Diamondbacks 7, Angels 3: Ray of hope reveals Gold

For the third time in recent history, a young Diamondbacks starter had a no hitter going later enough that you could reasonably call for a watch and do the dumb thing where you think that something you say could actually have an effect on the outcome of said no-hitter. In this case, it was Robbie Ray, who had a no-no through 5 2/3rds innings until Daniel Robertson of the Angels got a single. That's still pretty good, and Ray ended with 7 shutout innings.

Ray has been pretty good this year so far. He definitely seems like the kind of guy you wouldn't give up on because he had a kind of squiffy September call-up last year. Who would do that?

Now, you might say "Hey, this is probably a fluke and unsustainable", which it may well be, but if you say that out loud you probably are very lonely and need friends. It's cool, we're here for you, even though you can't take good things in the moment as they happen and don't worry too much.

Anyway, here's the part where I just list the scoring or other interesting plays in sequential order as befitting a recap of a Baseball game.

An inauspicious start, as Ender Inciarte seemed to cramp up (later revealed to be a hamstring injury, he is heading for a DL stint, per postgame tweets) and since Tomas was DHing, this being the American League and all, the new Left Fielder was.... Cliff Pennington, who actually acclimated himself well there and had an outfield assist throwing out Erick Aybar in the 6th, so a lack of drop-off there was nice. Also it was his birthday, so happy birthday! I might not call you Chad for a day.

Paul Goldschmidt, who is very very very very very good, hit a three-run homer off of Angels' starter Jered Weaver with two outs in the 3rd to make it 3-0 Diamondbacks. Goldy is in a race against time with Bryce Harper and Giancarlo Stanton in the various National League Triple Crown categories. By "various" I mean the three.

It became 4-0 on a hilarious play wherein the Angels tried to pick off Nick Ahmed on the basepaths. It did not go so well in terms of a ball being caught at the right time and Ahmed scored.

The Diamondbacks lead 5-0 when Yasmany Tomas hit his third homer of the year. This was an important lead, as Ray left after 7, as mentioned above. David Hernandez came in for the first time this millennium and Got two outs, but gave up a single. The Angels sent out a pinch hitter in the form of Matt Joyce, a lefty, and Hernandez was lifted for Oliver Perez. Joyce was removed for Chris Iannetta who hit a grounder to Jake Lamb to possibly end the inning, but Lamb airmailed the throw allowing runners on second and third with two outs. Perez then walked Erick Aybar, loaded the bases for Mike Trout, who is pretty good I hear.

Now, lifting Perez to face Trout makes sense. Lifting him for Addison Reed? Not so much, but who knows, maybe Reed can preserve the shutout and make Lamb's error not mean anything. Who could guess what would happen?

(If you guessed "Throw a wild pitch allowing a run to score, allowing a two-run double, and letting Albert Pujols take you to the track giving Diamondbacks fans bad acid flashbacks." you could have.)

However, the Diamondbacks put more on the board in the 9th. Cliff Pennington laid down a bunt that allowed Chris Owings to score from third, and A.J. Pollock hit a sacrifice fly to score Nick Ahmed, confirmed after a replay review as long as the John Galt speech, but less dumb.

Because someone had money on the Angels covering the spread, Reed stayed in for the 9th. That backfired as Reed was facing a not-intimidating part of the order for the Angels and got a 1-2-3 to secure the win.

There were people declaring certain comments COTN in the thread. However, they were not holding the recapper's conch shell and I don't like being told what to do, so I'm going with this one:

How many runs we need to get Tacos?

Yasmany as we need!

by AzRattler on Jun 15, 2015 | 8:35 PM reply  unrec (3)  actions

This "series" ends tomorrow, only to be picked up again in Phoenix. It's like Scrubs changing networks for its final season. Kinda. Sorta. Not really.