Twins 5, Diamondbacks 0: Twin Losses

I had my concerns going into this game if only for reasons outside of the Diamondbacks control. A significant portion of the Major League umpiring staff decided that they would take a stand and wear white wristbands in support of verbal attacks against Angel Hernandez and umpires across the league. It just so happened that Angel Hernandez was behind the plate for tonight’s game. Little did I know he would be the least of the Diamondbacks problems.

Zack Greinke took the mound against Jose Berrios, and Jake Lamb was able to drive up Berrios’ pitch count in the 1st with a two out 9 pitch walk after relatively quick outs from David Peralta and A.J. Pollock. Paul Goldschmidt struck out on the 7th pitch of his at bat. No damage done by the Diamondbacks, but Berrios finished the inning with 23 pitches after facing only 4 batters. Zack Greinke surely could not be any worse considering how tremendous his previous start was against the Astros at Chase Field, right? Wrong. He would load the bases after allowing a leadoff single to Brian Dozier and walks to Joe Mauer and Miguel Sano. The Twins simply were not swinging on his pitches outside of the zone, and he was not painting the edges of the zone where he typically finds success. Greinke escaped the inning with no damage after Eddie Rosario and Eduardo Escobar both popped out, but he had already thrown 30 pitches. Not a recipe for success in front of an anticipated bullpen game tomorrow night.

Jose Berrios would pitch the rest of the game on auto pilot from that point forward. Brandon Drury doubled with two outs in the second inning, but Ketel Marte would pop out to leave him standing there. A.J. Pollock doubled with two outs in the third inning, and Jake Lamb struck out on five pitches to leave A.J. idle at second as well. That is it. No other walks surrendered by Berrios or Alan Busenitz for the remainder of the evening. No hits for the rest of the Diamondbacks offense. Can’t leave runners in scoring position if you can’t get them there in the first place, I guess?

Greinke would actually rebound nicely in the 2nd striking out Byron Buxton and Jorge Polanco finishing the frame with 11 pitches thrown. It had appeared the he just needed the additional inning to warmup and find his groove, but trouble would find him again quickly as he needed 17 pitches in the 3rd. The wheels came off completely in the 4th inning. Eddie Rosario led off the inning with a single. The defining moment in this game then came when Eduardo Escobar hit a roller to second baseman Daniel Descalso. Descalso tried to get crafty by scooping the ball and tagging Rosario in one motion in attempt to turn a double play. Instead of just going for the sure out at first, he missed the ball completely leaving runners at first and second with no outs. After striking out Buxton for a second time, Greinke gave up a single to Jorge Polanco to load the bases. Arguably, Angel Hernandez only blemish on an otherwise clean game by his standards came when he called misses on two border pitches by Greinke against Jason Castro resulting in a 4 pitch walk and allowing the first run of the game to score. 3 additional singles would follow from Dozier, Max Kepler, and Joe Mauer. The Twins would finish the inning leading 5-0 in what would be their only runs scored and needed for the victory.

Greinke would leave the game after only 4 innings pitched allowing 7 hits, 5 runs, 4 earned, 4 walks, and 4 strikeouts for a game score of 31. Jose Berrios would last into the 7th inning with a game score of 83. J.J. Hoover pitched 2 ²⁄₃ innings of relief allowing only 2 hits, 1 walk, and 4 strikeouts with Silvino Bracho pitching the remaining 1 ¹⁄₃ innings. No enormous mistakes from Angel Hernandez in his awareness day for me to place any blame on him. The Diamondbacks need to turn it around quickly because I would prefer to recap some victories. Preferably in the playoffs. Not only did the Diamondbacks not gain ground on the same night the Rockies lost, they ceded ground to the Brewers who beat the Rockies tonight. The Diamondbacks now cling to the 2nd wild card by 3.5 games.

Major Suckage: Zack Greinke -21.8%

Fairly light GDT tonight. Probably had something to do with the beat down last night combined with the lack of anything of interest tonight. DC accounted for 37.3% of the comments with 80.

CoTN goes to Xerostomia. Nearly in line with my 4th Quarter piece the other day.

Wow

I didn’t think it was possible that we could be worse than last year. This stretch of 45+ games have been pretty bad, with no end in sight.

by Xerostomia on Aug 19, 2017 | 6:14 PM reply rec (1) flag actions