2021 Game of the Year: Nominees and ballot

It wasn’t the best of Diamondbacks seasons, to put it mildly. But one of the joys of baseball is, your team is still almost guaranteed to win fifty times a year, a figure which would be cause for delight in any other sport. [Let’s gloss over the 110 losses, for the purpose of this article!] And so, here are the candidates nominated in the thread earlier this week. There seemed an adequate consensus to consider the two x 7-inning games against the Braves as a single entity. After all, if each contest only “counted” as a partial game for no-hitter purposes, who are we to argue with Rob Manfred? :)

Below, you’ll find the five candidates. As before, links go to the appropriate SnakePit recap. Amusingly, while the lockout has led to the scrubbing of the MLB.com Film Room, all the game highlight videos are still perfectly well accessible on MLB’s YouTube Channel...

April 21: tied with 3-run 9th, won in 10 vs. Cincinnati

Keegan Thompson: “I’m gonna nominate the April 21st against the Reds. You can tell that is a game I enjoyed just by skimming the recap. I believe I gave a radio interview on the team defending them before the wheels fell off completely. And they were really good in that span, far from unwatchable. I’m a sucker for late inning comebacks especially when the offense is non-existent for 7+ innings.”

April 25: double-header vs. Atlanta + day game guest recap

DBacksEurope: ”Instead of just one game I’d take the combined games against ATL. They were played on the same day and two combined shutouts of the future WS Champions is pretty remarkable.”

July 30: 6-5 vs. LAD (10 inn, walk-off)

Jim McLennan: “Victories over the Dodgers were hard to come by this year - just three in nineteen attempts. Arizona jumped out to a 5-2 lead after six, but the bullpen let Los Angeles tie the game up after eight. But Matt Peacock stranded the Manfred Man in the 10th, and Asdrubal Cabrera singled home Daulton Varsho for the win. Walking off LA never gets old, and bear in mind, the Dodgers lost the division by one game... Hellishly ugly uniforms though!”

August 13: Varsho walk-off vs. San Diego

Jack Sommers: “I nominate August 13th walk-off. It was great to see Varsho have the walk-off homer, Madbum pitched really well and it was wonderful to help bury the Padres. Glimpse of a hopeful future?”

August 14: Tyler Gilbert no-hitter vs. San Diego

Michael McDermott: “Still going for Gilbert no hitter game. Jumped Musgrove early for 5 runs in the 1st.”

For non-personal categories like this, I think there’s probably much less chance of ballot-stuffing, so I’m not going to limit voters to SnakePit members. We’ll get back to that with the Rookie of the Year category next week! So, watch the recaps above, make your decision, and here’s a regular poll. Feel free to explain yourself in the comments.