And it was going so well, too... Okay, "so well" might be a bit of a stretch - Wade Miley had allowed the opposition to get some hits, which is most unlike certain recent Arizona starters we could mention. But it was going reasonably, at least, with the Diamondbacks and Brewers locked in an 1-1 tie at the halfway stage in this afternoon's contest over at Phoenix Muni. Three outs later - not so much, as Milwaukee scored six runs during the bottom of the fifth, a half-inning which ended up being 75% of this afternoon's total scoring. Miley's next start seems very likely to come with the Reno Aces.
Once again, the expected Diamondbacks member of the rotation was getting his work in elsewhere this afternoon. Today, it was Joe Saunders turn to take the mound in a largely-ignored contest against a Triple-A squad of Anaheim hitters. However, that didn't go an awful lot better than Miley's appearance against the major-leaguers, with Steve Gilbert tweeting that Saunders allowed 11 hits and a walk in six innings, with one strikeout, leading to six runs, all but one of which were earned. The same will happen tomorrow, with Trevor Cahill pitcing against Triple-A hitters, while Tyler Skaggs starts for the "major-league" club.
And I'm using quotes advisedly, since a surprising number of the starters for Arizona this afternoon were names that you probably won't see on the Opening Day roster - especially considering there's now only nine days before the first meaningful contest. So, as well as Miley, we saw the likes of Adam Eaton, Chris Owings and, most surprising of all, catcher Ryan Budde starting for the Diamondbacks this afternoon. The latter was a late addition, because original incumbent Craig Tatum is now longer with Arizona, having been picked off waivers by the New York Yankees. If Miggy or Machete get injured, looks like we're back to Konrad Schmidt again.
Since today's loss is hung on someone who, with luck, will probably not be troubling our major-league roster this year [man, that sounds kinda cruel, but you know what I mean]. Miley did well enough through the early stages, with just one hit and a walk over the front third. He allowed one run on a pair of doubles in the fourth, but it was the fifth where things got really ugly. Seven consecutive Brewers got hits, with three singles, three doubles and a two-run homer from new long-term Brewer, Jonathan Lucroy. That ended Miley's day, with Bryan Shaw getting the last two outs, albeit not before loading the bases again.
Joe Paterson, Mike Zagurski and Jensen Lewis worked mop-up duty, posting zeroes for Arizona, who were largely unable to do much against Zach Greinke. He struck out eight Diamondbacks over seven innings, retiring 19 of the last 23 batters faced. Ryan Roberts scored our only run, tripling and coming home on a Jason Kubel groundout: Kubel picked up two of Arizona's five hits, with Eaton also picking up a pair of knocks, which brought his spring average up to .279.
Bcawz came out on top in a very close Gameday Thread with just three comments separating him, Bcawz, jjwaltrip and NASCARbernet. Also to be found therein were Clefo, Jim McLennan, blank_38, Britback, PR151, Augdogs, txzona, Marc Fournier and rfffr. As noted above, it's back to Salt River Fields for Arizona tomorrow, to see the Indians. Well, they should feel at home, anyway....