FanPost

Arizona Diamondbacks 0, Oakland Athletics 3: Offensive woes keep hurting us

Andrew Villa-USA TODAY Sports

Record: 26-25. Pace: 83-79, Change on 2017: -5.

Game over in just 2 hours and 20 minutes. Starting pitcher Daniel Mengden for the A's delivered a complete game and a shutout of our offense, who could get only 2 hits. Today's runs all came from solo homers, each D-Backs pitcher giving up one today. So, yeah, I got my quick game and, yeah, we all got to see our toothless offense again.

Today we had a promising matchup with RHP Daniel Mengden vs RHP Clay Buchholz. When watching these baseball games on my phone or laptop, I always have fun in seeing last names or even physical aspects that look "European". Well, in that aspect, this matchup was a total success. On the one hand we had a young, perhaps promising pitcher, that looks like your average cocky French gendarme from the 1920s. He probably does fencing as well, although most American viewers will probably have thought they were looking at the reincarnation of former A's pitcher Rollie Fingers (he really looks a lot like him).

On the other hand we had our 5th starter (or 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, ..., lost the exact count), who has the last name of many German towns, which literally means "wooden book". He was born in a place (Nederland, Texas) that was founded by Dutch immigrants, and carries the name of the country I was born in. As for the stats: Mengden had a 3.30 ERA but a 1.46 ERA in May and came off a good performance against the Blue Jays where he allowed just 2 hits and no runs in 7 innings. Our Buchholz (wow, you guys pronounce it as "bokols") had a decent debut against the Mets.

So much for the smart talk. Let's take a look at the lineups (not presented by your Chevy Valley dealer but by your continental European pal). Today's lineup consisted of Peralta (LF), Goldy (DH), Lamb (3B), Descalso (1B), Marte (2B), Brito (RF), Avila (C), Ahmed (SS), Dyson (CF). The A's put in Joyce (LF), Semien (SS), Lowrie (DH), Olson (1B), Chapman (3B), Canha (RF), Fowler (CF), Pinder (2B), Maxwell (C). Of our boys, only Dyson had batted before against Mengden, a 0.333 in 3 AB. Marte had a glimpse of Mengden as well: 0.000 in 2 AB (that average is no surprise).

After a great 7-1 win yesterday, all of a sudden didn't we have pretty good hopes of seeing a win again?

The first inning was a quick one, but we would soon find out that this was going to be the norm. In the top of the first Peralta, Goldy and Lamb all get out on weak contact. In the bottom of the first, the first pitch from Buchholz is a 90mph fastball almost over the middle... and Joyce hits a homer over Brito in right field to put up the first run of the match: 1-0. After that, 2 flyouts and a strikeout to end the inning.

Second inning, grounder for Descalso, flyout for Marte and Brito gets his first hit of the season on the first pitch he sees. Alex "keep on slumping" Avila, however, is not able to make more of it and Mengden (he also has a roaring 20s dance before his delivery) finishes the top second with just 20 pitches in total. Buchholz does his part with a flyout, his second strikeout and another flyout to end the second.

In the third inning Ahmed reaches first when rookie Fowler drops the ball on his flyout. Dyson bunts him over to second, and then Peralta grounds out but Ahmed reaches third. Goldy is up to bring home the tying run but strikes out on a high and wide fastball. In the bottom of the third Buchholz keeps on mixing the pitches to get a grounder and 2 flyouts to end the third with a total of 35 pitches.

Top of the fourth and Mengden continues to induce weak contact; grounders from Lamb and Descalso, while Marte strikes out. So far, he has thrown just 38 pitches. 31 for strikes. Buchholz keeps up the pace with Mengden with a groundout and two flyouts, despite all the cowbells going crazy at full count for Lowrie.

In the fifth Mengden gets Brito and Avila to flyout, while Ahmed grounds out. By now I start to think: did we really drive in seven runs yesterday? Talking about offensive woes: Mengden finishes this inning with a total of only 48 pitches. We have played barely more than an hour when Buchholz starts the bottom of the fifth. By now, he definitely has to work much more for his outs, but gets two grounders and a fly out to end the inning with 71 pitches.

Dyson pops out to start the sixth, but our hopes grow after a DBacks batter finally delivers a fight: Peralta reaches first on a base hit to right field and Goldy is up again. But our DH for today strikes out for the second time. Peralta is then tagged out at second on a grounder from Lamb to end the inning, on what otherwise would have been a double play. At least Mengden had to work a bit more, ending with 65 pitches.

In the home half, Pinder gets a double off a pitch straight down the middle that might very well have been a homerun. Maxwell pops out, but a grounder from Joyce gets Pinder to third. On his 81st pitch of the game Buchholz gets a major strikeout off Semien to end the threat. That would be it for Clay. Despite giving up a homer on his first pitch, he settled down afterwards, mixing up pretty well and did not allow any more damage.

Mengden gets Descalso to start the seventh with a strikeout, then grounders for Marte and Brito. Jorge De La Rosa enters for the bottom of the seventh and is not able to keep it close: he gives up a homerun to Olson that flies out over Dyson in center field. He also gives up a walk but a total of 23 pitches is enough to keep the damage limited to 2-0.

Top eighth, two hours into the game and it really smells like a complete game and a shutout for Mengden. He is only at 77 pitches with 61 strikes, only two hits allowed and the bottom half of our lineup coming up. Of course Avila cannot get on base, grounding out to first, Ahmed flies to center field, and is retired on a great catch by Fowler, while Dyson pops out. Salas enters the eighth and immediately sends down a first pitch through the middle that Pinder sends out for the third homerun of the game: 3-0. A flyout, grounder, double (Semien) and another flyout end the inning.

Top of the 9th and Mengden is ready for his complete game and shutout. Peralta grounds out, Goldschmidt strikes out again and after Lamb flies out, the game is over after just 102 pitches by the A's starting pitcher. Hats off. As far as what concerns us, let us hope this will not be the beginning of another 7 game losing streak.

I know you guys like this graph, so here you go. That the losing pitcher for the Diamondbacks was our BEST player by Win Probability, probably tells you all you need to know about this game.

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[Click for details, at Fangraphs.com]
Operation Urgent Fury: Clay Buchholz, +17.5%
The Vietnam War: Paul Goldschmidt, -11.4%

Let me hand out the following stars:

★ Clay Buchholz

Just like in the game itself, not much going on today in the gameday thread. The holiday weekend likely didn't helped, but neither did falling behind from the first pitch thrown by Arizona. Those present were: AzDbackfanInDc, BobDolio, DBacksEurope, DeadManG, GoldyHitAnotherOne, GuruB, Jackwriter, Jim McLennan, Makakilo, Michael McDermott, MikeMono, MrMrrbi, Renin, Xerostomia, hotclaws, lildbackfan21x, onedotfive, shoewizard and smartplays. Comment of the day goes to shoewizard who, I think, expressed pretty well everyone's thoughts when JDLR gave up another run:

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Zack Greinke takes the mound for the D-backs, who'll get another shot at clinching the series win, which would be something of a comfort to end this road-trip of epic suck.