Phillies 7, DBacks 2: DBacks Get Hameled

Record: 9-10. Pace: 77-85. Change on last season: +1

This game started off weird. Jason Kubel gunning down runners at the plate, Carlos Ruiz trying to take three bases on a wild pitch and almost succeeding, Willie Bloomquist getting caught in a complicated rundown, the #GoDBacks hashtag trending nationwide, thanks to Phillies fans- and that was all before the third inning. But while it did settle down a little after that, the DBacks never really got anything going and we had another disappointing afternoon at the ballpark.

As I said, it started off a little weird. Part of the problem? Henry Blanco just had some problems corralling Trevor Cahill's pitches. A passed ball with two outs in the first let Placido Polanco take second base, where he was able to score off a Hunter Pence single, to give the Phillies an early 1-0 lead. Philadelphia tried to add on with a Laynce Nix double that was just out of Cody Ransom's reach, but they found out that the Parrazooka isn't our only artillery piece in the outfield. Der Kubel-schreiber pick up the ball nailed Pence at home.

Willie Bloomquist started the bottom of the inning off right with a double to left, but that was pretty much the early highlight of our offense, and it was swiftly erased. After Aaron Hill popped out, Cole Hamels caught Willie B trying to steal, and eventually dragged him down in what was scored as a 1-5-1-4-6-3 out. And that? Was pretty much the only good thing we managed from the Diamondbacks offense for the first several innings.

The Phillies put together another baserunning out of their own in the second- it was a blunder on both sides, really, and the Diamondbacks are just lucky it worked out well enough for them. With Carlos Ruiz on first, another pitch got away from Blanco. Far away. Really far away. Far enough that Ruiz made it all the way around to third, as Blanco took his time rounding up the ball. And then everyone noticed that no one was covering home. Cody Ransom raced home next to Ruiz and got the ball from Blanco in time to tag him out, but it was a pretty embarrassing play.

The next few innings, both pitchers found their groove. The Phillies managed a walk in the third, but that was the only baserunner allowed by either team until the start of the sixth inning. It was a close game up to that point. But that was when things fell apart.

It started with a single to Juan Pierre and a walk to Polanco. A ground out advanced both runners, and then a wild pitch brought in a run and a single by Hunter Pence added another, to make it 3-0. Cahill's afternoon ended there, with Craig Breslow coming in from the bullpen. Breslow's performance... Not great. He let the inherited runner score and gave up his first runs of the season, allowing three singles and a walk out of the six batters he faced. 6-0 Phillies, at the middle of the sixth.

The DBacks finally fought back against Hamels in the bottom of the seventh inning. After he'd sat down eighteen straight batters, they managed to string together a little work of their own- singles from Aaron Hill and Justin Upton set up Jason Kubel to break the shut-out. A Cody Ransom walk loaded the bases, and a error from Pete Orr let Paul Goldschmidt bring in a run and keep the bases loaded, bringing the tying run to the plate. Unfortunately, though, A.J. Pollock wasn't able to do anything, grounding into a double play and ending the only real threat the DBacks managed all game.

After that, it was pretty much all over. Joe Martinez made his DBacks debut in the ninth, giving up a single to Juan Pierre and allowing him to score on a Placido Polanco double. The Diamondbacks went back to not reaching base, going down 1-2-3 in each inning. It was painful to watch, and somewhat merciful when it was over- Phillies won, 7-2.

I'm not even going to pick a winner on WPA, because the only person above 1% was Paul Goldschmidt- which was only because of the Pete Orr error. So really, Diamondbacks, you should just be embarrassed.

A pretty active thread for an afternoon game that wasn't on TV, ending around 500 comments. imstillhungry95 led the charge, with hotclaws and Bcawz rhyming their way to second and third. Also stopping by were Clefo, SenSurround, Britback, asteroid, snakecharmer, kishi, AzDbackfanInDc, Cardscrazy247, Turambar, grimmy01, G.O.B., luckycc, Jim McLennan, Dan Strittmatter, azwebber, blank_38, Muu, Amit, dbacks25, txzona, Marc Fournier, GuruB, and jjwaltrip. None of the comments getting more than one rec were baseball related, so that probably describes the mood in the thread pretty well. Clefo takes CotD honors for the only one to go green, answering Britback's query about what's happened in the past week:

Society as we know it

Has collapsed, and we have formed into small hunter tribes, I’d explain more but mutants are knocking at my door. Time to grab a shotgun

Founder of the 'Foundation for the Advancement of Clefoing' a 501C3

by Clefo on Apr 25, 2012 12:13 PM MST

So we stumble through a 3-7 homestand and sit a game below .500 as we head out to the east coast for a trip starting in Miami. Team has the day off tomorrow, and I think that might be a good thing for them...