Snake Pit Sim Season: 5/27 - Those Pesky Padres

Mike Leake had another rough outing, this one coming against the division rival Padres. However, despite his struggles, the loss was not entirely on him. Arizona’s offense did not exactly help things by being held scoreless (and mostly hitless) through the front eight innings.

The first inning is really all one needs to know in order to get a grip on how this game went. The Diamondbacks did manage to get one of their three hits off of San Diego starter, MacKenzie Gore in the first. Unfortunately, Gore did not walk anyone and the other two hits came in the second and fifth innings.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the Padres subjected Mike Leake to death by a thousand paper cuts. Tommy Pham started things off by flying out to Starling Marte in straight-away center field. Wil Myers followed with a groundball single past third. He was followed by Fernando Tatis, Jr. who grounded one through the 5.5 hole. That brought up Manny Machado who grounded a ball back through the box into center field, scoring Myers. Eric Hosmer worked the count ful on eight pitches before grounding the ball back to Leake who elected to get the sure out at first, allowing Tatis (who was running on the play) to coast into third. The nvery next pitch was a line drive by Yasiel Puig which went for a double. Both Tatis and Hosmer scored on the play, Hosmer beating the throw home from Peralta by a good four feet. Leake then got Greg Garcia to hit a lazy fly just behind third which Escobar managed to catch for out number three.

The Padres scored again in the second on a solo shot off the bat of Austin Hedges which just squeaked over the fence in left. Then, in the third inning, the Padres were at it again, starting the offensive outburst off with a triple that rolled into the corner. That was followed by a walk and three singles. Before the inning was over, the Padres were up six and Mike Leake was already riding the pine.

Whereas Mike Leake could not buy an out to save his sol. MacKenzie Gore could seemingly do no wrong. When the Diamondbacks put good wood on a ball, it went foul. When they put the ball in play, it was a routine out, requiring little athletic ability from the defense. With two outs in the sixth inning, Austin Hedges motioned to the dugout and joined his battery mate on the mound. Less than a minute later, Gore was headed into the tunnel with a trainer while Michael Baez started warming up. As of the end of the game, there is still no word on Gore’s condition or what specifically was wrong. Baez pitched the final out of the sixth and then also pitched scoreless innings in the seventh and eighth innings, despite walking three batters between those two frames.

The Diamondbacks saved all of their scoring for the ninth inning, long after it was too late. With Jacob Nix pitching in mop-up duty, the Diamondbacks got singles off the bats of Eduardo Escobar and Josh Rojas. They were both brought home when Nix surrendered a home run to Nick Ahmed. That blast made Ahmed 2-for-3 with a walk and 3 RBI on the evening. Perhaps, Ahmed’s bat is starting to come around again. That was the last of the scoring for Arizona. Vogt followed Ahmed’s home run with a single, which brought an end to Nix’s night. Kirby Yates came out and slammed the door shut.

Final Score: AZ 3 - SD 7

The player of the game was MacKenzie Gore. Hopefully, whatever injury took Gore out of the game is not serious. The talented two-way lefty was cruising along when he had to leave the game. There just might be a bright future for that young man.

The two teams will play the rubber game of the series tomorrow. Robbie Ray will look to continue his solid 2020 season while facing off against Garrett Richards.