TL;DR: A Zac Gallen gem, solid bullpen work, and a patient, balanced approach at the plate all combined for a desperately-needed win.
I have always been fascinated by the idea of a “stopper” in baseball parlance. The term is emblematic of Earl Weaver’s famous adage that, “Momentum is only as good as tomorrow’s starting pitcher.” In my opinion, it’s simply the starting pitcher that can set the tone for the team, for the pitchers, and reverse any poor play the team might have demonstrated beforehand. For the past four-plus years, Zac Gallen has been both the staff ace and the stopper who has halted any negative momentum, bad vibes, or pressure the team might be experiencing at the time. Tonight’s matchup typified a game that desperately required that stopper to step up and at least press pause on the panic buttons that we have been pressing the last two days – if not most of the month. He delivered that performance and the rest of the team finally returned to form to avoid a sweep from a team that has functionally been out of contention for weeks.
This season has not been Gallen’s finest as his 3.65 ERA and 1.26 WHIP are the worst marks he’s posted since 2021 and he has been limited by injuries throughout the campaign. But that simply speaks to the kinds of high standards he’s set for himself in the first five seasons of his career. Even still, there have been flashes of his typical excellence throughout and his final regular season start was simply the most recent example that came at the most pressing moment of the season. That excellence wasn’t necessarily on display early as he violated one of those cardinal pitching sins I love to cite: allowing leadoff walks – this one to Michael Conforto. Frustratingly, this sin would quickly come back to bite Gallen and the D-Backs as Tyler Fitzgerald split the left-center gap for a resounding double that gave the Giants an early 1-0 lead. It would be the final baserunner the Giants would collect until Gallen’s final inning with a one-out double from Heliot Ramos.
The Giant’s lead would prove to be mercifully short-lived. Thankfully, after consecutive moribund performances, the D-Backs’ offense found its rhythm once again as they ticked off all the right boxes: patient at-bats, foul off good pitches, take walks when necessary, and let the guy behind you take advantage. It is the playbook that the team has followed to success time and again through this tumultuous season. After the Giants took the lead in the top half of the second, the D-Backs got their half started with a leadoff double from Christian Walker. He barely had called time before Lourdes Gurriel Jr took the first pitch he saw down the first base line to plate Walker and knot the score 1-1. Jake McCarthy followed with a double play ball, but utilized his speed to avoid the out at first and then scampered home on a single from Gabriel Moreno after a Eugenio Suarez walk pushed him up 90 feet for the first Arizona lead since the first inning of Monday’s series opener. They loaded the bases for Corbin Carroll when Geraldo Perdomo absolutely earned his free pass with an eight-pitch battle – and one missed call. Carroll absolutely unloaded on a high fastball from youngster Mason Black that first looked ticketed for the fence, but instead was snagged on an incredible catch from Mike Yastrzemski to limit the damage to a sacrifice fly instead.
It was the best offensive inning the team had put together since the third inning of that disastrous series finale in Milwaukee and they were just getting started. They loaded the bases in the next inning through a leadoff walk to Joc Pederson, free pass to Gurriel Jr, and a McCarthy single. Moreno again delivered with a patient at-bat – and another missed call – to coax yet another walk from Black to plate Walker who had replaced Pederson on the basepaths from another missed double play ball to extend the lead to 4-1. The offense tacked on yet another run in the very next inning off three straight singles from Ketel Marte, Pederson, and Walker to push the lead out to 5-1. After scoring in three out of the first four innings of the game, the offense would go dormant as a cavalcade of San Francisco relievers held them in check to give their own offense time to recover.
Unfortunately for the Giants’ spoiler hopes, Gallen was having no part in that effort. His knuckle curve, which grades out as one of the best curveballs in the league, was one another level today. He dialed it up perfectly on numerous occasions and collected seven of his season-high tying eleven strikeouts on it. Following Gallen’s masterclass, Torey Lovullo called upon young flamethrower Justin Martinez for the seventh and experienced a classic Martinez inning. The first two batters reached on a leadoff single to Conforto and a Patrick Bailey walked before Martinez seemingly found his groove by striking out the next two hitters and inducing a groundout to escape the frame. He was not as lucky in his second inning of work as he gave up a leadoff double to Yastrzemski and then an RBI-single to Ramos who was caught trying to stretch the hit into a double.
Just as I was imploring the D-Backs to deliver some insurance runs for their beleaguered bullpen, they delivered a rally in the home half of the eighth. Perdomo collected a one-out single and was joined on the basepaths by Carroll who earned a walk with an eleven-pitch battle that included six straight two-strike foul balls. Lovullo then turned to his bench again by inserting Pavin Smith to replace the first pinch hitter Randal Grichuk. The move worked brilliantly as Smith absolutely demolished a Spencer Bivens changeup and deposited the ball into the outfield pool for the 8-2 final score. It was an excellent gamble from Lovullo – especially since Smith had already taken Bivens deep just three weeks ago. The tandem of AJ Puk and Kevin Ginkel would collect the final five outs for a desperation win.
From a macro standpoint, there are plenty of positive takeaways from this game: Gallen’s dominance, excellent signs of life from the offense, and continued solid work from the bullpen. But I can’t completely shake a nagging sense of anxiety about this ill-timed swoon from a team that entered the month of September firmly in control of their own postseason destiny and were in good position to nab one of the first two Wild Card seeds. Today, they are clinging to the final Wild Card spot with Atlanta a mere half game behind them and a traditional doubleheader scheduled for Monday with Hurricane Helene bearing down on the Gulf Coast. Certainly, some of that feeling is a learned behavior of pessimism from a lifetime of baseball fandom, but it’s also been borne out by consistently inconsistent play from both sides of the ball. I don’t know if it’s simply fatigue from a long season following an extended postseason run or what, but we have to hope the team hasn’t peaked too soon and still can keep as sharp a focus as we’ve seen them do through crucial stretches this season.
