Okay, so this was a strange one. As was noted in 1AZFan1’s recap of last night’s shutout loss, our offense has been completely AWOL for several days now. This is something we’ve seen happen plenty over the last several years, but these multi-day offensive outages get exponentially more concerning when, as I and others have expended a lot of words on already this year, our pitching staff, both in the rotation and in the bullpen, is very much constructed of chewing gum, baling wire, and whatever found objects Mike Hazen was able to salvage from the local bins on garbage night. Having to rely primarily on our pitching does not fill me with confidence. Like, ever.
And yet.
This game, like all baseball games (at least the ones that don’t involve one or both teams using the “opener” strategy and therefore deciding in advance that it’s going to be a bullpen game), is first and foremost a contest between two pitchers. This was not a game where any openers were used. Bryce Elder was starting for the Atlanta Braves; Michael Soroka was going for the Diamondbacks. Usually, the team whose starter pitches the better game wins the baseball game. This is not always the case of course—the baseball gods are cruel and fickle and often whimsically malicious. But more often than not, that is the case.
So let’s break down the two pitchers’ performances. Both pitchers pitched well today, let’s get that out of the way right up front. Each starter only surrendered four hits over the course of the ballgame. Both bullpens, once they got involved, put up zeroes and allowed no baserunners. It was, by all measurements, a very well-pitched game on both sides.
Pitcher A threw 90 pitches over the course of seven innings of work. As noted, he gave up four hits. He walked one. He struck out eight. He surrendered zero earned runs. He faced the minimum in six of the seven innings he worked.
Pitcher B threw 91 pitches over the course of five innings of work, only giving up four hits and allowing one earned run. He walked three, and hit a batter, and struck out three. He allowed runners in every inning that he worked, not recording a single clean inning.
Naturally, you might expect that Pitcher A was Michael Soroka, given the fact that by the numbers it’s the far better performance, and as you gleaned from the headline, the Diamondbacks emerged from the contest with the victory.
You would be wrong. Remember, the baseball gods can be, after all, cruel and fickle and whimsically malicious. Also, the numbers don’t always tell the entire story. Pitcher A was in fact Bryce Elder. PitcherB was, in fact, Soroka. And yet we won.
So here’s how it happened. This will be necessarily short, because today as much as just about any game recently, our offense was pretty much entirely absent. Both Soroka and Elder worked a scoreless first, though Soroka tossed 17 pitches and walked Atlanta first baseman Matt Olson with two outs, while Elder sat down Ketel Marte, Corbin Carroll, and Geraldo Perdomo in order, only needing 10 pitches to do so.
It all comes down, really, to the second inning. Soroka walked former Giant Mike Yastrzemski to lead off the top of the second. Ozzie Albies followed with a grounder to the right side of the infield that advanced Yastrzemski to second. Michael Harris flew out to center, and then Dominic Smith, perpetual journeyman and currently the Braves’ designated hitter, swung at a full-count Soroka pitch that was up and outside, well out of the strike zone, and slapped it into left field to score the runner from second. 1-0 Atlanta
In the bottom of the second, however, it was our turn. Gabriel Moreno led off the frame with a ground ball single into center field. Adrian Del Castillo, who was functioning as our “designated hitter” (and, as it turned out, sinkhole of suck) today, struck out. Nolan Arenado grounded his own single to center, putting runners on first and second for everyone’s favorite dark horse rookie and Savior of the Lineup(TM), Jose Fernandez, who was manning first base this afternoon. Fernandez, somewhat surprisingly, squared up and bunted the first pitch he saw up the third base lane. It was supposed to be a sacrifice, but, well, instead this happened:
So, yeah, that sure was wacky. Throwing error by Elder that rolls up the line, Arenado runs through a J.R. House stop sign, the bunt is scored as a single, and two Diamondbacks runs cross the plate. Neither run was earned, so this game also earns the fun distinction in the box score of us scoring two runs but zero runs batted in.
I tell ya, you gotta love baseball sometimes. 2-1 D-BACKS
And that is also the last time the Braves pitchers faced more than the minimum three in an inning. That was in part thanks to the Diamondbacks grounding into two 3-6-3 double plays: one in the third off the bat of Perdomo to erase a one-out Corbin Carroll walk, and one by Del Castillo in the fourth to erase Gabriel Moreno’s leadoff single.
Seriously. The offense was not in the building today, once again. Which is both disappointing and concerning, but what can you do?
Meanwhile, Soroka pitched around more traffic in his remaining three innings of work—doubles, walks, singles, hit batsmen, all kinds of good stuff. But somewhat miraculously, while it felt, at least to me, like he was flirting with disaster the entire time, he nevertheless managed to escape again and again and finish his day with only the one run allowed.
Of course, when the starter exits after five frames, that means that the bullpen has to get involved, which tends to produce acid reflux responses in the Diamondbacks faithful, and with good reason. There was, however, no need to worry today. Wonders truly will never cease.
Taylor Clarke threw 12 pitches in a scoreless sixth, allowing no Braves to reach base. Jonathan Loaisiga threw 10 pitches in a scoreless seventh, allowing no Braves to reach base. Juan Morillo threw 14 pitches in a scoreless eighth, allowing no batters to reach base. Paul Sewald struck out two of the three batters he faced while throwing 21 pitches to redeem himself for last night’s implosion and nail down the save without any Braves hitters reaching base.
Dang. What a genuinely strange baseball game. 2-1 D-BACKS FINAL
Win Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs
Superfriends: Diamondbacks pitchers (9 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 7 K, +64.6% WPA)
Boy Wonder: Jose Fernandez (3 AB, 1 H, +15.1% WPA)
Suicide Squad: Diamondbacks hitters other than Fernandez (23 AB, 3 H, 1 BB, 9 K, -29.7% WPA)
It was a pretty quiet Gameday Thread today, which is understandable given how the first two games of this series went, and also that the NCAA Final Four was underway while the game was going on. At time of writing, we’re looking at 126 comments. A number went Sedona Red (or what passes for it these days), because we were apparently feeling generous with our rec’s today. By popular acclaim, this one goes to Snake_Bitten, who was not present in the Thread but was doing their part by being at the game in person, and also invoking the grace of the baseball gods to ensure Soroka’s success against his former team:
So despite the inauspicious beginning to the series, we find ourselves going into tomorrow’s game with the opportunity to salvage a series split! Brandon Pfaadt goes for us, lefty Michael Perez goes for Atlanta. This one will feature our home team broadcasters, which will be nice after two days of national broadcasts of varying quality. First pitch is scheduled for 1:10pm AZ time. Hope you can drop by!
As always, thanks so much for reading my maunderings, and as always, go Diamondbacks!
