Diamondbacks 8, Padres 1: Run Differential Says "Thank You!"

It's been a trying week for fans of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Many one-run losses, many blown leads. I, for one, almost took up Nihilism. However, I was willing to give the team at least one more chance, and they delivered with a masterful offensive performance, and a great start from Patrick Corbin.

Most of the D'Back runs came in the top of the 2nd inning against Padres starter Clayton Richard, who had a reputation of being the Randy Winn of pitchers when it came to facing the D'Backs. Not the case today. Gerardo Parra and Wil Nieves got on base to start the inning. Josh Wilson singled to score Parra to make it 1-0. Cliff Pennington also singled to score Nieves and make it 2-0. Corbin then came up to sacrifice bunt, as NL pitchers tend to do. He did so, but like most of the things he threw tonight, Richard missed the throw to first base and Wilson scored without an out recorded.

You might think "Hey, that's a good inning on its own!" You would be right, BUT WAIT, there's more! A.J. Pollock hit a ground rule double that score two runs to make it 5-0. In the ensuing at-bat, he stole third base. This would cause him to score on a Paul Goldschmidt to make it 6-0. The Diamondbacks batted around in that inning for possibly the first time this season.

The D'Backs extended their lead to 7-0 in the 4th on a Pollock solo shot, and then to 8-0 on a Goldschmidt sacrifice fly that scored Pennington. This was more than enough for Patrick Corbin, who pitched 7 innings, struck out 7, walked 3, and only gave up a solo shot to Chris Denorfia (AKA "Galmu, the bringer of night" in ancient Sumeria)

Tony Sipp came into the game in the 8th inning for mop-up duty, but loaded the bases on two walks and a hit with only one out. Heath Bell made (another) triumphant return to Petco Park and immediately got Jedd Gyorko to ground into an inning-ending double play. He then pitched a 1-2-3 9th inning to secure the win.

COTN goes to this section of TolkienBard at the start of the game:

I wish Gibby

would give up on this asinine attempt at R/L match-ups........

Hah, irony, I guess. The good kind.

KENNEDY. VOLQUEZ. THEY ENTER THE THUNDERDOME. BE THERE TOMORROW!

(Come on, can't we just get BEYOND Thunderdome?)