Diamondbacks 4, Cardinals 6: Bad Outings and Wasted Chances

The Diamondbacks got on the board early, getting the scoring for both teams started off in the top of the first inning. Ender Inciarte lined out to start the inning, but Mark Trumbo followed that up with a single. Goldy struck out, but that brought AJ Pollock to the plate. He double, moving Trumbo to third for Yasmany Tomas. Tomas hit a double of his own, scoring both Trumbo and Pollock to give the DBacks a 2-0 lead before the Cardinals had even come to the plate yet.

Their lead wouldn't stick around for long though, as the Cards got their night off to a roaring start off Archie Bradley. Kolton Wong and Matt Carpenter both drew walks off Archie, to bring Matt Holiday to the plate with two on and nobody out. He singled Wong home, and Carpenter went to second. Bradley finally recorded an out and got Matt Adams to strike out. That didn't help him get in a groove, though, and he gave up an RBI double to Jhonny Peralta and an RBI ground out to make the score 4-2 in favor of St. Louis. That was it for the inning, but plenty of damage had already been done.

After that, the two teams went into a few innings of back and forth, with the Dbacks getting within a run, only to have the Cards pull away to a two run lead once more. Nick Ahmed hit a solo home run in the top of the second, only to have it followed up by Randal Girchuck hitting a solo homer of his own for St. Louis in the bottom of the inning. In the top of the third, Tomas hit an RBI double to score Pollock, making the score 5-4, Cardinals still leading. Bradley sat the Cardinals down in order in the third, but in the fourth, they extended their lead back to two runs, thanks to single off the bat of Gircuck again to score Jason Heyward. 6-4 Cardinals

And that's where it stayed for the rest of the night. The offense got a couple more chances, but nothing came of it. A big wasted chance came in the seventh. Cliff Pennington got a pinch-hit single to start the inning off against newcomer Matt Belisle. Inciarte moved him to second on a sac bunt, and Mark Trumbo lined out for the second out of the inning. Belisle didn't want to face Paul Goldschmidt, so he intentionally walked him, and the unintentionally walked Pollock to load the bases. That brought up Yasmany Tomas, who then struck out to end the inning.

They got another chance in the bottom of the ninth that they wasted as well. Goldschmidt drew another two out walk, and then Pollock got another hit. A fielding error by Heyward allowed Goldschmidt to go to third and Pollock to second, setting up Tomas for a chance at redemption. He grounded out, and the Diamondbacks fell to the Cardinals 6-4.

<iframe src="http://www.fangraphs.com/graphframe.aspx?config=0&static=0&type=livewins&num=0&h=450&w=450&date=2015-05-26&team=Cardinals&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=2015-05-26&team=Cardinals&dh=0&season=2015">FanGraphs</a></span>

King of the Hill: A. J. Pollock, 18.3%

Bottom of the Dog Pile: Archie Bradley, -51.7%

Not a bad GDT for a Tuesday night, with 525 comments split between 28 people. James Attwood lead the way with 93, followed by preston.salisbury with 86, and JoeCB1991 in a distant third with 49. All present were:

AzDbackfanInDc, AzRattler, Clefo, Craig Counsel rules, Dbackguy, DbacksSkins, DeadmanG, Diamondhacks, GODSCHMIDT, GuruB, James Attwood, Jim McLennan, JoeCB1991, JoelPre, Makakilo, MrMrrbi, Nate Rowan, Xerostomia, bbtng, coldblueAZ, freeland1787, gamepass, hotclaws, imstillhungry95, mbarnard11, onedotfive, preston.salisbury, xmet

COTN goes to Jim for this description of Bradley's recent outings:

Ouch

Sadly, I think Bradley has now dropped below Hellickson in terms of current starting quality. He’s getting tattooed like Angelina Jolie on a three-day Vegas bender.

by Jim McLennan on May 26, 2015 | 5:42 PM reply unrec (5) actions

Join us again tomorrow at 5:15 AZ time, as the Dbacks try to avoid the sweep. Josh Collmenter will face of against Lance Lynn, and we'll see if Josh can improve over his past few rough outings.