Arizona Diamondbacks 3, Tampa Bay Rays 6: Quick Recap

I’m not here for a long time. I’m just here for a [brief period of] time. Blake will be around for the full recount of events later this evening. I wouldn’t need to use brackets or substitute use of the word “good” if the D’backs could have pulled out of this with victory, but here we are.

Taylor Clarke took his first MLB start today for Arizona against the Tampa Bay Rays Ryne Stanek, Jalen Beeks, Chaz Roe, and Diego Castillo. The kids tell me that means the Rays went with one of them fancy “opener” bullpen games, and it worked keeping Arizona to the tune of one measly run through seven innings. That was a result of a Nick Ahmed RBI double in the fourth to drive in Adam Jones.

Matters were much more fortunate for the Rays on offense once they made it past Taylor Clarke. He held Tampa to two runs over six innings, not walking a single batter on seven hits. Brandon Lowe tagged Clarke for a solo home run as the lead off batter in the bottom of the first for the quick 1-0 lead. Tampa answered Nick’s RBI double in the fourth on a sacrifice (sarcasm) GIDP in the bottom half of the frame to quickly retake the lead.

Once again, the back end of the Diamondbacks bullpen put forth their best effort to put the game outside the realm of competition. Tonight’s victim was Yoshihisa Hirano who allowed an additional three runs to score ballooning his ERA to 5.54 on the season. Tampa scratched across a two out insurance run in the bottom of the eighth courtesy of Matt Andriese for the 6-3 victory, but not before Wilmer Flores and Carson Kelly hit a pair of solo home runs in the top of the ninth.