Diamondbacks 3, Rangers 16: Arizona Fails To Mess With Texas

"We wanted to pitch better than we had but again it’s early. These are the type of days that are tough to go through but you just move on."
-- Kirk Gibson

Not a good couple of days for the Diamondbacks at Salt River Fields. Since Saturday, the team have been outscored, by a combined margin of 33-9. In three games, over 26 innings of work, the pitchers have allowed a total of 49 hits, and the defense has committed eight errors.I think my decision to bail after four innings, when Arizona were being out-hit by a margin of 10-1, proved entirely justified - things somehow managed to get worse from there.

Let us not tar all the Arizona pitchers with the same brush however. Three guys provided clean innings, so step forward Jensen Lewis, Mike DeMark and Zach Kroenke, who combined to retire all ten batters they faced, in their 3 1/3 innings of no-hit ball. Which should also give some clue about how totally awful the rest of the pitchers did, highlighted in particular by Yonata Ortega who faced six hitters in the seventh, retired none, and saw all of them cross home plate. He can't even blame inherited runners left behind, as the last batter Ortega faced, cleared things up for him with a two-run homer.

Evan Marshall comes second in today's Gurgling Vortex of Pitching Suck, as he did manage to retire two of the six batters faced. He was charged with three runs in two-thirds of an inning, on three hits and a walk, before leaving after a line-drive to the chest (he should be fine). Marshall pips Bryan Shaw, who allowed three runs on three hits and a walk as well, but did manage to get through an entire inning. Perhaps this was all a cunning ploy to make starter Joe Saunders look good; he scattered five hits and a walk in two innings, but "only" allowed two runs, with the aid of a well-timed double-play and a pick-off. Chris Jakubauskas was the only AZ hurler to strike out a batter today.

With hindsight, I think we could probably tell it was not going to be the Diamondbacks' day when Conor Jackson, now the recipient of a spec invite to the Rangers' camp, hit one deep onto the left-field lawn of Salt River Fields, in his first trip to the plate. By the time David Winfree provided the entirety of Arizona's scoring with a three-run homer in the seventh, that merely ended Texas's streak of unanswered runs at 13. Chris Young and his replacement in center-field each had a hit and a walk, though Young was charged on an error for a throw. The D-backs were held to five hits, and saw their spring record drop to 1-3, with one game ending tied.

Just over nine thousand in attendance at Salt River Fields, including 'charmer and kishi, who would have been forgiven for beating the traffic to escape this one. GDT comments suggested the 'Pit enjoyed the dulcet tones of Visalia's Donny Baarns in the box for this one: bit of a challenge to try and keep things going when the game is such an utter blowout! However, I can report, via Nick Piecoro, that today's National Anthem rendition was a brisk 1:02.5, with the New Life Choir just coming up short in their bid to finish under a minute.

While I admire the stamina of anyone who stuck things out to the bitter end, I think the documentary on roller derby I watched instead, proved far more entertaining. At least the beatings there were not administered by the Rangers hitters. It probably says something that, even leaving at the end of the fourth, I still somehow came in third in comments. imstillhungry95 and NASCARbernet continued their dominance, combining for 78% of the total posts in the thread: also chipping in were kishi, dbacks25, Rockkstarr12, 4 Corners Fan, , Bryan J. Boltik, diamondfacts, dbacksfann, asteroid, Baja F1, Shawnwck, LiamNeeson and PR151.