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Record: 14-14. Pace: 81-81. Change on 2011: +1.
Ah, Saturday, my fine day of recapping. The day on which, as with every game I've covered, the Diamondbacks have failed to capture a victory. Actually, every Saturday game has been decided by a run, with the only win coming from a 5-4 victory on May the 7th over San Francisco. I happened to be at a video game tournament that day (priorities), so I've failed to write about a Diamondbacks win since... actually, September 24, 2011, where we clobbered San Francisco by a score of 15-2, clinching our spot atop the division. I've had to pay back the baseball gods ever since. Hit the jump to see how this one played out.
(Note: my writing may become increasingly cynical as these one-run Saturday losses continue).
After the Mets and Diamondbacks traded zeroes until Arizona's solo shot in the top half of the second inning, which gave the Diamondbacks a quick lead. Say what you want about New York's run differential, but Johan Santana entered the game with a 2.25 ERA after allowing just a single run in his last two contests combined. Curiously enough, it was Ryan Roberts (who had not knocked one out of the park since April 8th) that hit the home run, the first allowed by Santana this season. Speaking of firsts, Patrick Corbin singled in the third, the first of his Major League career. He also nearly had the first disastrous inning of his career. After holding the Mets scoreless through three, a walk followed back-to-back one-out singles in the fourth, loading the bases for Mike Nickeas (who I'll pretend to be familiar with) with just one out. Corbin surrendered yet another hit, scoring two and ending his day. Collmenter was brought in to try and salvage the inning, which he was reasonably bad at. Santana sacrificed the runners over which allowed an Andres Torres single to score two more and bring the score to 4-1. That's... pretty much the opposite of salvaging. I'm sure Corbin was pleased.
Arizona quickly struck back in the fifth, with singles from A.J. Pollock and Justin Upton putting pressure on Santana with Jason Kubel and Paul Goldschmidt coming up. Kubel fouled out to left, which put the onus on Goldy to do what no Diamondback had done yet today: score a runner in scoring position. Through just four innings and change, the Diamondbacks had managed to go 0 for 6 with RISP. Thankfully, Paul made it 1 for 7, with a double down the line that brought the Diamondbacks within just a run. The Tomahawk kept it there, too; he didn't give up on runs (of his own) in his almost three innings of work, holding the Mets to the four charged to Corbin until he was replaced in the seventh by Breslow. Maybe that's where Collmenter will do best. It's nice to see that his removal from the rotation doesn't signal the end of his usefulness.
After that, though, I'm not sure what else to say. Breslow did fine as always, and the teams continued with their 4-3 score from the fifth inning on. The only real "excitement" taking place in the top of the ninth, and the only reason it was exciting was because, well, it was the ninth. With one down and the Mets still clinging to their one-run lead, Lyle Overbay was brought in to hit for A.J. Pollock and promptly walked. Willie Bloomquist pinch-ran and proceeded to swipe second base, giving Aaron Hill and Justin Upton both a chance at making magic happen with a runner in scoring position. Both quickly scoffed at the notion, flying out and striking out to tie the series up at one game apiece. Once again, I sigh. At least I didn't have to watch this one. Thanks so much, FOX and MLB (fake smile here).
Source: FanGraphs
My apologies for the random Pujols hate. I just find it funny how the Angels locked up a player for ten years and $240,000,000 that is literally the worst player in all of baseball right now among qualified players. Anyway, back to things that are remotely relevant. Today's GDT hit about 660 comments at time of writing, with no one reaching triple-digits. NASCARbernet led with 84; no one else reached sixty. Probably because ish95 wasn't present. All present today were: Cardscrazy247, Clefo, Jim McLennan, Nauk, hotclaws, Bcawz, txzona, 4 Corners Fan, piratedan7, SongBird, Britback, BattleMoses, asteroid, snakecharmer, rfffr, dback4life, Zavada's Moustache, dbacks79, Bryn21, jjwaltrip, The Goat, PR151, G.O.B., Fangdango, Circa4life, CaptainCanuck, and iheartdbacks.
Comment of the Day goes to Clefo, who posted the following after Collmenter allowed two inherited runners to score:
Collmenter gonna Collment
Founder of the 'Foundation for the Advancement of Clefoing' a 501C3
by Clefo on May 5, 2012 2:41 PM PDT 4 recs
Aye, Clefo, one should expect Collmenters to do nothing more than Collment. At least it didn't get any worse, that's pretty un-Collmenterlike.
Trevor Cahill and R.A. Dickey duel tomorrow in the rubber match of the series. Hopefully Cahill can replicate the awesomeness of his last outing against Washington; or, at the very least, not replicate the early-goings of today. It's a 10AM start; suffice to say, I'll be deep in slumber, so I probably won't see you tomorrow. But be sure to stop by and see everyone else that wakes up way too early on Sunday mornings.