Arizona Diamondbacks 10, Colorado Rockies 11: A Tale to Tell

Record: 53-45. Pace: 88-74. Change on 2017: -3.

The All Star break has come and gone and godless Dodgers secured themselves Mr. Machado. If you didn’t think things were real now, they sure as shit are and every game will count.

The “second half” begins for Ray and the Dbacks with a Blackmon single and a Arenado homer. I’ve not even sat down for a beer yet and I hate this game intensely. 0-2 Rocks

Beer 1: Hummingbird Haze by Borderlands

Finally sit down for a beer and my mood has improved only slightly as I see Peralta on with only one out. Pollack further improves my mood with a single of his own, but Souza’s K quenches that flame fairly quick. Apparently he was heckled after his K, F-that noise. He’s been out almost all year, which was further compounded by the team trying to bring him back too soon. Give him some slack.

Still in the 1st and the bases are juiced for Marte. Don’t know what’ll happen this at bat, but this game feels like it’ll be a barn burner. Not sure if my body is ready for their much beer. Marte!!!!!! Golfs the first pitch up the middle and we’re tied. God I love Marte. Guess I love Marquez too as he spikes a ball in the dirt to turn this tie in to a lead. Hell yea! 3-2 D-Backs. We’re in for a ride folks.

Beer 2: DC Mountain Dbl IPA by Arizona Wilderness

My second beer was just like Ray’s 2nd inning. Better. Mine had the benefit of being yet another product of a wildly good brewery. Whereas Ray thrives off the bottom of the Rocks lineup. Lots to love about Ray, but he’s still trying to find his sea legs after the stutter stop pattern of his season.

Scoring pants got discarded for our half of the 2nd as well. Guess it was way too much to hope for, but at least Ray keeps rounding in to form in the 3rd

Lamb does a thing! 4-2 off a clutch single into right helps bring dizzying vision of what this offense could do with everyone just playing to their career averages. Hope.

5-3 off another Marte RBI and I like this kind of party.

Beer 3: TimeWave Zero by Modern Times

Yuking it up at the bar with other Friday enthusiasts. Fun to get into a random conversation on the state of the Arizona brewing scene while watching a game. On that note, the state of Ray’s pitching is a bit rockier this inning (no pun intended) alowing a hard earned run in the 4th.

No rebuttal runs are forthcoming in our half of the 4th, but I can’t complain too much and the beers on tap are godsend.

Trevor Story ruins my palate with his 2nd bomb of the night. That bitter taste coursing through my mouth now is frustration at both Ray’s pitching and the Rockies unwillingness to go quietly in to the night. 5-5

Beer 4: Questionable Advice by Council Brewing Co

Still I see chinks in Marquez’s armor and still I wonder when we’ll blow this game wide open. 5 runs allowed by a starting pitcher isn’t anything to laugh about, but I swear we should have put up 7 or 8 on this guy by now.

Marte must have sensed my fervent typing as he crushes a triple to break the tie. 6-5 and I sense Marte ain’t done yet.

Ray is done though in the 6th. Not a great outing to say the least. What I Wouldn’t give to see last years Ray back again. Luckily Bracho halts my melancholy by cleaning up things in the 6th 6-5 Dbacks going in to the bottom of the frame.

Owings does and unOwings like thing in the 6th by getting on base. That bold strategy pays off as the Rocks new arm Rusin misses everything and Owings trots to second. Big inning off that big money bullpen coming over the horizon?????

The questionable pick-off throw to third a moment later delays that answer a bit as Owings scores handily off a muddled throw to third. I’ll take it and it’s 7-5.

Beer 5: Treevana IPA by Burgeon Beer Co.

Next pitcher up tells me that vaunted Rocks bullpen is in full on game-giveaway mode allowing another run: 8-5 Dbacks

Archie appears to be taking a page out of the Rocks book with his performance thus far this 7: men on the corners with no outs. Not good. At all.

The Bearded One continues to channel suck in its purest form: allowing a run off a hit and then walking in another run. Then a grand slam. Game over.....

Chafin keeps this fail train running full steam ahead,,,

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[Jim takes over] At this point, I had the following text message exchange with Turambar.

“I think I gotta stop”
“Sorry man”
“LOL”
“I’ve been expecting this text...”
“Not drunk. Just pissed off.”
“Not the only one.”
“I just reached a plateau of disgust.”

Yeah, it was kinda like that. The D-backs did threaten in both the eighth and ninth inning. They scored a run in the eighth, with David Peralta coming all the way round from second to score on a wild pitch, after his fourth hit of the night, and had men on first and second with two outs for Steven Souza. He popped up on the first pitch. They also had the go-ahead run at the plate with no outs in the ninth, and men on the corners, and the tying run was in scoring position with one out, but Arizona could only manage an Alex Avila sacrifice fly. The D-backs’ record when reaching double digits for runs scored dropped to 258-6.

I mean, if you’d told me our top three would go 9-for-14 with six runs scored, I’d have said there was a good chance of victory, even though that included Paul Goldschmidt going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. A.J. Pollock went 5-for-5 and Peralta 4-for-5, while Ketel Marte got three hits and drove in four runs. It’s important not to over-react to this kind of loss - though it’s hard not to. But it certainly is not the way we wanted to start the second half.

If sustained in the final numbers, Marte’s 55.4% would be the third-highest WP ever for a D-back hitter in a regulation loss, the highest since Kelly Johnson hit for the cycle in a July 2010 loss to the Giants (+59.9%). Present in the GDT were AzDbackfanInDc, DORRITO, DeadManG, GuruB, Jack Sommers, Jackwriter, Jim McLennan, Johnneu, Makakilo, Michael McDermott, Rockkstarr12, Sprankton, aldma, asteroid, coldblueAZ, edbigghead, gamepass, hotclaws, kilnborn, onedotfive, smartplays and suroeste. Most red was AzDbackfanInDc’s shameless whoring for recs, so I’ll go with kilnborn’s analysis of our numerical woes.

Here’s to our pitching being slightly more effect tomorrow night! Zack Godley starts for the D-backs, and we’re back to the regular Saturday night start times of 5:10pm.