Diamondbacks 1, Astros 8: Phoning it in

[Jim] Here with a place-holder, since Blake is at the game this afternoon, and will taking a roundabout route towards doing this recap. Not that there’s an enormous amount really worth recapping. Torey Lovullo rested most of his regulars this afternoon, and what ensued was largely what you would expect from a starting line-up that included Seby Zavala and Jace Peterson, with Kyle Nelson your starting pitcher. The Astros got to Nelson and Kevin Bryce Jarvis for four runs in the first, and that was more or less it, with Houston having more to play for than the D-backs. As predicted, the B-bullpen was in full effect, and the Arizona offense struggled without Marte, Walker, Carroll and Moreno. That’s a shocker. :)

The D-backs did manage to get on the board with two outs in the eighth, when Lourdes Gurriell’s doubled in a run, and thereby avoided tying a franchise record. But I’ll leave ish95 to tell you about that in due course. Next Gameday Thread and recap are Tuesday in Milwaukee for the first game in the wild-card series!

Thanks for being the Opener for this game, Jim! Greatly appreciated!

And sorry for the delay, folks. I was at the game, then there was a birthday lunch for my mom. Then my wife wanted to go to the used book store. Then I had to make a quick stop at Walmart to get glass cleaner for my windshield. Boy is it dirty. Then when I finally got home about six o’clock, my dang dog was just being too adorable with the toy I got her at the ballpark today, that I just had to play tug of war with her for a bit. Absolutely had to. I mean LOOK AT HER!!!

imstillhungry95

If it seems like I wasn’t taking this recap seriously, well, why should I? The Diamondbacks clearly weren’t taking this game seriously either, as alluded to by Jim. About two weeks ago, I was gifted tickets to Friday’s game, and on something of a manic whim, decided to buy tickets to the other two, expecting and hoping to watch the Diamondbacks clinch. I got to do that, which was equal parts exciting and anti-climactic, but the down side of that was that I ended up also being at the game after they clinched. I think my reaction to the line up sums it up nicely

Good news is that they did not manage to break the Laws of Space and Time, but they didn’t do much better than that. What I wasn’t necessarily expecting was the pitching to be just as bad, and somehow for the defense to be worse, nor was I expecting them to waste so little time proving it. Before the boos could even settle, Jose Altuve smacked Kyle Nelson’s first pitch for a single to left center field. Just a single pitch later, Bregman hit a home run to give the Astros a early (and ultimately sufficient) lead. Kyle Tucker became Nelson’s only out via a strike out, as Yordan Alveraz walked, which brough a probably-earlier-than-anticipated end to Nelson’s day as opener.

Bryce Jarvis came in to be the bulk guy, but wasn’t able to get much better results than Nelson was. Jose Abreu greeted him with a single, bringing Michael Brantley to the plate. He hit a ground ball to Emmanuel Rivera, which at least had the chance of being a 3-6-3 double play, but had no shot after Rivera just airmailed the throw to Lawler at second. . Alvarez came around to score, and Abreu went to third.

Jarvis came back and struck out Chas McCormick for the second out of the inning (yes we are still in the first if you’re keeping track at home), but he wasn’t able to finish the inning before Abreu scored on a Jeremy Pena single. Martin Maldanado, the Astros #9 hitter, flew out to Gurriel after that, and the inning finally came to an end. 4-0 Astros

They picked up where they left off in the top of the second. Bregman tripled with one out, getting the two hard parts of the cycle out of the way before the fifth out had been recorded and was promptly brought home thanks to a Kyle Tucker sac fly. Jarvis gave up another single, but struck out Jose Abreu, ending the inning. 5-0 Astros

Things were quiet for a bit. Jarvis finished his day off with a 1-2-3 inning in the third, and Justin Martinez threw one of his own in the fourth. The fifth. Well, the fifth was definetely an inning that happened, and that’s about the best you can say about it. Martinez came back out for another inning, and threw a 100 MPH fastball in the bottom third of the plate. Wasn’t a bad pitch, and Kyle Tucker hit it towards Jake McCarthy in left. Problem is, McCarthy came in when he should have taken a step back. Ball flew over his head, and Tucker was off. McCarthy kind of just... sauntered to get the ball, for lack of a better word, then tossed it to Lawler who was waiting for a throw in the second base position. Lawler got the ball and then... proceeded to do nothing with it. Just walk in towards the infield. Tucker saw that, then ran towards home. Lawler rainbow tossed a throw to Martinez (?!) instead of home, and Tucker scored easily. Just bad bad bad. Here, have your eyes burn too.

Jose Abreu homered in the seventh to give the Astros their final total of eight runs. The Diamondbacks continued to not do anything until the bottom of the eighth. McCarthy singled and went to second on defensive indifference, and Gurriel doubled, putting the Diamondbacks on the board.

This saved the Diamondbacks from tying the aforementioned franchise record. At no point have the Diamondbacks been shut out for a series. However, in September 2000, they lost three straight to the Angels by a score of 1-2, 0-1, 0-1. Gurriel’s double saved them from tying that record, giving them a whopping two runs scored in the series. Not a record you want to be flirting with going into the playoffs, but hey! House money now!

Anyway, that was the game, as well as the regular season. Wild Card Game 1 is Tuesday at 4:08 Arizona time! See you there!

(bells and whistles intentionally left blank due to phoning it in, as mentioned above)