Arizona Diamondbacks Game Preview, #124: Meltdown averted

Braden Shipley RHP, 2-2, 4.30

Luis Perdomo RHP, 5-7, 6.68

Let's start, as we should, with Robbie Ray's outing. Seven innings of one-hit ball, with one walk and 13 strikeouts. It has been almost eight years to the day since any Diamondback pitcher has fanned as many batters in a game. August 22, 2008 was the last time, when Randy Johnson did so against the Marlins. What's perhaps more remarkable is, that was the thirty-fifth time the Big Unit had 13+ K's for us. Curt Schilling reached the mark eight times. Everyone else who has ever pitched for the Diamondbacks combined? Twice. Ray last night, and Brandon Webb in April 2007.

The outing also gave Ray a Game Score of 83, the highest by a Diamondback for more than two seasons. The last appearances as good was Josh Collmenter's imperfect game in May 2014, when he tossed a complete-game shutout and faced the minimum 27 batters. Of course, high strikeout games tend to be counter-productive in terms of going deep, as you don't get those one- or two-pitch outs. In Colly's outing, 10 of the 27 batters he faced ended their PA in fewer than three pitches. Last night, Ray managed that efficiency for only three of the 24 Padres to come to the plate against him.

Then there was Daniel Hudson's epic escape in the eighth, inheriting a bases-loaded jam with nobody out in a one-run game, and escaping it on a trio of infield pop-ups. That was, as suspected, the greatest relief outing by Win Probability in franchise history, at +55.1%. Ironic, therefore, it didn't even count as a save, just a hold, because it wasn't the ninth inning. More proof of the "save" statistic's awfulness. I popped over to Gaslamp Ball to see what their Gameday Thread thought. Not much apparently, but then, they only had 14 comments... Anyway, this season has now given Arizona three of their top ten relief performances by WP. Here's the list.