Diamondbacks 0, Team Australia 5: Wallaby Damned

So, the Dodgers beat Australia by two runs, and Australia beat the Diamondbacks by five runs. Therefore, this means... This means.... This means we're going to beat LA, because we got all the bad stuff out of our systems today, right? Yep, this recap is going to be the literary equivalent of me putting my fingers in my ears and humming "Mary had a Little Lamb" loudly. For Arizona was blanked by the BaseWallabies, Tim Atherton and a bunch of other people unfamiliar to anyone beyond their immediate family combining on a nine-hitter. On the plus side, that's still six more hits than the Dodgers managed against Team Australia last night.

The Diamondbacks pitching was plagued by bad luck and bad control. Archie Bradley and Charlie Brewer combined for five walks and a hit batter in their six innings of work, which is just way too many free passes, even if only one of those came around to score. Bradley's final line was probably of most interest: he worked 3.2 innings, allowing three runs on six hits and three walks, with three K's and a home-run. I'm guessing that may have punched Randall Delgado's ticket back to the rotation. Brewer followed with 2.1 innings, allowed two runs on four hits and two walks with an impressive six K's, and Zeke Spruill mopped up with two perfect frames.and three strikeouts.

There was probably an element of good fortune for Australia too, balls seeming to find a lot of gaps when coming off the Antipodean lumber. That was a total of 12 K's for Arizona, and if my math is right - it's 4:30am, so I'm not prepared to guarantee this - it works out to a .474 BABIP, with the 19 balls in play resulting in nine hits. I trust the baseball gods will see fit to address this heinous and unsustainable figure the next time the Diamondbacks pitchers take the mound. The same can be said, in reverse, for our offense: you generally won't be blanked on nine hits either: and the problem here was obvious, as we went 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position.

Things started briskly enough, with Gerardo Parra and Aaron Hill singling in the top of the first - that was more hits before the first out, than Los Angeles managed through 7 2/3 innings. However, Paul Goldschmidt struck out and Martin Prado hit into an inning ending double-play: while I really hope that's the last time I have to write such a sentence, pessimism is suggesting I set it up on a hot-key.  We loaded the bases in the fourth before A.J. Pollock grounded out, and we also got hits from our first two men in the seventh inning, before a trio of fly-ball outs left them stranded where they sat.

Parra and Eric Chavez each had a pair of hits for the Diamondbacks, with Prado and Mark Trumbo each had a hit and a walk. The former had our only extra-base hit of the evening, a one-out double in the sixth. You will not be surprised to learn that he could have set up a barbie and thrown a couple of shrimp on it, for all the forward motion the hitters behind him produced. He also stole a bag, while Pollock nailed a runner at home. The crowd in attendance at the Sydney Cricket Ground tonight (it seems kinda weird to write that as dawn is barely on the horizon!) was 16,897, which seems respectable. It's 2,500 more than came to see the Dodgers. Suck it, LA...

We'll be hoping for better fortune when Arizona and Los Angeles face off directly at the same venue on Saturday night - just after 1am, Arizona time, so I'd recommend stocking up on caffeinated beverages! Wade Miley will be starting for us, and Clayton Kershaw for the Dodgers. This time, it counts...