Rockies 6, Diamondbacks 3: Big Innings Bite Brandon

Brandon McCarthy seems to have angered the BABIP gods. Most of his runs came on singles or were scored by base runners who had reached on a single; they also mostly came with two outs. It started in the 1st inning: two runners were on with one out, McCarthy got Troy Tulowitzki to fly out, but both runners advanced and scored on a two-out Michael Cuddyer single.

The Diamondbacks battled back and gave McCarthy a chance to settle into a groove. In the second inning, Eric Chavez hit a home run deep to the left-center corner, then A.J. Pollock reached on an error and scored on Alfredo Marte's two-out singled. In the third, Gerardo Parra led off with a double and scored on a Troy Tulowitzki throwing error. Parra, until grounding out in the fifth inning, had reached base in his last eight plate appearances and now has a league-leading 11-game hitting streak.

And McCarthy did settle down, and very nicely at that. Between the first and fourth innings, he retired nine in a row and 10 of 11 batters he had faced. He struck out seven on the night, nearly double his previous season high of four. He really was pitching so much better....

.... until the fifth inning, when the BABIP gods said "Nope, that's enough of that." Reid Brignac singled, Dexter Fowler bunted, and Jordan Pacheco singled to load the bases with one out. McCarthy threw seven pitches to strike out Carlos Gonzalez for the second out, and then the first pitch to Tulowitzki was mashed for a double to left center to clear the bases. Just like that, a 3-2 Diamondbacks lead became a 5-2 deficit. Wilin Rosario added a solo home run in the sixth inning.

The Diamondbacks had chances to add on, but just couldn't get the runners in. McCarthy left two on in the second and one in the fourth, and Chavez one in the third. Then they had two on and nobody out in the seventh inning (and the bases loaded with one out), and two on again in the eighth (but with two out). Though Tony Sipp, Brad Ziegler and Matt Reynolds each pitched a scoreless inning, Rockies relievers similarly worked out of their jams and kept the offense at bay. It was a 1-2-3 ninth for Colorado closer Rafael Betancourt to end the game and snap Arizona's winning streak at three.

A scary moment in the seventh inning: Didi Gregorius was hit in the head with a 93-mph fastball from Josh Outman. He walked off under his own power and passed the written tests, but was undergoing a CT scan as well. He is listed as day-to-day with a contusion to the right temple, but could be placed on the 7-day concussion DL tomorrow.

Source: FanGraphs

Super Mario Bros 1: A Marte, +15.3%
Super Mario Bros 3: G Parra, +9.4%
Super Mario Bros 2: B McCarthy, -37.7%

There was a nice-sized crowd for a Friday night, 28 people on board tonight's gameday thread. Clefo barely beat Rockstarr for top commenter. All present: 4 Corners Fan, Airwave, AzRattler, BobRob12, Clefo, Diamondhacks, EzioExManAZ, GuruB, Jdub220, Jim McLennan, JoeCB1991, Level27Escape, Lozenge, Rockkstarr12, Stile4aly, The so-called Beautiful, TolkienBard, Turambar, UAwildcats, asteroid, azshadowwalker, coldblueAZ, dbrowell, hotclaws, imstillhungry95, snakecharmer, soco, and txzona.

Wade Miley faces off against Jeff Francis in tomorrow evening's contest: 5:10pm start at Ye Olde Ball Park.