Snake Pit Sim Season: 6/21 - Another Rough Outing

Sunday was Zac Gallen’s turn to have a rough outing. Arizona;s blossoming ace surrendered five runs on five hits and four walks against the Brewers. Things were not much better for the bullpen. Lefty stalwart, Andrew Chafin was also tuned up by the Milwaukee offense, allowing three more runs on a walk and three hits in only two-thirds of an inning of work.

Arizona’s offense did not help matters much. The season-long struggle to reliably score in a game once again was an issue. Starling Marte and Tim Locastro, sitting atop the order, were responsible for four of Arizona’s seven hits in the game. Two of those hits went for extra bases. One was a double by Locastro to lead off the Arizona fourth. The other was a solo home run by Marte in the sixth inning. Despite their combined base stealing savvy, Marte and Locastro were unable to apply extra pressure on the base paths. In fact, Marte was caught stealing in the third inning, an out which ended the inning.

The play of the game came early in this one. In the second inning, with bases loaded and two out, Lorenzo Cain lined a single to right. This forced home the winning run. On the same play, Justin Smoak attempted to score from second, only to be gunned down at the plate, with Carson Kelly fielding the short hop throw from Locastro in right.

Josh Lindblom was hardly electric on the mound. Yet, somehow he managed 6 ¹⁄₃ innings in which he allowed only four hits while striking out six. This was a case of Lindblom getting a number of comfortable outs. No one looked over-matched. Lindblom did not dot the corners. He simply got easy results. Balls in play were of the routine variety. No diving stops were needed. Outfielders could jog a few steps to catch fly balls to the outfield. It was simply that sort of day for Arizona hitters. Unfortunately, despite their solid record, they have been experiencing a few too many such days, putting a ton of pressure on their excellent pitching staff.

Final Score: MIL 8 - AZ 1

Player of the game honors went to Josh Lindblom. As stated above, he simply made the job of shutting down Arizona’s offense look easy.

Things don’t get any easier for Arizona tomorrow. Tomorrow night, the Diamondbacks play host to the Los Angeles Dodgers for game one of a three-game set. Luke Weaver will try to keep the Dodgers from scoring while Arizona tries to find its bats against the formidable Walker Buehler.