Snake Pit Sim Season: 4/3

FINAL SCORE: AZ 2 - CHC 9

It was an ugly day for the Diamondbacks in Chicago, both figuratively and in experience. After seven games in the comfort of Chase Field, the Diamondbacks traveled to the Windy City to take on the Cubs. The weather was abysmal, a stark reminder as to why the season spilling over into December simply is not a good idea. It was a right balmy 36 degrees with rain at game time. Get out the suntan oil!

Given some real life obligations that popped up today, I am not going to regale you all with the blow-by-blow details of this massacre. Suffice to say, the Cubs put a hurting on the Diamondbacks, taking game one of the series 9-2. Zac Gallen got two outs in the fifth before being lifter for Merrill Kelly. Gallen surrendered three runs, only two of which were earned. As is not uncommon for the sim it seems, there was indeed a score on a Gallen wild pitch.

Merrill Kelly only needed one pitch to clean up Gallen’s mess in the fifth. He then gave the Diamondbacks two more scoreless innings of work. Unfortunately, combined to allow six runs in the eighth inning alone. Part of this was due in part to Ahmed committing his third error of the season, this one a fielding error. (I’m beginning to wonder if the stat gurus who programmed Ahmed have watched him play.)

The only scoring for the Diamondbacks came via a two-run home run by Escobar in the fourth inning. In the ninth inning alone, the Diamondbacks saw 30 pitches and had runners at second and third, but they were unable to do anything to push runners across the plate.

Currently, the Cubs have the best offense in baseball at the moment, having scored the most runs and also sporting the highest batting average. That is going to change. The Cubs as a team came into this game batting over .300. Tomorrow, the Diamondbacks will send Luke Weaver to the mound to take on Jose Quintana. Hopefully things go better with the lefty on the mound for Chicago.