Lost D-backs 4, Los Astros 10: Normal service has been resumed

Record: 78-70. Pace: 85-77. Change on 2017: -8.

It seems like forever since I made a pledge not consciously to watch a full D-backs game until they won consecutive contests. My logic was, if the team was going to play like a franchise 15 below .500, showing up out of contractual obligation, then I was going to watch in the same fashion. But, hey, they were in the thick of a September pennant race: surely they’d string two W’s together soon enough. Here we sit, game #149 in the book and I’m not going to be watching until game #152, at the very earliest. The last time the Arizona Diamondbacks won back-to-back games? #133-134, when they avoided a sweep at the hands of the Giants, then took the opener in LA. FIFTEEN game ago and counting.

I actually did bump into a few innings of this one, more by accident than design [I have not developed an allergy to the games, I just will not deliberately seek them out]. We went for dinner in the bar at Red Robin, and the game was on the TV there. I saw precious little to disavow me from the opinion - largely a result of the uninspired results over the last couple of weeks - that this team have basically given up. The D-backs now appear to be phoning it in, with all the enthusiasm usually reserved for billing-related calls to the customer service department at your cellphone company. It’s quite possible the only games I see the rest of the way will be the two I’m attending next weekend.

Remember the days when a certain someone on the SnakePit used regularly - and, by that, I mean in 87.3% of threads - to make the case for Zack Godley being a playoff-caliber starter? Good times. If that hypothesis ever had any credibility, it dies on the mound in Houston this evening, with Godley showing the poise on the mound of a drunken sailor, and walking six batters whule recording eleven outs. It took him one short of ninety pitches to get that far, and he ended up charged with five runs (four earned), on seven hits and those six walks, though he did K six. But it was a struggle of Sisyphean proportions, from the point he escaped with the bases loaded in the first, on a hit and two walks.

A third walk led off the second inning and, though Godley got a double-play to clean it up, a solo home-run gave the Astros a lead they would never relinquish, The third saw Zack go one better, walking the first TWO batters he faced, one of who would come around to score on a ground-out, then strand three more runners, including another walk. He then allowed four hits in the fourth, and his day was eventually done after Steven Souza managed to little league a single into a triple. This play accurately summed up the game as a whole, and was the key for us to pay the check at Red Robin. The photo below illustrates how I spent most of the rest of the contest.

Yes, it’s the time of the year when a quick trip to the supermarket becomes an hour-long diversion, entirely due to 40 minutes spent with Mrs. SnakePit browsing in the Halloween aisle. However, it does not appear from the box-score that I missed anything of real significance. Jimmie Sherfy looked pretty good for the first four outs recorded, but Torey Lovullo’s attempt to stretch him past that went a bit pear-shaped in the sixth. He allowed the first two batters to reach, then a Silvino Bracho error helped both men to score plus one of his own. Bracho allowed a further two runs in the seventh, before Yoan Lopez got the final four outs.

Offense? Not much to speak of. The team was perfecto’d the first time through the order, before getting their first base runner when A.J. Pollock took one to the ass, leading off the fourth. An Eduardo Escobar single followed, to put runners on the corners, and David Peralta brought Pollock home with a sacrifice fly. That made the score only 2-1 to Houston, so there was still a chance for Arizona. But eight of the next nine runs to cross home plate were for the Astros, interrupted only by Ketel Marte’s wall-scraper down the line in right, his 11th of the year. Escobar added a solo homer in the eighth, his seventh for us, and Marte an RBI double in the ninth. Ketel and Eduardo each had two of Arizona’s six hits.

All told, a thoroughly underwhelming evening, matters not helped by results elsewhere. The Dodgers murdered the Cardinals and the Rockies somehow contrived to be blanked by the Giants for the second day in a row. That combination put Los Angeles back on top of the NL West. Can’t trust the Rockies to do anything right, can we?

Present in the Gameday Thread were the following mad, impetuous fools: AZDovs11, AzDbackfanInDc, DBacksEurope, DORRITO, EphBoston, GuruB, Imstillhungry95, J he, Jack Sommers, Jackwriter, Jim McLennan, Makakilo, MrMrrbi, Rockkstarr12, coldblueAZ, edbigghead, hotclaws, kilnborn, onedotfive and suroeste. Comment of the thread to onedotfive:

To which, all I have to say is:

I will therefore be NOT watching tomorrow’s contest, though it promises potentially to be an interesting one, with Zack Greinke taking on Justin Verlander. I’m rather more excited by the prospect of our annual AzDbackfanInDc guest recap, which should be... a thing. :) It’s an 11:10 am first pitch, Arizona time.