Record: 3-4. Pace: 69-93.
Change on last season: -1
Jim hit the nail on the head in the introduction to today's GameDay Thread when he said that it'd be hard to follow up last night's 13-2 thumping of Cincinatti, even with a win. After watching the abomination of an inning that tonight's ninth was, I would have settled for a close loss. A very solid game from Dan Hudson will go forgotten (he'll fall to 0-2 with tonight's loss) as the team both returned to 2010 form, complete with offensive ineptitude, strikeouts, errors, and an implosion from the bullpen. Hit the jump for all of the deets, but I won't blame you if you choose not to.
Dan Hudson was undeniably shaky in the early going - after a nice strikeout of Drew Stubbs to lead off the game, Huddy surrendered a single to Brandon Phillips, then proceeded to walk both Joey Votto and allow another single to Scott Rolen to put Cincinatti up 1-0. This did nothing to alleviate Hudson's shakiness, as Jonny Gomes was then walked to load the bases with just one down. Dan's pitch count sat at 21, and the most worrisome note was the ten balls to just eleven strikes that made it up. The next batter, Jay Bruce, skied one to shallowish centerfield, deep enough to score Votto from third - however, Chris Young showed the value of hitting the cutoff man, as Russell Branyan intercepted the ball at the mound and fired to third, easily retiring Rolen for the third out. The runner scored on the play, but escaping a bases-loaded, one-out situation with just one run crossing the plate sits fine with me.
Following a Kelly Johnson strikeout to leadoff the first, Arizona looked to carry over last night's offensive explosion into today's game with singles from both Stephen Drew and Justin Upton - Drew stole second in Upton's at-bat and Justin stole second during Russell Branyan's. Presented with a solid scoring opportunity (runners on first and third with one out), Russell Branyan and Chris Young both struck out to quiet the threat. It seemed to quiet the game down, too, as both pitchers settled down after the first inning. Hudson retired the next nine batters he faced until it was broken up by a Paul Janish single in the top half of the fifth. For Arroyo, I'm not so sure it was as much of an "Arroyo win" than a "Arizona offense fail" - after Branyan crushed a ball in the fourth that was just barely held in the park for a double, Montero singled him over to third. Faced with another chance to score, Arizona went into "oh crap, an offensive opportunity" panic mode, as Melvin Mora popped out and Parra grounded out to quiet yet another threat.
Arizona finally got on the board in the sixth with a little help from Arroyo. After Chris Young singled to left, a terrible pickoff attempt from the pitcher missed Votto, enabling CY to reach third. Melvin Mora, probably getting sick of all of the SnakePit hate ('cause he totally reads everything here), finally did something, driving home the runner with a line drive to center. 'Tis a shame, though, as the one run the
Diamondbacks scored on that hit would be the only one to cross the plate for Arizona on the night. In better news, Hudson continued to just completely own the
Reds lineup, not allowing a Red to cross home for the rest of the night, exiting in favor of
David Hernandez in the eighth. Hernandez did well, save a walk to Drew Stubbs, holding Cincinatti to two runs and leaving the game up to the offense. Cincinatti brought in the young phenom
Aroldis Chapman, whose triple-digit fastballs proved too difficult to do much of anything against. Russell Branyan
did manage a one-out single, which would have hopefully started an offensive rally, but a CY line out and
Miguel Montero strikeout sent the game to the ninth.
If you want, you can skip this little bit and drop down to the roll call below. I wouldn't blame you for pretending the ninth never happened, as it was pretty, well, ugly. Juan Gutierrez was brought in and everything sorta went to hell at that point. Although it seems like a cop-out, it really can't be put any better than the play-by-play:
| J Gutierrez relieved D Hernandez. |
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| J Votto walked. |
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| S Rolen safe at second on throwing error by pitcher J Gutierrez, J Votto to third. |
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| J Gomes doubled to left, J Votto and S Rolen scored. |
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| J Gomes safe at third on throwing error by catcher M Montero. |
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| J Bruce struck out swinging. |
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| R Hanigan singled to center, J Gomes scored. |
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| S Demel relieved J Gutierrez. |
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| P Janish safe at first on error by shortstop S Drew, R Hanigan to second. |
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| C Heisey hit for A Chapman. |
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| C Heisey singled to center, R Hanigan scored, P Janish to second. |
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| D Stubbs lined into double play, to first, C Heisey doubled off first. |
I toldja it was ugly. Three errors in the inning (though, Gracie and Sutton took issue with Drew's - the ball did take a funny hop, but they went on and on about an error that didn't seem all that questionable) put the deficit at five, something that wasn't able to be overcome. Francisco Cordero came in to close out the Snakes 1-2-3 in the ninth. No one'll look back at this game and remember how well Dan Hudson did, but maybe this recap will serve as a reminder: 7IP, 3H, 2ER and 8K. Pretty balling, Mr. Hudson, pretty balling indeed. It was also nice to see how aggressive the team was on the basepaths, swiping three bags in the first two innings (even if one was, erm, questionable).
Doubleplusgood: Dan Hudson, +13.4%
Plusgood: David Hernandez, +5.8%
Doubleplusungood: Juan Gutierrez, -15.7%
An alright GDT tonight, with over 700 comments at the time of writing, as DbacksSkins also returned to 2010 form, leading the way with 118 comments. Proposis was the only other poster in triple digits with 106, while Clefo sat in third with 72. All involved were: IHateSouthBend, Jim McLennan, hotclaws, unnamedDBacksfan, Bcawz, emilylovesthedbacks, xmet, piratedan7, BattleMoses, Zavada's Moustache, TinySarabia, asteroid, jinnah, pygalgia, Azreous, BigPapaKishi, Turambar, UAwildcats, snakeoil14, Bunkpunk, and Husk.
Not too many Recs were handed out tonight, with multiple posts being tied for first with two. However, two of those expressed the same sentiment, so they both win:
A rubber match tomorrow between Mike Leake and Joe Saunders as the Diamondbacks look to win their first series at Chase before the Redbirds come to town. Hopefully the last-night Diamondbacks will show up. See you then.
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