Diamondbacks 5, Dodgers 9: Tire Fire

Record: 55-77 On Pace: 68-94 Change on last season: -13

Both teams came out of the gates swinging tonight. Cahill got the first out quickly, inducing a Dee Gordon ground out, but a walk to Yasiel Puig set up a two-out, two-run home run for Matt Kemp. On their side of the inning, the Diamondbacks got a couple base runners in the first, but failed to score. However, they did make up for it in the second, after Alfredo Marte was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning, Didi Gregorius got a one-out single, and then Ender Inciarte got a two-out, two-run single to tie the game at the end of the second.

After the first, Trevor Cahill sat down the next six batters in order, completing the second and third innings. It was in the fourth that this game became a complete tire fire. Eleven Dodgers went to the plate, six runs scored, two challenges by Los Angeles, one questionable, the other clear cut, and the game kind of just imploded. Adrian Gonzalez and Kemp both walked to start the inning. Not the best start. Cahill did get the next batter, Hanley Ramirez to strike out, but after that is when the wheels really came off. Carl Crawford and Justin Turner both singled and knocked in a run each. A. J. Ellis also hit a single, but originally that didn't score a run. That's where things got fun.

The Dodgers requested an umpire challenge of the out at home, based off the home plate collision rule. The play was not overturned on the basis of that rule. However, once the play is challenged based on that rule, any aspect of the play can be reviewed. Thanks to that, the umpires in NYC also looked at whether or not the tag was actually applied to the runner. The final decision was Montero tagged the runner with his glove, which did not contain the ball. His bare hand, which was touching the glove, was holding the ball. This, in the opinion of the umpires in New York City, does not constitute an out. In my humble opinion, this would be an out at any other base, but I know people disagree with that.

The inning then continued with still only one out. Roberto Hernandez was the next batter. He was originally ruled out, but the play was (correctly) overturned on replay.  Turner scored. Dee Gordon hit an RBI single of his own, and at that point, Gibson had seen enough. Cahil was removed in favor of Randall Delgado. Puig then walked to load the bases. Adrian Gonzalez, the first batter of the inning, came back for a second try, and then hit a sac fly to make the score 8-2. Kemp then made the third out to end the inning.

After that, both teams were pretty quiet. The Dbacks came right back and got another run to put them down by "only" five runs, then in the seventh, the Dodgers put the deficit back at six. However, the Diamondbacks, did add two more runs in the eighth and ninth to make the final score 9-5.

<iframe src="http://www.fangraphs.com/graphframe.aspx?config=0&static=0&type=livewins&num=0&h=450&w=450&date=2014-08-26&team=Diamondbacks&dh=0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" height="450" width = "450" style="border:1px solid black;"></iframe><br /><span style="font-size:9pt;">Source: <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/livewins.aspx?date=2014-08-26&team=Diamondbacks&dh=0&season=2014">FanGraphs</a></span>

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Ender Inciarte, 19.2%

Michael Bay: Trevor Cahill, -51.4%

A mixed bag of activity in the Gameday Thread tonight. Before the fourth inning, it seemed pretty active, but in the fifth inning onwards, it really seemed to slow down. All total there were just a hair over 300 comments at time of post. I lead the way with almost double the comment count of JoeCB1991 in second. However, there was only a difference of five comments between second and fifth. All present tonight was:

AzRattler, DbacksSkins, Diamondhacks, GuruB, JoeCB1991, JoelPre, SenSurround, SongBird, Yela_Eggroll, david.munter, freeland1787, hotclaws, imstillhungry95, nodon7, onedotfive, preston.salisbury, shoewizard, xmet

No comment of the day tonight. The most rec'd comment was actually a quip about Addison Reed, who didn't even appear in the game. Maybe tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, join us again for the final game of this two game series. Kershaw v. Miley, so that should be fun. Start time is 6:40. Be there, if you are a masochist.