Giants rout Diamondbacks 10 to 4

Robbie Ray had a streak of five straight starts of six innings or more snapped as he lasted just 4 inefficient innings. His final line was 4 IP, 6 Hits, 4 Runs, 3 Walks, 5 K’s and a homer. He threw 83 pitches, 56 for strikes. In fact he was ahead in many counts all day, but just couldn’t put guys away.

Robbie got out of trouble in the 1st inning thanks to a bad send of Brandon Belt on a two out double by Buster Posey. A good relay from Adam Jones to Christian Walker to Carson Kelly nailed Belt by 5 feet.

But Kevin Pillar, who hit two homers in the series in Chase Field last week, hit a two run homer off Robbie in the 2nd. The pitch was down, but over the center of the plate, and Robbie’s velocity was once again in the low 90’s. Robbie gave up two more in the 3rd, and you could hear the frustration from the booth as the inning was building. After getting ahead of Belt 0-2, he gave up a double. Then he walked Tyler Austin. He kept burying his slider in the dirt and it never really threatened the strike zone when he needed it. It was being described as a “non competitive pitch”. Buster posey singled to load the bases and one out later, Kevin Pillar got him again, this time with a jam shot to left to score two more. Pillar had 4 hits and 5 RBI on the day. He is not 15 for 49 .306, with 3 HR and 11 RBI vs. the DBacks this year. Considering he came into the game with a 71 OPS+, they might want to try pitching him differently going forward.

Ray worked a scoreless 4th, but the damage was done and his day ended when he was lifted for a pinch hitter, (Zack Greinke of course) in the 5th inning.

Meanwhile Madison Bumgarner went into cruise mode early. He held the DBacks hitless through the first three innings on just 33 pitches. Tim Locastro broke up the no hitter with a one out single in the 4th, and with two outs Eduardo Escobar singled as well. But home plate umpire Mike Muchlinksi rang up Christian Walker on a cutter that looked well off the plate. That and a called strike three against Carson Kelly the previous inning were precursors to later events. Here are the two pitches:

Kelly in the 3rd:

Walker in the 4th:

Nick Ahmed lead off with a triple to right to start the 5th inning

Then Carson Kelly got rung up again on virtually the same pitch as the 3rd inning, and Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo had enough. Barking from the dugout, he must have said the magic words, as the ump gave him the ol heave ho. Torey bounced out of the dugout and was as animated and angry as I remember seeing him. He kept holding his index fingers up six inches apart and the inference was clear. Multiple expletives were picked up on the field mics as well. In truth, both pitches to Kelly looked like they caught the corner on both T.V. and on game day. But Robbie Ray might not have been getting the same calls.

Ildemaro Vargas hit a sac fly to score Ahmed . That was the lone run Bumganer allowed today. In all Madbum threw 7 sterling innings, allowing just 4 hits, the one run, didn’t walk a batter, and struck out 9. It was the 3rd straight game the Giants starting pitcher stymied the DBacks offense.

Archie Bradley worked two scoreless innings despite allowing some hard contact. Unfortunately Matt Andriese had his worst outing in a quite a while. Starting the 7th inning the Giants went Walk-Single-Walk-Single-Single, and two runs had scored just like that. Andriese threw 15 pitches and six for strikes, three of those strikes being the singles he allowed. He was relieved by TJ McFarland, who promptly allowed a double to Mike Yastrzemski, a sac fly, and a single, bringing in four more runs. The six run inning made it 10-1. I guess I should thank Andriese and T.J. for allowing me to get an early start on this recap.

The Dbacks managed to plate three in the top of the 8th off the Giants bullpen, but all that did was allow this came to cause a little less damage to their run differential, and gave us the final score of 10-4.

Ketel Marte is suddenly in a slump, going 1 for 14 the last three games. As highlighted by Diamondhacks previously, he suddenly looks out of sorts and out of time. Thankfully tomorrow is an off day before they face the Dodgers for a two game series in L.A.

Today’s loss drops them back to .500 and their position in the Wild Card will not improve.

This game had as little drama as the below chart portrays:

Fangraphs Box Score

WPA Leaders: Archie Bradley + .032, Nick Ahmed + .028

WPA Arsonists: Robbie Ray -.236,, Carson Kelly -.065, Christian Walker -.063,

Ketel Marte -.059, Matt Andriese -.048

COTN fittingly came by Michael McDermott, quoting a tweet that contained and exchange with Zack Greinke, who was named to his 6th all star team today: