Diamondbacks 6, Rangers 0: Godley superb, secures series split

Zack Godley was the star of the show, but A.J. Pollock got the game started off on the right foot. Godley sat down the side in order via a strike out, a groundout, and a before most fans had even gotten to their seats yet, and then with two outs, Pollock smacked a home run, his 15 of a significantly shortened season, to get the Diamondbacks on the board early on. 1-0 Diamondbacks.

The Rangers would respond in the top of the second with what would turn out to be their biggest threat of the evening. After Godley got two quick outs, striking out Adrian Beltre and getting Ronald Guzman to ground out to short, Robinson Chirinos singled and Willie Calhoun drew a walk. That was as far as they got, though, after Carlos Tocci struck out to end the inning.

The Dbacks offense came back for more in the bottom of the third inning. Jon Jay singled on a line drive to start the inning. Paul Goldschmidt followed that up with a hard hit line drive that hit right off the bottom of the wall to bring him home. However, Pollock couldn’t keep it going and flew out to end the inning. 2-0 Diamondbacks

The bottom of the fourth was the killing blow. Steven Souza Jr. lead off with a walk. Eduardo Escobar flew out, but Descalso singled to move Souza to second. They both came home, thanks to a Nick Ahmed double. Two batters later, Jay brought him home for the third run of the evening. 5-0 Diamondbacks.

Meanwhile, Godley continued to excel. After the slight bump in the road in the second inning, he sat down the side in order in the third and fourth innings. He did give up a one out single in the fifth, but easily worked around it. Another 1-2-3 inning followed in the sixth. He gave up one last baserunners on a HBP in the seventh, but nothing came of it. His final line looked like: 7IP, 2 H, 0 R, 10 K, 1 BB, 1 HBP. Pretty incredible.

Arizona added one more run in the sixth, but it was just the cherry on top of a great game. TJ McFarland pitched the final two innnings. He wasn’t quite as dominate as Godley, but he held the Rangers scoreless and didn’t give them a chance to make things interesting. Final score, 6-0 Dbacks

One last thing of note. Zack Godley is the first pitcher since 1974 to strike out the first batter he faced in the seven innings he pitched. H/t to GuruB for bringing it to my attention and to Zack Buchanan of the Athletic for tweeting it out in the first place!

★★★ Godley, 29.0% WPA

★★ Nick Ahmed, 10.9% WPA

★ Paul Goldschmidt, 7.7% WPA

Very quiet GDT. Only 234 comments between 24 of you guys. All present were:

AZDovs11, AzDbackfanInDc, DORRITO, Dewberry, GuruB, Imstillhungry95, Jack Sommers, Jackwriter, Johnneu, Makakilo, Michael McDermott, MikeMono, MrMrrbi, Rockkstarr12, TylerO, aldma, asteroid, coldblueAZ, edbigghead, hotclaws, kilnborn, since_98, smartplays, suroeste

Comment of the day goes to Michael McD. I think we all are Mike.

I’m still trying to get used to the idea of Ahmed being a legit hitter now

Posted by Michael McDermott on Jul 31, 2018 | 7:52 PM reply rec (5) flag

Day off tomorrow. Join us again Thursday at 6:40 against the Giants.

Oh, and by the way. Dodgers lost. We’re back in first.