Diamondbacks 2, Cardinals 3: Welp

Record: 18-29, On Pace: 62-100, Change on '04/'10/'13: +1/-2/-8

Oh, baseball. Baseball. Baseball, baseball, baseball. Yep, baseball. I hope you're getting this all down.

So there was a game played today, and if just want to know the most confusing thing about this, let's skip past the 1-2-3 first inning for both teams, and talk about how the top of the second began with a lead-off walk to Miguel Montero. Okay, that wasn't the confusing part. The confusing part comes one out later when Miguel Montero, apparently, steals second. (Maybe a missed hit and run?) And then is called safe. Well, such an improbable occurrence naturally drew shouts of dismay and disbelief from the Cardinals dugout.

A brief replay later, and the natural order of things was re-established: it was not hailing fire and brimstone, cats and dogs were not living together, and Miguel Montero was called out at second base. Whew. Or curses. Whatever.

The Cardinals threatened in the bottom of the inning, getting two runners on with one out, but they couldn't do anything with them. The Diamondbacks weren't doing much more, only getting a runner on in the fourth with a Paul Goldschmidt walk. But in the bottom of the fourth, things went a little south for Arizona.

It started with a HBP to Matt Holliday. Holliday went to second on a single from Matt Adams, and then to third on a GIDP by Yadier Molina. A single from Allen Craig scored Holliday, and St. Louis took a 1-0 lead. They tried to add more, with Craig taking second on a wild pitch and Peter Bourjos drawing a walk, but a backwards K for Daniel Descalos ended the inning.

Maybe the Diamondbacks could get it back, though! Huzzah, true believers! Cody Ross draws a one out walk! A.J. Pollock singles to center, and Ross takes third! Brandon McCarthy puts down a bunt and-! Oh, no, sorry, Cody Ross is out at home. The play was reviewed by the umpires to see if Molina had been obstructing the plate, but they upheld the call on the field, and then Gerardo Parra grounded out to end the inning. Exclamation points stand down to Defcon Four.

The Cardinals threatened again in the six, putting runners at the corners with one out, but were kept from scoring by McCarthy. That was the end of McCarthy's outing- it wasn't pretty, seven hits and three walks, but he only allowed one run, and that's a good effort. The Diamondbacks bats just couldn't back him up, though. Maybe they could back up Oliver Perez after he got through the seventh inning?

Heck yeah, they could. Eric Chavez pinch hit for Perez to start the inning, singling to reach base, just in time to be replaced  by Ender Inciarte as a pinch runner. Then Gerardo Parra stepped in and smacked his fifth home run of the season over the right field fence, bringing in two runs who could run at a pace that, let's be honest, was probably within Chavez's skill set. But a 2-1 lead for the Diamondbacks! Hooray for Zoidberg!

In the bottom of the inning, Joe Thatcher came in to get an out from Matt Adams, and then it was Brad Ziegler time. And that... left something to be desired. Yadier Molina greeted Ziegler with a double, and went to third on a single by Allen Craig. From there, it just took a Jon Jay sacrifice fly to bring Molina in to score and tie the game.

1-2-3 innings from both teams got us swiftly through the ninth inning and on to free baseball. And it was... Well. The top of the tenth started off well enough, with Ender Inciarte reaching to start things off on an error by Randy Choate. Two outs to right field followed, though, but Paul Goldschmidt stepped up and smashed a double to left field. Unfortunately, Inciarte tried to come around to score, and was gunned down at the plate, ending the inning.

The Cardinals tried to put together a run in the bottom of the tenth- Holliday doubled to start it, and then Matt Adams was intentionally walked. Molina sacrificed to advance both runners, and then an Allen Craig walk loaded the bases with nobody out. But full credit to Evan Marshall- he struck out Jon Jay swinging and then got Daniel Descalso to ground out to end the inning and keep the game tied.

The eleventh inning was 1-2-3 on both sides, and the top of the twelfth had nothing but a two out single by Inciarte to keep our hopes up. But as Trevor Cahill came in to start the bottom of the inning, things went south. A lead-off walk, a double, and an intentional walk meant the Cardinals had the bases loaded with nobody out. Plenty of ways to lose a game from there, but I doubt many of us saw the final nail coming- a ground ball to Chris Owings that was then thrown away as he tried to get Holliday out at the plate, and the Cardinals walked off on an error, 3-2.

Pretend I said something witty about the chasm of doom that swallowed up our hope for this game, or something. It was just generally a disspiritng loss. The GDT ended shy of 400 comments, with DBacksSkins making over a third of them and only one other person within a hundred comments. Also stopping in were AJV19, BuSeaAir, Circa4life, Clefo, Diamondhacks, Edwong81, EzioExManAZ, GuruB, Husk, Jim McLennan, JoeCB1991, Makakilo, Marc Fournier, SenSurround, asteroid, cheese1213, hotclaws, kishi, makattack71, onedotfive, preston.salisbury, soco, txzona, and xmet. And while DBacksSkins may have led in quantity, points to Clefo for quality, as all three comments who got more than a single rec belonged to him. Top honors goes to this one:

I'd say Subway commercials were the worst investment in Ryan Howard ever

buuuuuuut

weltanschauung

by Clefo on May 21, 2014 | 5:08 PM

And so we drop a second game in St. Louis and the series. Stop by tomorrow to see if we can at least salvage one out of it.