Diamondbacks 8, Rockies 4: Old Vogt’s Home

Record: 15-13, 87 Win Pace, Currently in 4th place in NL West, 2 Games back of the Giants, 4th place in the Wild Card, 1 game back

Merrill Kelly pitched his 3rd straight good game, getting into the 6th inning and allowing just two runs. Pavin Smith hit a long two run homer in the 5th and the offense exploded for four runs in the 8th, highlighted by a Stephen Vogt triple breaking a 4-4 tie, sealing the series win for the Diamondbacks against the Rockies.

T-1 Merrill Kelly pitching. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Raimel Tapia lead off with an infield hit. Garrett Hampson bunted him over to 2^nd and Trevor Story struck out. With first base open Kelly worked carefully to Ryan McMahon walking him, and then caught Matt Adams looking to end the threat with 16 pitches thrown.

B-1, Chi Chi Gonzalez pitching. Pavin Smith reached on a throwing error by second baseman Alan Trejo . Josh VanMeter and Eduardo Escobor both flew out to deep center. David Peralta chopped a ball over the head of fisrt baseman Matt Adams, but Trejo got to the ball and threw out Smith trying to advance to 3^rd. Bob Brenly mentioned on the broadcast Smith failed to pick up his base coach rounding second

T-2 3 up 3 down inning for Kelly, featuring a really nice play by VanMeter who was shifted left of the bag.

B-2; Stephen Vogt walked to leadoff the inning and one out later Daulton Varsho hit into a force out 4-3. That turned out well, as the speedy Varsho scored on a double into the left field corner by Nick Heath, giving the D-backs a 1-0 lead.

T-3: Pitcher Chi Chi Gonzalez singled into right to start the inning. Tapia flew out to left. Garrett Hampson struck out on 6 pitches and then Trevor Story homered on the 7^th pitch of his at bat on a curve that stayed up just enough, giving the Rockies a 2-1 lead. Perhaps the long at bats had caused the mistake pitch as Kelly was breathing a little heavier and just did not turn over the curve enough.

B-3: 3 up 3 down. Tapia a nice diving play to rob Escobar of a Texas Leaguer ended the inning.

T-4 : A couple of singles from the bottom of the Rockies lineup allowed them to clear the pitcher’s spot in the order, but no damage was done in the inning.

B-4 : Another 3 up 3 down for Dbacks hitters

T-5: Tapia leadoff AGAIN with a base hit, this time a groundball into right. He stole 2^nd and after Hampson struck out Story was intentionally walked. Preferring to have Kelly face the left hand batter Ryan McMahon worked out as he flew out to center. He then got Matt Adams to fly out to center as well to end the thread. This is a case where a manager’s move worked out but we probably don’t remember it as much as the ones that don’t.

B-5: Varsho lead of the 5^th with a line drive single to center. Two outs later Pavin Smith had a very good at bat getting ahead, and then did this with the 3-1 cutter that didn’t cut.

It was a great moment for Smith, who wasn’t having a great game up to that point. That gave the D-backs a 3-2 lead but they weren’t done yet. VanMeter walked and then Eduardo Escobar worked a long 8 pitch at bat finally driving a ball to the wall in the left field gap scoring VanMeter and driving Gonzalez from the game. Ben Bowden came in to relieve and got Peralta to fly out.

T-6: Kelly got two quick groundball outs to short, and should have been out of the inning, but Escobar booted a routine grounder for an E-5 keeping the inning alive. Pinch Hitter C.J. Cron hit the first pitch he saw through the hole into left giving the Rockies two on with two out and D-backs killer Raimel Tapia coming up. Torey Lovullo decided to go to the pen, bringing in the lefty Alex Young, who got Tapia to fly out to left. Again pushing the right button at the right time.

Kelly’s final line was 5.2IP, 7H, 2ER, 2 BB, 6K, and the one HR to Story. He threw 85 pitches, 63 for strikes, attacking the zone all day. He only made the one big mistake to Story and overall pitched a really good game, lowering his ERA to 5.79 in the process.

B-6: Tyler Kinely came in for Colorado and struck out Vogt and Rojas, and got Varsho to fly out to left.

T-7: Kevin Ginkel pitched 7th. He got two quick outs, but then walked McMahon allowing the tying run to come to the plate in big Matt Adams. Adams singled into left past a diving Rojas. It was good pitch, 96 off the plate, but Adams with his long reach was able to cover it and drive it the other way. Ginkel got out of it though on the very next pitch when Yonathan Daza grounded out to Escobar 5-4.

Through this point the game Colorado was 0-8 W/RISP and had left 10 runners on base.

B-7: Tyler Kinley worked another 1-2-3 inning. You really didn’t want to see the Rockies bullpen shut down the D-backs offense like this considering how the Arizona bullpen has been going lately.

T-8: Chris Devenski came in to pitch the 8th, his second outing since being reactivated from the restricted list. Elias Diaz greeted him by roping a 2-0, center cut fastball off the wall in left for a leadoff double. He moved up to 3rd on a long fly out to center off the bat of Trejo. Devenski struck out Charlie Blackmon on three pitches, bringing that man, Tapia to the plate again. And wouldn’t you know it, he dunked in another hit to left, fighting off a fastball that was up and in. That drove in in Diaz, making the score 4-3. Tapia then stole 2nd , and came around to score when a seeing eye groundball from Garret Hampson got through the hole up the middle, tying the game 4-4. With the count 0-2 to Story a changeup ran up and in hitting Story on the index finger. It looked like a check swing and the ump called it a foul tip, but on review it was ruled a HBP. Storey ran the bases but came out of the game in the next half.

Devenski finally struck out McMahon on the 8th pitch of the at bat, but the save was blown. It was Chris’s 2nd BS of the year, the other also coming against Colorado.

B-8: Rockies closer Daniel Bard, who had been struggling lately got the 8th inning in a tie game. As great a story as he was last year, this year’s script has been quite different. VanMeter drew a leadoff walk. One out later David Peralta singled on a groundball into right bringing up Vogt with the go ahead run on second. Vogt roped a line drive into the right field corner for a triple breaking the tie and scoring two. It was the 500th hit of his career. Josh Rojas just missed homering for the 4th straight game, settling for a double off the wall in left to drive in Vogt. Varsho followed that by driving a ball off the centerfield wall for another double scoring one more and making the score 8-4.

With Stefan Crichton pitching, Eduardo Escobar made his second error of the day. This time it was on a high popup on the field that he simply dropped. You almost never see an infield drop on that kind of ball unless it’s wind blown, which obviously was not the case here. Varsho picked him up by robbing a base hit off a sinking liner with a nice half dive half slide catch. Diaz knocked a single into left giving the Rockies 1st and 2nd with one out. A strikeout and a 5-4 groundout to Escobar ended the game and it was all smiles as the team slapped hands before heading out on

Quite the see saw WPA Graph from the Fangraphs Box Score

Pavin Smith. +.304, Stephen Vogt +.290 had the biggest blows of the game. Chris Devenski -.260 WPA had the roughest day for the Snakes, but it all worked out.

Roll Call: No Sedona Red Comments Today

Off Day tomorrow. They head out on the road to play three in Miami, starting Tuesday