Arizona Diamondbacks 7, Oakland Athletics 1

In a show of solidarity hoping to turn their fortunes around, a handful of Arizona Diamondbacks decided to rid themselves of facial hair or take a full blown haircut prior to tonight’s game against the Oakland Athletics. Clearly that was the problem the entire time with the offense because they had a complete outburst, relatively speaking. They scored at least 7 runs for only the 11th time this season, and had more hits tonight than they did in the entire Milwaukee series. It does not mean they are in the clear just yet, but it was a tremendous step in the right direction and refreshing to watch. Even General Manager Mike Hazen showed up in Oakland in support of his struggling ball club. All told, the offense had more hits, extra base hits, and runs than strikeouts. That’s as simple of a recipe for success as it gets.

Patrick Corbin’s velocity remained a few ticks off tonight (deadhorse.gif), but he hardly had to labor through this one. Corbin completed 7 innings of work registering 7 strikeouts, 4 hits, and 1 earned run on a solo dinger from Mark Canha to lead off the 3rd. Oakland A’s left hander Sean Manaea came into this game averaging around the lowest amount of pitches per inning in the league. He threw a no hitter earlier this season on April 21st against one of the best offenses in the league, the Boston Red Sox. However, the Arizona lineup made easy work of him knocking him out of the game by the 4th inning.

With a D’backs win to end a 7 game skid, I’ll leave you with this meme to hold you off until the full recap...