Diamondbacks 3, Giants 6: Uninteresting

Mediocrity is harder to write about than tragedy.

Record: 87-70. Pace: 90-72. Change on 2023: +4.

I was saying in the Gameday Threat intro, that I was pleased yesterday’s debacle in Milwaukee was not going to be my final recap of the season. But say what you like about that game, it was at least worthy of discussion, albeit in a road accident kinda way. Actually, in a “road accident from Final Destination 2” kinda way. That leaves a mark on the psyche. There’s a reason that the Russian masters of tragic literature were capable of churning out hundreds of pages chronicling the futility and grimness of human existence. Compared to yesterday’s game, tonight’s loss for the Diamondbacks is the equivalent of… Oh, I dunno, stepping on a Lego? Painful, sure. But not the kind of loss we will remember.

There are two ways things will unfold between now and next Sunday. Either the D-backs make the post-season, in which case, this loss will be basically irrelevant. Or they fail to make the post-season, in which case, this loss will be basically overlooked, in favor of more memorable defeats like Sunday’s – even though both counted exactly the same in the final standings. It’s not alone there. Of the 70-plus losses Arizona is going to have this year, there are probably half a dozen about which I remember much. This will not be one of them. Indeed, I’m fairly sure fans of the winning side will quickly forget about it as well. Except for Matt Chapman and his family. And possibly Jake McCarthy.

Eduardo Rodriguez was the starter, coming off his best outing as a Diamondback, against the Rockies. In the early going, his form looked to be every bit as sharp. He retired the first five batters faced, three of them by the strikeout, before giving up the cheapest of cheap infield hits, on a ball with an xBA of just .050. No damage resulted, except for eight extra pitches, but that did get his pitch-count up higher. In between those two innings, Arizona took the lead. Geraldo Perdomo singled to right, but was credited with a double as the Giants right fielder kicked it about. Then Joc Pederson also doubled, despite a heroic attempt at a catch by Michael Conforto, scoring Perdomo for a 1-0 lead.

It wouldn’t last, as the Giants scored three times off Rodriguez in the top of the third. The big blow was a unconventional two run home-run by Chapman, after a drive to left center eluded the despairing grab of McCarthy. The ricochet then caromed to about the worst possible spot, all the way back in center. A batter who had just hit four triples since the end of 2021, in over eighteen hundred PAs, was able to come all the way home for an inside-the-parker. Arizona were able to get one back in their half. Carroll singled, Pederson took a pitch off his toe, and Christian Walker hit a screamer (112.5 mph) into left for an RBI double, making the score 3-2.

I was still hopeful at this point. After all, we’d taken San Francisco starter Hayden Birdsong out of the game in three innings, when we saw him earlier this month. But the quality of at-bats tonight was distinctly lackluster. He walked five of eighteen batters faced last time: tonight, it was only two of twenty-two. Meanwhile, the Giants used the long ball to add a run in both the fourth and fifth innings off Rodriguez. He was lifted with men on the corners and two outs in the fifth, having needed a season-high 103 pitches to get through 4.2 innings. He was charged with five hits on seven hits and three walks, though did strike out eight batters.

The Giants had a 5-2 lead at that point and… yeah, that is really where the game became just one of those seventy-odd defeats. The B-bullpen for the Diamondbacks performed credibly. Scott McGough allowed one run over extended action, pitching 2.1 innings, to be followed by scoreless innings from Brandon Hughes and Blake Walston. However, the Arizona offense never seriously threatened, even after Birdsong left the game after five innings. The D-backs scored just once in the four bullpen innings from the Giants. That came in the seventh, when Jose Herrera doubled, and scored on Perdomo’s second hit of the night. Both men also walked, but our usually reliable bench went 0-for-3 with two K’s.

Disappointingly, considering this is the final week of the season and the team are in the thick of a dogfight for a playoff spot, the crowd at Chase was only 23,259. Maybe people are waiting to show up over the weekend? At least the team only lost half a game, with a limited slate of games today, and none of the other wild-card candidates in action. Arizona fell into the third wild-card spot, half a game back of the Mets and a game and a half ahead of the Braves. As I’m sure you are WELL aware, those two face off in a series which starts tomorrow night, so we’ll be ramping up the scoreboard watching for that on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Gameday Thread basically ground to a halt after Rodriguez was lifted. But I did get a chuckly from Webb_Gems’ response after I complained about the lack of excitement.

Poor Jake became rather too familiar with the outfield padding in this one. Here’s the video of his two collisions, both courtesy of Chapman. I think it’s a fitting metaphor for the game as a whole. Hopefully, things will be better – or, at least, more interestingly terrible – tomorrow night, for the second game in the series. First pitch is again at 6:40 pm, with Brandon Pfaadt taking the mound for the Diamondbacks.