Diamondbacks 2, Rangers 4: Mama, There Goes That Man

The reigning pennant winners from each league have endured disappointing starts to their 2024 campaigns. The Diamondbacks entered play 25-28, placing them fourth in the division and 2 games back in the Wild Card race. The Rangers came into tonight a single game back of the Diamondbacks in the Loss column (25-29), but were sitting 4.5 games back in the AL Wild Card chase while only being 3.5 games back of the division-leading Mariners in the AL West. This will be just a short, two-game set between last season’s World Series participants, but each would be hoping to use this series to rekindle last year’s playoff magic and springboard into the season’s middle-third.

Nathan Eovaldi was making his first start in nearly a month, but he didn’t show any rust in striking out Corbin to start the evening and then retiring Ketel and Joc on two pitches each. Brandon Pfaadt kept pace, though, retiring the side in order on 11 pitches to bring the good guys back to the plate.

Christian Walker banged a double to the right-center gap to start off the top of the second. Pavin made it twice as nice with a double of his own to bring one run in and still no out. Jake the Rake smacked a single to center but Pavin didn’t get a good enough read on it to be able to score. Still, the D-backs had runners on the corners with no one out and Geno coming to the plate. Jake stole second on the first pitch to Suarez, who then popped out to Nathaniel Lowe, the Ranger first baseman, in foul ground, but it was just deep enough to score Pavin and advance Jake to third with only one out. Gabi came up with a man on third and less than two outs, a gotta-have-it scoring opportunity, but unfortunately continued doing what he has been for most of the year, rolling over a pitch as he tried to pull it instead of punching it to right field like he was so successful doing last season. The weak grounder to Seager made McCarthy a dead duck at home and Kevin Newman lined out softly to second to end the D-backs productive second at bat.

Pfaadt came out to protect his new 2-run lead and did the job. Shutdown innings have seemed to be elusive for D-backs pitching in 2024, but the young right hander retired the side without any runs allowed. After 2, it was 2-0 Diamondbacks!

Carroll struck out on another high fastball to begin the third. Joc came through with two-out single and Christian followed right behind him with a single of his own. Pavin Smith could not cash in on the RISP opportunity, rolling over the first pitch he saw to second. Through 3 innings for Eovaldi, he had given up 5 hits and 2 runs but still only threw 37 pitches.

Pfaadt gave up a 1-out double to 9-hole hitter Travis Jankowski, decidedly not what you want to do when you’re about to face Semien and Seager. Pfaadt was able to K Semien, though, which allowed him to intentionally walk the defending World Series MVP and work to the less intimidating Josh Smith. Smith was able to make right call look like the wrong one as he made the D-backs pay with an RBI single to center. Adolis García couldn’t add to the tally against Pfaadt when he grounded out weakly to Ketel and Pfaadt escaped the third with a 2-1 lead.

Some quick innings followed. Despite the low pitch count, Eovaldi was pulled after three innings and was relieved by Andrew Heaney to begin the fourth. Heaney hasn’t had the most successful of starts to the 2024 season, but he made short work of the Snakes in the fourth as they went down in order. Then Rangers couldn’t muster a hit against Pfaadt in their fourth inning, and Brandon was able to take his very manageable pitch count of 51 to the fifth. The Diamondbacks offense was dormant for the second consecutive inning against Heaney, so Pfaadt would have to continue to nurse his single run lead in the fifth.

A check swing single down the third base line started the Ranger fifth, and that was followed by a bloop single into left to give the Rangers two runners on with the ferocious top of two of their lineup coming up. Pfaadt can’t feel badly about the quality of contact by the first two, but the sequencing would prove to be disastrous. Semien reached on a fielder’s choice, but Seager did what Seager does and hit the first pitch he saw into the right field bleachers and the 1-run lead turned into a 2-run deficit for the Snakes. Pfaadt made short work of the next two he faced, but the damage was done and the Diamondbacks would have to come back if they were going to win the first game of this series. After 5 innings, Rangers led 4-2.

Joc Pederson led off the sixth against Heaney, the lefty who hadn’t given up a baserunner yet in his two innings of relief, with a walk. Christian Walker flew out to right, but Lourdes Gurriel pinch hit for Pavin Smith and got the job done with a rocket that was too hot for the Ranger third baseman to handle and the D-backs had runners at first and second with one out. Jake the Rake continued his great production on the season, working a good at bat that led to a single to right. Tony Perezchica held up Joc at third due to the massive arm of Adolis García (ominous foreshadowing) and the Snakes had the bases loaded with one out. Bruce Bochy made the move to pull Andrew Heaney and brought in righty Grant Anderson (and his 8.71 ERA) to face Geno and he delivered a deep flyball to Adolis-the-walking-cannon in right field. Joc was initially called safe on his attempt to tag and score, but upon further review he was called out as his front foot popped up and never touched home plate, leading to an inning ending double play.

Brandon Pfaadt came back out for the sixth and sat the Rangers down in order, so into the seventh inning we went, down a pair of runs. There was no fight from the offense in this inning; Gabi and Newman struck out before Corbin grounded out to shortstop. Pfaadt was efficient enough through his first six innings to earn a trip back out to the mound in the seventh, and he once again retired the side in order. He really pitched a good game tonight, but he made one mistake to the guy you really can’t make a mistake to that had him looking up at the scoreboard in line for the loss after seven innings.

David Robertson, the Rangers set up man, came out to work the top half of the eighth and didn’t allow a baserunner to the heart of the D-backs order. Lefty Brandon Hughes came on for the bottom half of the eighth and struck out That Man to lead off the inning. Hughes proceeded to hit the next batter, who then stole second off Hughes first pitch to García. Adolis got jammed and hit a dribbler to Geno who made an excellent one hand play to cut him down at first. Hughes was able to strike out the next batter and strand the Ranger runner at third, keeping the D-backs deficit to two runs in the top of the ninth.

The Rangers’ closer Kirby Yates (teammate of Merrill Kelly at Yavapai College in my hometown of Prescott) came on and got Gurriel to ground out on the first pitch of his at bat and Jake McCarthy struck out. Geno fell down in the count 0-2 but ended up working a walk to bring up Gabi Moreno with a chance to tie, or at least extend, this contest. Gabi was, in fact, able to extend the game with chopper that was fielded by Yates, but Gabi really busted it down the line to give everyone’s favorite 9-hole hitter a chance. Alas, Kevin Newman could not get the job done, striking out on a high fastball to send the good guys to the hotel in bad spirits.

The Diamondbacks outhit the Rangers 8-6, but that’s not the column in the box score that matters. Perhaps the D-backs were victims of sequencing a bit tonight, but the 4-2 loss is yet another in a string of recent losses where the offense did not rise to the occasion when it mattered.

Loss Probability

Players of the Game

D-backs #3-6 Hitters: Accounted for 7 of 8 hits tonight (Gabi barely snuck the only non-middle-of-the-order hit in at the end) and all five hitters in those slots had a positive WPA on the evening. No positive WPA for the other Snake hitters.

Comment of the Night

A fairly robust showing on the GDT tonight, with a total of 186 comments at time of this recap. A few Sedona Red to choose from, but I’m going to select this comment from therealramona that started a good distraction of a side thread.

Coming Up

The Diamondbacks continue this series in Texas trying to earn a split tomorrow morning at 11:35am. Ryne Nelson will get the ball for the Diamondbacks and he’ll face off against right-hander Dane Dunning.

Now, I can go eat some delicious Taco Tuesday tacos.