Tidings from Turambar: D-backs 5, Braves 8 - So close

Record: 35-25. Pace: 94-68. Change on 2022: +7.

My Edgar Allan Poe experiment was a mixed, but fun adventure. Today will be more normal and I’ll delve back in to my beer roots a bit.

So, here I am, at The Wandering Tortoise drinking a well deserved beer after recovering from an unpleasant 24hr stomach bug. Time for fun with Gallen on the mound.

It seems pretty clear here in the 1st that Gallen does not have his best stuff, and his first K took him 20pitches in to the inning to get. Yet despite looking shaky he gets through the 1st with no blood and 2Ks. Let’s see if he returns to elite form as this game goes on.

Beer 1 today is a juicy pint from Tucson’s own Pueblo Vida Brewing Co called Vidathena. Seriously folks, if you haven’t tasted the nectar of this fine Arizona brewery I recommend you seek it out.

Here in the 2nd Gallen’s looking visibly frustrated: missing here there and everywhere. The Braves draw first blood, though even as a super homer I gotta admit it should have been a crooked number. That’s a saving grace of sorts, but not thrilled being down 0-1 already.

Perdomo ties things up with a little Texas leaguer just down the 3rd base line notching up his 26th RBI of the season (3rd on the team). Still a ways to go in this game, and unless Gallen wakes up our bats are gonna have to do MUCH better to make this a game.

The 3rd for Gallen goes by quite smoothly. Can’t quite tell if he’s settled down or if the Braves got to swing happy. I’ll take it either way because I’d sure like to see him out there until at least the 6th.
Corbin. Fucking. Carroll. That’s all. That’s all that needs to be said. From his heroics last night to the homer to give us a 1run lead in the 3rd; he’s everything we need at any one time. CC better get that ROY…..

Rojas caps things off with an RBI single and suddenly Gallen’s got a little breathing room to work with folks. 3-1 Dbacks going in to the 4th.

Ooooof. Albies’ 2run bomb puts away that breathing room real quick and we’re tied once more. Once more, Gallen just does not look like himself.

Marte, how can I ever forget Marte? His left handed 2run bomb rights the ship in our favor. CC follows that up with a double and the CWalk draws a walk and thus we’re getting in to the Braves bullpen before they get in to ours.

Gallen gets through 5 not-so-great innings giving up 3runs but we still got the lead and a chance to win this series. Huzzah!!!!!

Surprisingly Gallen makes it through 6 and hands things off to Sheriff Chafin who does solid work (relative term) through two innings only giving up a run to cut our lead to one, but with such competition as the Braves I can forgive him.

No word from our bats, outside of missed opportunities, so we find ourselves in the top of the 9th with Miguel Castro in to close things out.

A walk and a single to put Braves on 2nd and 3rd to open the frame fill me with dread. The intentional walk after fills me with even more dread.

Dread turns to despair as Rosario crushes our hopes with a grand slam ruining the save and this game and putting the Braves up 5-8. Bleh…

Bells and whistles, by Jim

Yeah. that was not fun. As mentioned in the GDT, it’s the third time in 25 losses that the D-backs have had and blown a ninth-inning lead. Last year, despite all the struggles of the bullpen, it only happened six times in 88 losses. But on the other hand, we came within one out of taking a series against a team many expect to be playing for at least the National League pennant in four months time. It’s a measure of how far the team has come that we are disappointed in that result. The graph labels above are a reference to this afternoon’s highly-rec’d comment, but I’ll go instead with a team effort to the SnakePit as a whole, calling out the booth for unacknowledged comedy theft. :)

A day off tomorrow, so time for Miguel Castro to sit in the corner and think about what he did. It’s off to the nation’s capital for the D-backs, to start a road-trip through Washington and Detroit on Tuesday. Meanwhile, this game was so bad that Turambar is relocating to Canada next weekend, so Justin will be recapping it. Or maybe he just wanted to dodge the, I kid you not, 8:35 am Arizona time first pitch!