Diamondbacks 7, Rockies 8: Hopes d'rained in the ninth

Record: 5-3. Pace: 101-61. Change on last season: +1.

With this being my first recap of the 2012 campaign, I went in hoping that Josh Collmenter would deliver his first solid start of his 2012 season. This, of course, being his second of the year, after his six-run (five earned), three-inning no-decision against the Giants last Friday. We weren't sure if the game would start at all initially, with rain pouring down in Denver, but after a quick fifteen minute delay, the game was underway. Would Collmenter quiet the haters, and prove that his first start was an off-game, solidifying his spot in the Arizona rotation? We found out pretty quickly that the answer to those questions is no, by the way. It may not have been bad enough to remove any chance of the Tomahawk starting again, but it certainly didn't improve his chances. Luckily, nature happened and forced a 70-minute delay to make the game far more interesting - hit the jump and see how we fared.

The game did not start off well at all. Ryan Roberts and Gerardo Parra singled back-to-back to lead things off, putting the Diamondbacks in the terrible runners-in-scoring-position situation, something that they have been pretty awful at using to score thus far. And, as one would expect, two outs were quickly made after Justin Upton took a called third strike and Miguel Montero flew out. Thankfully, Chris Young continued his nice start to the season, singling home Roberts and moving Parra to second. The ball was fumbled at home, creating an opportunity for Parra to advance to third; he chose not to take it, however, and remained at second. Where he got picked off. Inning over. Hmm. After that, not a whole lot happened until the bottom half of the second (unless you consider this stolen base attempt noteworthy), which is best ignored by Diamondbacks fans.

Maybe the saved-by-the-wind flyout in the bottom of the first was a harbinger of badness for Collmenter. With a 1-0 lead, Collmenter allowed a one-out single to Michael Cuddyer, then proceeded to allow home runs to both Tyler Colvin and Ramon Hernandez back-to-back, putting Arizona in a 3-1 hole. Two more flyouts ended the inning, but Coors is not a place that you want to be getting outs in the air. At this point, Josh's ERA managed to increase from the 15.00 he entered with to sixteen and change. I wouldn't exactly say he's doing himself -- or his spot in the rotation -- any favors.

In the bottom half of the third, now down 5-1, the Diamondbacks again used to top of the order to put themselves in a dreadful position, having two men in scoring position with just one out. I'm trying to find a way to blame Upton's thumb for taking yet another called third strike in a situation that really, really could have done without it (I'll let you know once I find one); regardless, Justin struck out for the second out, and Montero walked to fill the bases for Chris Young, who looked to further his transformation into 2010 Justin Upton. Unfortunately, he flew out to left, and once again, we did absolutely nothing with runners in scoring position. It's what we do, yo.

The Rockies managed another run in the fourth, and that's when Mother Nature decided that she's had enough of Collmenter and the Diamondbacks four-run deficit. The game was paused after an hour and eleven minute rain delay, and it wasn't until then that the Diamondbacks began to really play. Montero launched a three-run home run in the fifth to bring the Rockies lead down to one; in the sixth, John McDonald delivered his first hit of the season, scoring his fellow ex-Jay from first with a double into the left field corner to tie the game at 5. In the seventh, J-Up finally got a hit, and was eventually scored after a single from CY and a sac fly from Paul Goldschmidt. It was now 7-5 in favor of Arizona, with a 6-0 score in the "second game" once the two starters were replaced following the delay. Wade Miley again filled in for Collmenter, performing admirably: he exited in the eighth with a line of 3IP, 2H, 1BB, and 0R. That's seven scoreless for Wade this season, all in relief for Collmenter, who still owns an ERA north of 12. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

David Hernandez came in for Miley, surrendering a run on an RBI double to Eric Young, Jr., and bringing the game to 7-6. Putz came in for the save in the ninth, where the rain still continued to pour down. It was pretty questionable at multiple points throughout the night to keep the game going with the inherent danger in playing on a slippery field . Regardless, after hitting the leadoff batter (just throw the ball straight next time, JJ), Putz got Giambi to pop out and struck out Toolowitzki, bringing up the aging Todd Helton as the final batter of the game.

To deliver the next line, I'll lead into it with as much suspense as I felt watching it. Todd Helton homered to right, scoring Scutaro (the hit batsman) from first to give the Rockies the 8-7 win. !@#$.

Source: FanGraphs

The game should have probably been called a lot earlier. Not just saying that as a Diamondbacks fan, as the best time would have been when the game was tied at five in the sixth. Oh well. imstillhungry95 led the 49 participants with 320 of tonight's nearly-1900 comments, with both SongBird and blue bulldog trailing behind in second and third wither 169 and 144, respectively. Also present were: dbacks79, hotclaws, asteroid, Turambar, NASCARbernet, txzona, luckycc, shoewizard, Dan Strittmatter, SnakebitForever, The so-called Beautiful, Airwave, piratedan7, rfffr, Clefo, Jim McLennan, fandbacks, rd33, Jdub220, PR151, JoeCB1991, porty99, soco, Bauer47, BigPapaKishi, AZDBACKR, jjwaltrip, CaptainCanuck, kishi, Augdogs, JNFT1918, SenSurround, DbacksSkins, Shawnwck, dbacksfann, BulldogsNotZags, edbigghead, AzDbackfanInDc, Lisalisa8, Fangdango, Zavada's Moustache, DivineWolfwood, dbacks25, G.O.B., and Bryan J. Boltik.

No green comments (as far as I saw), so my pick for CotN goes to rd33. We should have some humor here to lighten up the darkness of the game.

Satchel Paige

Has Jaime Moyer’s rookie card.

by rd33 on Apr 14, 2012 5:10 PM PDT reply actions 2 recs

So, yet another one-run game. Tomorrow will feature not-Josh-Collmenter Trevor Cahill going up against Drew Pomeranz (making his season debut) in the rubber match. It's a 12:10 start, so it's safe to assume I'll sleep through the first half. If it's anything like today's, that should be good.