Diamondbacks 5, Milwaukee 0: Pitching Wins Ballgames!!!!

Who’d’a thunk it? Merrill Kelly and the bullpen dominated, and the bats did just enough.

Merrill Kelly took the ball for us tonight, facing off against Milwaukee trade deadline acquisition Aaron Civale. After a number of fairly rough outings since his August 11 return from the IL, Kelly was nails in Colorado on Monday, and so we were hoping that he’d be the same tonight, and show that he’s truly getting back to his old reliable self.

To aid in that effort, the Diamondbacks offense staked him an early lead against the Brewers. After Corbin Carroll flied out to center for the first out of the ballgame, Ketel Marte singled to right off Civale, and two pitches later, Joc Pederson capitalized with a long home run to right center field on a Civale splitter that caught just a little too much of the strike zone:

Christian Walker and Pavin Smith couldn’t do anything further to help the cause, but still, the Diamondbacks put up yet another crooked number to start a ballgame. 2-0 D-BACKS

So on came Merrill Kelly for the bottom of the inning, and he sat down the top of the Brewers lineup in order. He wound up needing an uncharacteristic 22 pitches to do it, though fifteen of those pitches were to Rhys Hopkins, Milwaukee’s DH and two-hoel hitter tonight, who fought very hard on his way to an eventual strikeout. Kelly would settle in just fine after that, putting up much more economical zeroes in the next four innings, only needing fifty more pitches as he sat down the Brewers in order in the second, the fourth, and the fifth, and facing only one more batter than the minimum despite giving up leadoff singles to Joey Oritz and Sal Frelick to start the third. Merrill even struck out the side in the fifth, which was great to see. In short, Merrill was dealing.

Meanwhile, Civale was not, so much, though he did manage to put up zeroes of his own in the second, third, and fourth innings. He sat us down in order in the second, and pitched around a two-out Marte walk in the third, as well as a two-out hit-by-pitch to Jake McCarthy in the fourth. He didn’t make out through the fifth, though, thanks in part to allowing Jose Herrera to hit his FIRST CAREER HOME RUN with one out in the fifth:

That wasn’t actually what earned him the hook, though….instead, it was the five-pitch walk to Corbin Carroll that he followed it up with, and then the four-pitch walk to Ketel Marte that followed that. Lefty Hoby Milner came out of the Brewers’ bullpen at that point, which inspired Torey Lovullo to replace Pederson with Randal Grichuk. That didn’t work out so well, as Grichuk popped out to Brice Turang on the first pitch he saw. Christian Walker grounded out to third to end the threat, but, still, we’d gotten into the Milwaukee bullpen in the fifth inning again, and we’d also added to our lead! 3-0 D-BACKS

As noted above, Kelly struck out the side in the bottom of the fifth, and he did in fact come out to start the sixth, but after only a couple of warmup pitches, Herrera called a halt and went out to the mound to converse with Merrill. That meeting eventually expanded to include the Diamondbacks infield, trainer Ryna DiPanfilo, and Lovullo himself, who had a long and animated conversation with Kelly before taking the ball and bringing in Joe Mantiply from the bullpen. It was the cramping thing again, apparently, for Merrill, so that’s an issue that can no longer be blamed solely on the increasingly balky air conditioning at Chase Field.

No worries, though, as Mantiply Joe was on his game tonight. He retired the Brewers in order in the bottom of the sixth, and then came out and struck out Hopkins, pinch-hitter Jackson Chourio, and Willy Adames, the heart of Milwaukee’s order, for a perfect seventh as well! Here it is, courtesy of the Pitching Ninja:

Not very often that you get a video pitching highlight, but there you go. Mantiply Joe was a boss tonight.

So were Ginkel and Puk, who pitched the eighth and ninth, respectively, sitting the Brewers down in order and putting up more zeroes.

And, for those of us who were still feeling nervous with only a three run lead, Ketel Marte decided to soothe our anxieties a little in the top of the ninth. Corbin Carroll walked for the third time in the game with one out, and Ketel decided that Joc Pederson’s home run ball from the first inning deserved a little bit of company:

And that gets us to our very happy final score of 5-0 D-BACKS!

Win Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs

Bratwurst w/ Homemade Sauerkraut & Whole-Grain Mustard: Merrill Kelly (5 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 6 K, +27.6% WPA)
Hebrew National Hot Dog w/ Ketchup, Onions & Relish: Joc Pederson (2 AB, 1 H, 1 HR, 2 RBI, +14.9% WPA), Joe Mantiply (2 IP, 0 R, 4 K, +11.2% WPA)

It was a lively and cheerful Gameday Thread tonight, which was a very nice change from the last few Saturdays, with 305 comments at time of writing. Early on I was thinking that CotG would go to one of the posts in a lengthy tangental discussion about furries, but after Herrera’s bit of business, I gladly award this one to AZNailGal520:

I teared up a bit too, and so will you, if you have any heart at all, as you watch this bonus video highlight:

Anyway. Get your brooms out for tomorrow’s contest. as we seek to close out the sweep of the 2024 NL Central champions in their own house. Jordan Montgomery’s on the mound for us, so don’t get your hopes up too much, but hey, blind squirrels, broken clocks, etc. Who knows? It could happen, and here’s hoping that it will! Right-hander Frankie Montas is on the mound for the Brew Crew. First pitch is scheduled for 11:10 AZ time, so if you can tear yourself away from the Sunday Hand Egg Follies, I hope you can join us!

As always, thanks for reading, and as always, go Diamondbacks!

Scoreboard Watching

Basically, we needed to win this game, because all of the other National League Wild Card contenders won their games. The Mets beat the Phillies 6-3, Atlanta vanquished Miami 6-2, and San Diego beat the White Sox (because, well, duh) 6-2. But since we won as well, everything stays the same, aside from our magic number now being down to 4, if I’m not mistaken:

Late-ish Update: It doesn’t really mean anything to the postseason picture at this point, but it is gratifying nonetheless. The Colorado Rockies just closed out a 6-3 win of their own against FTD, at Chavez Latrine. BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!