Arizona Diamondbacks 3, San Diego Padres 12: Tale of Two Halves

Through four innings it appeared Arizona was on the way to a series sweep. Then the San Diego offense arrived.

By Keegan Thompson@k_man5000 Apr 29, 2021, 2:14am EDT

Taylor Widener was scheduled to make the start tonight for the Arizona Diamondbacks, but injured his groin while catching fly balls during batting practice. Riley Smith was recalled to make the start along with Daulton Varsho to replace Kole Calhoun who also went to the IL.

Riley Smith was highly efficient through the first four innings and seemingly had the Diamondbacks in position to sweep this two game set from San Diego, but the Padres’ bats came alive for the second half of the game. Riley needed only 36 pitches to complete the first four innings allowing just a single in each of the first two innings, and a Fernando Tatis Jr. double in the third.

Matters were less rosy for the San Diego Padres starting pitcher, Ryan Weathers. Two pitches in and the Padres’ dugout was immediately concerned over possible injury because his velocity was down. He made his case to stay in the game but would only complete the first inning before being removed with left arm soreness. That gave a high powered Arizona offense essentially the entire game to do damage against the San Diego bullpen, and they wasted no time in doing so.

Nick Ramirez was the first up in relief for San Diego. Eduardo Escobar turned around the very first pitch from him for a double to the left field corner. Nick Ahmed doubled him home with two outs giving Arizona a one run lead, a great start with plenty of game to go. If I stopped this recap right here right now by telling you that San Diego would utilize a total of eight pitchers in this game, it would probably be safe to assume that Arizona put a hurting on their divisional opponent. That did not happen.

Wyatt Mathisen belted a solo home run off of ~~Barry Gibb~~ Aaron Northcraft with two outs in the fourth inning to extend the lead to two. David Peralta doubled to follow giving Ahmed another RBI opportunity, but he would go down swinging ending the frame. For whatever reason, that seemed to really enrage the San Diego offense to turn the tide in their favor.

I should use “enrage” lightly because the fifth inning was death by a thousand paper cuts for Arizona. Even though Riley Smith cruised through the first four innings, Jurickson Profar, Victor Caratini, and Ha-Seong Kim dinked three consecutive singles to right field off of him to begin the inning. The focused singles towards Josh Rojas culminated in a fielding error that allowed Profar and Caratini to score and tie the game. That would spell the end of the outing for Riley Smith. J.B. Bukauskas entered the game having allowed only one baserunner, a walk, in four appearances on the season, but would hardly fair better tonight. Tommy Pham, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Trent Grisham continued the consecutive single parade. Despite the six consecutive singles to begin the fifth inning, the score was still manageable at 3-to-2 in favor of San Diego. The seventh base hit in a row for San Diego was... not a single, but a bases clearing triple from Manny Machado. A quick blink and the score was now 6-to-2. Alex Young entered the inning and was finally able to put San Diego away.

Although Arizona lucked into getting to San Diego’s bullpen as early as the second inning and jumped out to the early 2-0 lead, once the dust settled from that fifth inning the Diamondbacks never got back into this contest. Nick Ahmed did drive in another run in the sixth inning on a floating single to centerfield, but that only made up ground on a solo home run from Jake Croenworth earlier in the inning.

Yoan Lopez got rocked again in the eighth inning giving up three hits and three runs. He now has a a 6.30 ERA on the season and might be on the verge on being sent down. San Diego scored their final runs off of Kevin Ginkle on a two run home run from Jorge Mateo resulting in the final score of 12-to-3. With that, Arizona now sits back at .500 with a 12-12 record.