Diamondbacks 5, Braves 11: Here Come Your 8th Inning Bullpen Meltdown

Ian Kennedy vs. Tim Hudson was the pitching matchup to start off this game. Kennedy was coming back from his ten game suspension for being the worst human being on the planet including Hitler. Kennedy continued his totally headhunting ways when he plunked Justin Upton in the 1st inning. Okay, he plunked him on the butt.

I am now going to sell my spec script: Ian Kennedy: Butt Hunter to the highest bidder.

The Barves got on the board first in the 3rd when Freddie Freeman homered to center to score two to make it 2-0 Atlanta. The Diamondbacks came right back in the next half. Paul Goldschmidt got an infield single to lead off the inning. He advanced to second on a wild pitch and was driven home on a Miguel Montero double. Miggy himself would come home on a Jason Kubel single to right and at the end of that half inning, it was 2-2.

The bottom of the 5th is when Ian Kennedy, who apparently has excellent control and is a headhunter, decided to walk the bases loaded against Jason Heyward, Freddie Freeman, and Brian McCann. Some of the pitches in these sequences were borderline, but Home Plate Umpire Bobby McNoCallStrike decided they were outside. Kennedy was lifted for Will Harris, who walked Dan Uggla to bring in a run, and gave up a sac fly to B.J. Upton to make it 4-2 Braves.

A tie game occurred again in the 6th inning when A.J. Pollock hit a two-run blast. After some clean innings by Brad Ziegler and Heath Bell, the D'Backs would take the lead in the top of the 8th on a Miguel Montero solo shot. It was 5-4 at that point, and D'Backs fans had to be feeling at least somewhat optimistic with David Hernandez coming into the game in his usual setup role.

Nope.

Didn't happen.

Not at all.

I'm Bill Plaschke-ing right now I should stop.

David started off the inning by getting Chris Johnson (AKA "New Guy") to pop up. Then he hit Reed Johnson and Andrelton Simmons with pitches they did not bother to get out of the way of. Jason Heyward came up and hit a ball to left field that easily scored Johnson to make it 5-5. Kubel's throw missed Didi Gregorius, playing the cutoff man in this scenario, and short hopped away from Eric Chavez, allowing Simmons to score and the Braves took a 6-5 lead.

It did not end there. The details are a blur and pretty gory, but after giving up a hit to Justin Upton, Hernandez was lifted for Tony Sipp, who then proceeded to give up four runs (a few of which were inherited, to be fair.), and J.J. Putz came in to relieve Sipp in his triumphant return from the disabled list and... gave up another inherited runner. After all the blood was cleaned up, it was 11-5 Atlanta, and the D'Backs went meekly into the 9th for a final score of that.