Arizona 6, Philadelphia 7 - Extra Inning Double Beercap

The beer break endures, so I hope you all enjoy my rambling through this lovely game without the suds.

PS I’m almost certain I fractured my left hand on Monday thanks to a bicycle accident. Pain might focus my writing or cause it to go awry; let’s find out.

Inning 1: Ow, my hand

Nothing helps pain more than a strong old fashioned.
It’s been a long week and I’ve earned it.

Oh…..great…the game is in a delay. Well, I gotta wait for the wings I ordered anyhow since the dive bar I’m posted up at is hyper short staffed to the point where the other bartender is the cook….and has to bail to get more wings from the store. 2021 yo.

Game just got going after a 30min delay, apparently due to Phillies Covidness. The times we live in….

Rojas pops up to start things off for the Dbacks, followed by VanMeter doing the same along with Pavin also poppping up. Cool trick guys.

Taylor Widener up on the mound for the Sneks, and gets the first two Phillies out with relative ease. Unfortunately good ole Harper would not comply as he gets himself at hard hit double to bring up Realmuto. Widener walks him and what started out as a seemingly easy inning just got a lot more complex.

Didi (who I totally forgot was a Philly) blessedly grounds out to Walker to end the 1st, and I’m about ready for a refill.

Inning 2: #%€£ing bike tire!

Walker strikes out badly again Nola to lead things off in the 2nd, but Peralta gets on immediately after with a single.

No hope in moving the Freight Train along though as both young Varsho and young McCarthy strike out to end our frame.

Widener in the 2nd throws quite a bit more than I’d like (22 pitches in the inning) but we make it through one more with no blood. I can dig it. 0-0 going in to the 3rd.

Inning 3: At least it didn’t shatter my knee….

Still nothing going for our bats in the 3rd with Nola apparently cruising at this point. Meh, we’ll get to him at some point. He’s a long way from the killer year he had in 2017.

The Phillies draw first blood in the 3rd with a later tater from Harper to drive in Jean Segura and himself. He proceeds to celebrate by putting on a straw beach hat….I guess that’s a thing? 0-2 Phillies

Ok. Off to get grocery shopping done .

From the cheap seats (that have both beer and wings without the wait):
The Diamondbacks continued to make Aaron Nola look like a Cy Young candidate in the third. This included an at-bat against Josh Rojas that had Rojas looking (and sounding) pretty silly. The first bit of excitement in the bottom of the third was on a soft liner by Odúbel Herrera. Widener used that inside fastball that he loves and sawed Herrera’s bat off near the handle. Widener caught the liner while the barrel of the bat headed out to second. Segura followed that up by lining a single into right which brought up the dangerous Bryce Harper. Five pitches later, the score was 2-0, Philadelphia. Realmuto followed that up by grounding a double down the third base line past a diving VanMeter. Didi Gregorius flew out to center to advance Realmuto to third. Widener stranded him there, inducing a line out to Josh Rojas off the bat of Brad Miller to end the inning.

After a one-out 11-pitch at-bat by Pavin Smith that ended in a ground out to first, Alfonso Marquez’s strike zone got fuzzy, frustrating both Christian Walker and Aaron Nola alike. It didn’t really matter though. Christian Walker became the sixth strikeout victim (swinging over a fastball at the letters) as Nola set down his eighth Arizona better in a row. Widener returned to the mound to pitch the bottom of the fourth. He jammed Freddy Galvis with an inside fastball just above the hands that Galvis managed to dump into shallow right. Herrera managed a two-out walk, but then Segura popped out to Walker in foul ground to end the inning.

Nola continued to do his thing against the Diamondbacks in the top of the fifth, including a second strikeout of Jake McCarthy. Having thrown 82 pitches to clear four innings, Taylor Widener was still allowed to take the mound for the fifth inning. This likely had as much to do with just how taxed the Arizona bullpen became over the previous two nights as it did Widener’s results to that point. Bryce Harper led the frame off and Widener promptly struck him out on a 79 mph baby slurve on the outside of the edge. Widener cleared the inning 1-2-3, throwing his most efficient frame of the game.

Time Travel to Inning 5: …..but I’ll be limping for a while.

Shopping for chicken took a lot longer than I thought, but I’m now settled in my man cave with a cocktail. Looks like our deficit of two runs is intact and Nola still maintains ownage of us with 7 Ks and only 1hit allowed through 5innings. Widener isn’t doing bad, but he’s at 91 pitches to Nola’s 79 and I’m pretty sure his night is done.

More comments from the peanut gallery:
For all the talk of how much Widener laboured through each inning and all the hard contact he gave up, Widener once again completed five innings and still allowed only two runs. Sure, there was some luck. There were also plenty of swings that resulted in the ball being struck just above the hands, which in turn led to pop ups or weak grounders. In short, he was wildly effective - yet again. Widener threw a total of 91 pitches, only 49 for strikes, but he kept his team in the game through five.

Inning 6: Crater in the knee allows for ample blood flow

Ahmed leads off things in the 6th with a hit, proving that Nola is mortal. Some dude named Haladay replaces Widener only to pop up, but Rojas hits a clutch triple to drive in our first run and make this a game. 2-1 Phillies

After Rojas’s fireworks Nola gets pulled and replaced by Brogdon, who immediately gives up a sac fly to tie the game. Whole new game now folks; 2-2 tie.

Peacock struts up to the mound in replacement of Widener here in the bottom of the 6th. The rookie McCarthy makes a terrific sliding catch to record the first out; hopefully the first of many plays we see from him going forward.

Still tied at 2 as Peacock struts off the mound: crunch time beckons..

Inning 7: first time I fell over the handle bars…nice

Nothing to report here in the 7th for our bats at least: 1-2-3 go the Dbacks.

Peacock’s stumbles in his strut to start off the inning with a walk and then Ahmed makes a rookie error playing an easy grounder leaving the Phillies in the drivers seat with 2 on and no outs here in the 7th.

VanMeter records the first out and Torey immediately ops to walk Harper to bring the double play back in play.
The gamble back fires when Realmuto hits a 2run single to break the tie: 2-4 Phillies

We get the double play to close out the 7th, but the damage has been done…

Inning 8: I was 300 yards from getting home….

Neris walks the young McCarthy on 4 pitches to start the 8th, followed by Ahmed reaching on a poor throw by Gregorious putting Sneks on the corners with no outs.

Marte and Rojas strike out right after that and VanMeter puts the icing on the fail cake with an easy groundout after that. 2-4 going in to the bottom of the 8th.

Faria somewhat cruises through the Phillies in the 8th and our Sneks are now down to one last chance.

Inning 9: At least my lovely wife can tend to me as I lay on the couch as a broken man….

Pavin leads off the 9th with a single, bringing up Walker to hopefully tie things up. As of writing this our boy Walker is well on his way to earning the Golden Sombrero, but he simply looked at Kennedy on the mound, and in his best Neo voice he says “No.” Just like that Walker ties it up with a two run bomb to center! 4-4 tie!

JB Wendelken comes in for us in the 9th, and despite walking Harper he’s able to get through Realmuto. Free baseball!!!!!!!!

Inning 10: I’ll be back biking next week….unless that hurricane coming up from Baja says otherwise.

Free baseball and with the goofy free runner rule. God I hate that extra inning rule.
McCarthy starts off at 2nd and advances to 3rd on a bunt, and Marte makes that bunt seem meaningless with an annihilation hit to center. You knows it’s a good hit when the batter takes his sweet time to admire it. 6-4 Dbacks

Well…our bullpen does it again, giving up the lead to the tune of a Brad Miller homer off of Clippard. Tied again and off to the 11th

Inning 11: Gaming is difficult with a busted hand

James is switching from Boddington’s to Snakebites. The drink seems appropriate given the circumstances. Also, if I don’t switch, I’ll run out of Boddington’s before the game is over. Oh look, Taylor Clarke is in to blow the game. But wait! He makes a great defensive play, gunning down the Manfred Mann at third. But, Herrera singles in the next at-bat, putting runners on first and second with only one out. Can Taylor Clarke wiggle his way out of this one?

Jean Segura drops a single into right and says, “Hell no.”

Arizona 6, Philadelphia 7

Bad juju.

Tonight’s gameday thread was mostly quiet. The comment count creeped up a bit due to the length of the game more than the activity of the conversations. 18 commenters contributed 286 comments tonight. A few Sedona Red comments tonight, but only one that was pointedly game related - and also funny. CotN goes to Jack Sommers for his sarcasm.

yes....

And I am incredibly pissed off that Girardi pulled Nola after only 93 pitches

Twitter: Jack Sommers@shoewizard59

Posted by Jack Sommers on Aug 27, 2021 | 6:45 PM up reply unrec (5)

Rocky: Ketel Marte (+36.4%)
Rocky II: J.B. Wendelken (+31.0%)
Rocky V: Drew Ellis (-28.8%) but the real goat is Tyler Clippard

Diamondbacks are at it again tomorrow. It is a somewhat earlier tilt, with Humberto Mejia toeing the rubber for the Snakes and Kyle Gibson going for the Phils.