Diamondbacks 2, Padres 3: Uptown and Out

After splitting the first two games in their first road trip of the season, the Diamondbacks were looking for their first road series win since July 28th-30th, 2014 against the Cincinnatti Reds and the D-backs certainly started this game with a victory in mind. Ender Inciarte singled against Brandon Morrow to start off the night and after an A.J Pollock fly out moved Ender into scoring position, Paul Goldschmidt delivered with an opposite-field blast into right field to put the D-backs up 2-0 early in the 1st inning. Funny thing about that hit by Goldy, in just his 471st game, that hit was his 500th hit so an obvious congrats to him.

Pitching for the D-backs was Chase Anderson looking to improve upon his season debut. Chase went 1-2-3 in the 1st after getting staked to an early lead but ran into trouble in the 2nd. A leadoff single by Justin Upton was followed by a double from Yonder Alonso that glanced off Paul Goldschmidt's glove as Upton raced around to score the first run for the Padres. Consecutive fly ball outs from Jedd Gyorko and Alexi Amarista to left field stranded Alonso at 2nd but the damage was done and the D-backs lead slipped to 2-1.

Ender Inciarte (who else?) led off the 3rd with a double but A.J.Pollock would ground out to shortstop. But with Inciarte still on 2nd base with 1 out and Paul Goldschmidt up, the D-backs were in good shape right? Wrong. Inciarte would unexplicably attempt to steal 3rd and you can guess what happened. Yep, of course he was thrown out. Goldy immediately singled to center and  Mark Trumbo followed that with a single of his own to put runners on the corners with future league-MVP Jake Lamb up. He would fly out to left field to end the threat. I guess we'll give him a couple years to develop.

After that, the game went pretty smoothly, with both offenses failing to get anything started. That all changed in the 6th inning when Wil Myers led things off with a double and Derek Norris singled to put runners on the corners with 0 outs and Matt Kemp up. After falling behind, Kemp would drive a ball deep to right field, making Mark Trumbo retreat onto the warning track for the out. Myers would score easily. After a Justin Upton pop-up to center and a Yonder Alonso walk, Wil Middlebrooks singled to center but A.J. Pollock would come up firing and cut down Norris easily at the plate to end the inning.

In the 7th, the offense sparked to life with a leadoff single by Aaron Hill but Jordan Pacheco grounded into a double play. Nick Ahmed walked with two outs and that would allow freshly called up Yasmany Tomas to make his MLB debut and he would fall behind quickly with 2 strikes and would end up grounding out to 2nd. At least he didn't strike out right?

Chip Hale made the decision to pull Chase Anderson and it was probably a good one with him struggling in the 6th. He ended his night with a pitching line of 8 H, 1 BB, 5 Ks and only 2 runs given up over 6 IP. Randall Delgado came on for the 7th and while he allowed a walk, he got out of the inning with no trouble. After a strike 'em out, throw 'em out of Goldschmidt and Pollock respectively in the 8th, Delgado came back out for the 8th and was fine for the first 2 batters, getting Norris and Kemp to fly out but on came Justin Upton. Coming into today's game, Upton was 17 for 49 with 4 doubles and 2 homers good for a slash of 1.109 OPS (.347/.476/.633). Delgado may not have got that message as he threw a 94 mph fastball and Upton promptly dumped it into the left-field bleachers to give the Padres a 3-2 lead.

And just like that Craig Kimbrel was up and ready for the 9th inning, bringing his 97+ mph fastball with him. Mark Trumbo struck out on 3 straight fastballs for out #1. Next up was Jake Lamb and he singled to give the D-backs some hope with Aaron Hill and David Peralta to follow. Hill flew out to center and David Peralta was understandably beaten by fastballs as Kimbrel closed out the game and series for the Padres.

Source: FanGraphs

Uptown: Paul Goldschmidt 10%

Downtown: Randall Delgado -21.9%

Pretty decent showing for an early Wednesday game with 650+ comments. COTN goes to bbtng for this great comment.

Come back tonight for the first of a 4-game series with the 2014 World Series Champion San Francisco Giants. Archie Bradley faces Madison Bumgarner in the opener.