Tidings From Turambar, Brute BBQ Edition: D-backs 8, Nats 9

Record: 19-15. Pace: 91-71. Change on 2022: +1.

Today’s article is brought to you by Keegan‘s barbecue. Good times here at his palatial mansion and a great day for baseball.

The entirety of the Brute Squad is here right now, including Nik, who is notorious for his bad luck. For as he walks out with Carne, Ryne gives up his first hit of the afternoon. Nik’s luck is redeemed shortly after with an inning ending double play, so he’s allowed to continue watching with the rest of us Brutes.

Groans come from every mouth here as we watch Pavin get right under what could’ve been a 3-run dinger here in the bottom of the 1st. Still looks like a game we’re get some major runs in though.

“Somehow the Washington National scored before we did.” Says Lopez with anger as Nelson’s 2nd inning does not go as planned. Blessedly Gurriel calms down Lopez’s fury with a solo shot to lead things off in the bottom of the 2nd to tie things up at 1 apiece.

Ryne settles down in the third, which further mollifies Lopez’s anger. “It should be 14-1 right now!!!…..”

He said much more than that, but this is a family friendly article.

Tied up still here in the 4th until CWalk blasts a bomb of his own, followed by a gift of a balk to make it a 3-1 Dback leads Lopez mumbles angrily about not bring up by more, but the rest of the BBQ crowd is pleased and honestly that’s all that matters.

Thanks once more Myka & Keegan for being such great hosts!!!!

Anyhow, prior to Rachel and I taking our leave of the party the Nats tie things up at 3 apiece; likely ending Nelson’s day. Not his finest outing but it might be just enough.

Gurriel’s second bomb of the day puts an exclamation point on an inning that started with a Marte RBI triple and we’re once more very much in control of this game.

Thus it’s now 7-3 Dbacks after Mantiply’s smooth inning in relief of Nelson sees us zipped off to the bottom of the 6th.

We had multiple chances to pad on to our lead here in the 6th, and I’m sure glad we ducked out of the party prior to that because I’m certain Lopez likely flew in to a blood rage after we left the bases juiced with only 1 out. May God have mercy on Keegan’s home……

Ginkel comes in to replace Mantiply after a quick first out here in the 7th and proceeds to give up back to back singles and a walk to load things up. Then he proceeds to give up two runs, prompting Torey to yank him out. I can see the mushroom cloud over Keegan’s house from here…

This it’s 7-5 going in to the bottom of the 7th after Kyle Nelson is brought in place of Ginkel; only barely avoiding piling on to the misery…..but avoided it he did.

Misery though still very much stalks the shadows of each and every Nat pitcher; as is made evident by Thaddeus Ward walking 4 Sneks in the bottom of the 7th. Somehow though we only managed one measly run outta all those base runners….Lopez will be none too pleased….

Top of the 8th now and Dbacks cling to a 8-5 lead, but our bullpen is none too fond of such leads and three outs later we’re right back to 2 runs up once more. Still a lead, but it feels so fragile.

Castro shatters that fragile lead in the ninth giving up three runs on just 4 pitches. Lead toast and game seemingly toast as well :(

Yup toast. Another series win, but that’s another bullpen meltdown.

This kind of problem must be addressed, and soon.

Have a fun Sunday folks, and keep your heads up; the Dbacks are still relevant.

Bells and whistles, by Jim

I'll fill in the blanks later, out watching a puppet production of Alien, I kid you not. We'll just let the bullpen sit in the corner, and think about what they have done until then...

Later.

At 364 comments, one of the busiest Gameday Threads in a while. Though for obvious reasons it was not a very happy one. A lot of perfectly reasonable criticism of the home plate umpire, and it will be very interesting to see the scorecard tomorrow. I’m going to guess it will be the first game this year where the bias showed is greater than the actual margin of victory. But that doesn’t excuse the D-backs who played in many ways their worst game of 2023. Outside of the bullpen, they made three errors, leading to two unearned runs - also more than the margin - and were 1-for-13 with RISP. That won’t get it done. Comment of the Game to Michael, for this prescient remark:

The D-backs still win the series, but drop to a game and a half back of the Dodgers, after the Padres also blew a ninth-inning lead and took the L. Tomorrow, the Marlins come to town, and we also have a Zac Gallen start to look forward to. First pitch on that is 6:40 pm.