No more meaningless baseball!
The news that Jordan Montgomery would be getting Tommy John surgery necessitated a late change today, with Arizona’s starting pitcher instead being Brandon Bielak, signed as a free-agent earlier this month. He went 3.2 innings in his unscheduled spot start, allowing two runs on two hits, with no walks and a pair of strikeouts. Shelby Miller tidied up the fourth inning, before scoreless frames from Ryan Thompson and a trio of relievers, all called Kyle: Messrs Nelson, Backhus and Amendt. The last-named was probably the most impressive, notching a pair of strikeouts. However, J.P. Feyereisen allowed a run in the ninth, on two hits, and was charged with the loss.
While the starting line-up was close to Arizona’s best one, a lot of the regulars got one at-bat and were then replaced. Jose Herrera did draw a pair of walks, and Josh Naylor got a hit and drove in the team’s opening run with a single in the first. But the Diamondbacks were held to five hits all told, with Druw Jones’s triple the only one for extra bases – Pavin Smith then had the other RBI, bringing Jones in with a sacrifice fly. We did get an old friend sighting in the fifth inning, when last year’s closer, Paul Sewald, pitched a 1-2-3 seventh, striking out Randall Grichuk and Jose Fernandez.
The Diamondbacks will next play… Oh, you know. 🙂 See you there!