Diamondbacks 2, Phillies 5: Comedy of Errors

Zach Greinke did not have his best stuff to start the game tonight. In the first inning, he gave up a lead off single to Cesar Hernandez and a walk to Rhys Hoskins before recording an out. A flyout from Nick Williams and a lineout from Carlos Santana got two quick outs, but Asdrubal Cabrera drew the second walk of the inning to load the bases. The second mound visit of the inning resulted in Odubel Herrera flying out the first pitch to finally end the inning before any real damage was done.

Greinke’s early struggles continued in the second inning. After getting Maikel Franco to ground out, third to first, and recording a strike out of Jorge Alfaro. However, he walked Phillies starter Nick Pivetta and Hernandez to put two on and two out before retiring Hoskins on a ground out to again end the inning with no score.

In the third, he wasn’t quite as lucky. He gave up his customary solo home run to Nick Williams on the first pitch of the first inning. He then retired the next three batters in order, ending the inning. 1-0 Phillies.

Meanwhile, the Dbacks offense wasn’t putting up a lot of a fight. Paul Goldschmidt got a one-out single in the bottom of the first, but nothing came off it. Ketel Marte also got a one out single in the second, but Nick Ahmed erased both Marte and himself with an inning ending double play. In the third, they mixed things up a bit. This time, David Peralta tried getting the single with two outs, but Goldschimdt popped out to first baseman Carlos Santana in foul territory to make sure nothing came of that either.

In the fourth inning, they got really crazy. AJ Pollock and Eduardo Escobar both got singles to lead off the inning. The result was the same, though, as Steven Souza Jr. grounded into a double play and Marte flew out, again ending the inning with the Phillies still leading by one.

After the solo home, Greinke found his stride. He sat down the side in order in the third, fourth and fifth innings. He gave up a one out single in the sixth, but technically still faced the minimum, as he got Herrera to fly out and Jeff Mathis picked the runner off to end the inning. He ended his night sitting down the side again in the seventh, his fourth time on the night. Another fantastic performance from our ace

He handed the ball off to Jake Diekman in the eighth inning and that was a mistake. All Cesar Hernandez wanted was to bunt for a base hit. Just wanted first base. That’s it, nothing more. Instead, Diekman fielded the ball, took his damn sweet time to throw the ball, then tried to make up for lost time by firing the throw to first, launching it past Goldschmidt and into right field. Souza recovered the ball and tried to throw Hernandez out at third, but somehow threw the ball about six feet over the head of the third baseman, which I didn’t even think was possible if your name wasn’t Geraldo Parra. Hernandez easily ran home to complete the Little League homer. 2-0 Phillies, still no outs.

Diekman still pitching, he gave up a walk to Hoskins, a single to Williams, and a walk to Santana to load the bases. Cabrera doubled to center field, scoring Hoskins and Williams, and sending Santana to third. Diekman finally got an out by getting Herrera to ground out back to the mound. Thankfully, Diekman managed to not throw the ball into the outfield this time. That was the end of the road for him, however, as Ziegler was brought in to Zielgle is way out of it.

Ziegler looked like he was going to send the Dbacks back into the dugout without any more damage after getting the first batter he faced hit an easy pop up to Goldschmidt about three quarters of the way between home and first. However, the ground ball giveth and the groundball taketh away, and a ground ball off the bat of Alfaro made it into the outfield for a single, bringing home Santana for the fourth run in the inning. Andrew Knapp pinch hit for the Phillies’ reliever, and finally ended the inning, grounding out to Goldy for the third out. 5-0 Phillies

Arizona did try to respond in the bottom of the inning. Mathis singled to lead off the inning, but Descalso, pinch hitting for Ziegler, struck out for the inning’s first out. Peralta hit a single of his own to put two on for Goldschmidt, and he delivered. He hit a long double off the center field wall. Unfortunately, only Mathis was able to score, as it bounced straight back to the center fielder, who was able to get the ball back in in time to hold Peralta at third. Pollock brought home Peralta in the next at bat, however, as he hit a ground ball that the Phil’s third baseman wasn’t able to field cleanly, allowing both runners to advance, and Pollock to reach. The rally ended there, though, as Escobar grounded into a double play, something of a theme tonight, to end the threat. 5-2 Phillies

And that was the end of the game, essentially. Both teams went quietly in the ninth, as the Phillies secured the win to even up the series

So I think I might have found the problem. Zach Grienke had a WPA of 29.1 and Pollock and one of 10.5%. However, they were the only two that had meaningful positive WPAs, with Diekman, Marte, Souza, Escobar, and Ahmed all having double digit negative WPAs. That might have something to do with why we didn’t win? IDK...

512 comments in the GDT, and while I haven’t read any of it, since I was at work for the game @I’m sure it was happy, and full of rainbows, flowers, and sunshine@. DC made up almost half the comments with 184, and no one else even broke forty. All present were:

Andrew Chrun, AzDbackfanInDc, AzRattler, BobDolio, DORRITO, Gilbertsportsfan, GuruB, Husk, Jack Sommers, Jackwriter, Jim McLennan, Johnneu, Justin27, Keegan Thompson, Makakilo, Michael McDermott, MikeMono, MrMrrbi, Rockkstarr12, ShirtOffYourBack, SongBird, UofALifer, West Valley Devil, aldma, asteroid, coldblueAZ, edbigghead, onedotfive, smartplays, suroeste

Day game tomorrow with Patrick Corbin on the mound, trying to secure our first home series victory since... I want to say June 13th? I’ll be at the ball park. Maybe I’ll see some of you there!