling out of a jam by striking out Gordon Beckham with the bases-loaded.
On offense, the Diamondbacks managed nine hits, getting on the board in the fifth, when a David Winfree single drove in Xavier Nady. Two more runs were added the next time up, courtesy of a Kelly Johnson triple and Russell Branyan ground-out. That made it a one-run game, but was as close as Arizona got this evening. Melvin Mora and Winfree each had a couple of hits, while short-stop Zachary Walters had our only walk of the game, as well as getting a knock. He and Nady each stole a base.
Stephen Drew was scheduled to play, but was a late scratch from this contest, due to "lower abdominal soreness" - which is why Walters was in the line-up. That's now four consecutive days Drew has been out of the line-up; no reason to get concerned yet, but I'd like to see him playing over the weekend. After all, I did put him down in the 'Iron Man' category for Tangotiger's playing time survey. In what I presume is entirely unrelated news, it's being reported that we have signed infielder Kevin Frandsen, released by the Padres earlier that day. This is likely simply to provide infield depth at Reno, since a career 67 OPS+ should be anywhere near our roster.
And with that, off to prepare for SnakePicnicFest as SRF@TS tomorrow. Probably won't be much on the site until we get back from that, but I'm sure 'charmer will keep us updated if any news should break.