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Chase Anderson started the game off well. In the first, he only allowed a one out walk to Joe Panik. He did even better in the second, sitting the side down in order. It seemed like a promising start to my request of the team.
Five runs in the third inning later, it looked much less like the Dbacks would fulfill my dream of them not sucking. It started off by giving up a home run to Gregor Blanco. Not great, but not insurmountable. Then Anderson gave up a home run to Giants starter, Tim Hudson, practically the definition of sucking. Anderson wasn't done there. Angel Pagan singled, and was brought home by a Panik double. Panik was then brought home by a Matt Duffy single. 4-0 Giants. That was more than enough out of Anderson for the night, and Hale pulled him in favor of Silvino Bracho, in his major league debut. He came in and at least helped to put out the fire. With him on the mound, the first two outs of the inning were finally made. However, Bracho gave up an RBI double to Brandon Belt to score Duffy, and Hale replaced him with Matt Reynolds. That ended the inning, as Reynolds got Crawford to K for the third out, but plenty of damage was done. 5-0 Giants.
Meanwhile, Tim Hudson was hardly looking like a pitcher who is probably in the last month of his career. He got the first six Diamondbacks to make easy groundball outs, and then Yasmany Tomas struck out for the first out in the third inning and Owings hit a line out. Socrates Brito thoughtfully legged out an infield single, pinch hitting for Reynolds, in his first major league hit to break up the perfect game.
The Dbacks even threatened a bit in the fourth inning, but didn't do nearly as much damage as they could have. Hudson loaded the bases with only one out by giving up singles to Paul Goldschmidt, David Peralta, and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. He got out of it and only allowed one run, thanks to a David Peralta TOOTBLAN. Jake Lamb flew out to foul territory. That allowed Goldy to tag up and score. However, Peralta also tagged, went to third, and then tried to go home. That worked out about as well as you might imagine, and he was thrown out, ending the inning, and wasting the best opportunity the Dbacks had all night.
That was really it for both teams for the rest of the night. The Dbacks cut the lead down to only three, thanks to a Saltalamacchia home run, but the Giants got the run back thanks to a solo home of their own, off the bat of Panik. In the end, a bad start from Anderson, and the offense getting shut down by Hudson doomed the team from the start. Plenty of blame to go around, and the same questions staring us in the face for the offseason.
Source: FanGraphs
The Good: Jarrod Saltalamacchia, 7.6%
The Bad AND The Ugly: Chase Anderson, -27.8%
The Gameday Thread was probably about twice as busy as the game deserved, clocking in with 312 comments. GuruB lead the way with 44, NOIKF31 in second with 38, and myself making a long delayed return to the top three with 32. All present were:
AzRattler, Dbackguy, GuruB, I suppose I'm a Pessimist, Jim McLennan, JoeCB1991, Makakilo, MrMrrbi, NumberOneIanKennedyFan31, Oldenschoole, ford.williams.10, freeland1787, gamepass, hotclaws, imstillhungry95, noblevillain, onedotfive, piratedan7, shoewizard, since_98
Most of the conversation tonight was about the future of the team, which doesn't make for very good comedic fodder with the mental state of the 'Pit right now, so no CotN. Same two teams tomorrow at 6:40 Arizona Time. Be there!