Diamondbacks 8, Milwaukee 15: Pitching Loses Ballgames III: The Final Chapter?

Pfaadt with 8 runs in 1 1⁄3 innings, Floro with another 4 before recording an out. This is not sustainable.

Don’t let the final score fool you….this one was terrible pretty much from the get-go, as we begin to really feel the consequences of depending on the likes of young’uns like Ryne Nelson (now on the IL) and Brandon Pfaadt (our “ace” for most of the year, but the biggest disappointment tonight) to carry us through the first five months of the season. I suppose we’ve already been feeling those consequences as the calendar has turned over to September and the Snakes have been turning back into pumpkins, but, well, this was a bad one.

Brandon Pfaadt has not been good in his September starts for us, giving up three runs in less than six innings to Los Angeles on September 1 and then allowing four runs to Houston in 4²⁄₃ innings on September 6. Nevertheless, he was taking the mound tonight against the putative winner of this year’s NL Central pennant, and given how few innings our starters have managed to get through this month, we really needed a good, or at least solid, or at least lengthy, outing from Brandon. This seemed especially important, as he was going up against young Tobias Myers, a rookie who has emerged as the ace of Milwaukee’s pitching staff.

It didn’t happen.

Pfaadt walked Brice Turang on five pitches to lead off the ball game, and two sacrifice flies and a stolen base later, Turang had crossed the plate without any Brewers hits. DH Garrett Miller then singled to center, and then Willy Adames singled to center, but thankfully a nifty pickoff thwarted a Milwaukee attempt at a double steal, with Adames breaking to second and Mitchell breaking from third. Catcher Adrian Del Castillo made like he was trying to throw out Adames, but threw to Pfaadt instead, who fired to Eugenio Suarez at third to pick off Mitchell for the third out.

1-0 Milwaukee

Tobias Myers, meanwhile, looked quite ace-like in his first inning of work, sitting down Corbin Carroll, Ketel Marte, and Joc Pederson with eleven pitches total.

Pfaadt started off okay in the top of the second, recording flyball outs to the first two batters he faced. But then the hit parade began. The next seven batters reached, with four consecutive singles, followed by two walks, and culminating in a Willy Adames grand slam to left center. That earned Pfaadt the hook after only 1¹⁄₃ IP, though he’d already thrown 58 pitches at that point. Newly recalled lefty Brandon Hughes recorded the final out via a strikeout, but we were already in a very deep hole. 8-0 Milwaukee

Meanwhile, Myers continued to do acey things, facing the minimum through four and only allowing one hit, thanks to a Geno Suarez bloop single leading off the bottom of the third that was promptly erased by Del Castillo grounding into a double play three pitches later.

Brandon Hughes put up a zero in the third inning, which was nice, pitching around a leadoff walk. Dylan Floro came out for the top of the fourth, and gave up extra bases to the first four batters he faced: a double to rookie phenom-in-the-making Jackson Chourio to lead things off, followed by am RBI double to catcher William Contreras. Garrett Mitchell drove him in by sending a ball over the fence in left center, and Adames followed with his second homer of the game, this one a solo shot over the fence in right center. Floro settled down after that, and pitched a 1-2-3 fifth, but I’m not sure it even counts as “settling down” when you gave up four runs before recording your first out. Bah. 12-0 Milwaukee

We began to generate some traffic, at least, in Myers’s second time through the Diamondbacks lineup, with Jake McCarthy and Pavin Smith stringing together back-to-back singles in the bottom of the fifth, though nothing came of it. Torey Lovullo ran Floro out to start the top of the sixth, but Floro walked the first two batters he faced, so he was pulled for Yilber Diaz, who’s back in the bigs as a long-relief arm. Diaz couldn’t strand both runners, alas, but managed to allow only one to score as he commenced his long relief outing. 13-0 Milwaukee

Both teams were pulling starters by this point—we’d swapped in Kevin Newman for Marte after the fourth, and going into the sixth Guillorme, Bell, and Grichuk came in to replace Carroll, Walker, and Suarez. I expected that I would now be wrapping up a blissfully short recap of a truly benighted game at this point, but no, that’s not to be, because the bats actually woke up a bit, after a fashion. Myers was still cruising in the bottom of the sixth for Milwaukee, but a leadoff single by Geraldo Perdomo, a one-out single by Kevin Newman, a Pederson flyout to right and a Josh Bell single got two runs home. 13-2 Milwaukee

We got two more in the bottom of the seventh, thanks to a Pavin Smith leadoff single and Randal Grichuk’s tenth home run of the year, a bomb he launched over the fence in left center. Del Castillo then singled, finally chasing Myers from the ballgame and bringing in a gentleman whose name is apparently Hoby Milner, who shut things down to avoid further damage. 13-4 Milwaukee

Then things got kind of silly in the bottom of the eighth, as Bell singled to left with one out, and McCarthy reached on an error by Milwaukee’s substitute third baseman, and Pavin Smith singled again to load the bases. That chased Hoby Milner and brought in Enoli Paredes, who surrendered an RBI single to Grichuk. Del Castillo then popped up behind third, but another error by the third baseman allowed it to drop, driving in another. Finally, Perdomo doubled into the gap in left center, bringing in Smith and Grichuk. That was the end of it, but it seemed like we might actually be getting back into striking distance. Also, trust the Diamondbacks Twitter X feed to find the bright side:

We’d gotten to within five runs, and we still have three outs to go. 13-8 Milwaukee

Except that, after three scoreless innings of relief by Yilber Diaz, he finally wobbled, to the tune of a leadoff double and then a two-out WIlliam Contreras dinger. And we sat down in order in the bottom of the ninth. At least it was over. 15-8 Milwaukee

Win Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs

Winners: NONE. No Diamondbacks players managed to even break +1% WPA.
Losers: Brandon Pfaadt (1²⁄₃ IP, 7 H, 8 ER, 3 BB, 0 K, 1 HR, -41.3% WPA)

Needless to say, it was a sparsely populated Gameday Thread tonight, with the game going as emphatically south as it did by the end of the second inning. At time of writing, we seem to have managed 123 comments. Very few went Sedona Red, and the only one that’s game-relevant, was this one from our Fearless Leader, shortly after the grand slam that chased Pfaadt from the game:

Much appreciated, Jim. Much appreciated. But watching this one hurt us all.

Anyway. If you dare, join us tomorrow to see if we can keep Milwaukee’s beer-scented brooms from sweeping us out of our home park. Zac Gallen takes the mound for us; DL Hall goes for the Brew Crew. First pitch is scheduled for 1:!0pm AZ time.

Scoreboard Watching

Well, the Phillies beat the Mets, so that’s nice. Atlanta buried FTD 10-1, though, and San Diego stomped the Giants 8-0, so for the second day in a row things did not go in our favor. At close of business, we are still clinging to the 2nd Wild Card spot, but we’ve fallen 1¹⁄₂ games behind the Padres and are now only 1 game ahead of both Atlanta and New York, with only fourteen games left in the regular season. Gulp.

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