Game Summary
The Diamondbacks starting rotation has had a habit of being sunk by the “Blow Up Inning” over the last couple seasons, and after the first inning tonight, I thought Soroka was just another member of the club. In a rare twist on that tired trope, the Diamondbacks offense punched through with their own Blow Up Inning against the now very-well-paid Jesus Luzardo, and when the dust settled, the Diamondbacks 5-run fifth eked out the Phils’ 4-run first.
Michael Soroka had been having a stellar start to the season, and I suppose he can say that is mostly still correct, with the lone exception being the first four Phillies hitters who faced him on this beautiful looking April night in Philadelphia. The Phillies offense was riding a 20 inning scoreless streak and quickly snapped it with Turner, Schwarber, Harper, and Marsh opening the game with Single, Walk, RBI Double, 3-Run Dinger. 4 runs. No outs. Cue the mound visit from Brian Kaplan. From that moment on, Soroka’s pitching line was: 5.2 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 10 K and ZERO runs allowed. Unfortunately, his final line will include those first four hitters, but Soroka was able to lock in and keep the Blow Up to just the single inning and allow his offense a chance to come back.
It was a bit of a wait for the offense to show up in this game, though, but when it did finally show up, it provided a knockout punch. Jesus Luzardo didn’t have the prettiest ERA coming in to this game, but his 18:1 K:BB ratio was all you really needed to know about this tough lefty. Luzardo had the Snakes hitters flummoxed through the first 4 innings, only being able to muster 2 baserunners via BB and striking out 6 times. Then the floodgates opened in the fifth with young Jose Fernandez leading off with a 110mph single followed by a walk and bunt single from Tawa and AT, respectively. With the bases loaded and 1 out (after Barrosa punched out) Ketel Marte lined a 2-RBI single, Ildemaro Vargas got an RBI single, and James McCann (inserted into the game in the third inning which I’ll discuss more in a bit) rocked a go-ahead 2-RBI double into the right-center gap to put the DBacks in the lead and chase Luzardo from the game.
From that point it was a battle of the bullpens and both were up to the task. Each bullpen only allowed 2 H and 0 BB the rest of the night. Jonny Lasagna was the first out of the pen, getting the final out in the sixth and the first 2 of the 7th, all via strikeout. Juan Morillo then came in for the lefties at the top of the order: Schwarber, Harper and Marsh. Schwarber flew out, but Harper and Marsh went down flailing haplessly at Morillo’s filth. Morillo then got one more strikeout after allowing a single to send the game to the 9th with a Diamondbacks lead. Sewald came in and was living dangerously, his fastball (with velocity at his upper end of 92mph) landing right in the middle of the zone repeatedly, but the Phillies miraculously couldn’t do anything with it outside a 2-out triple and left the Snakes victorious.
The one blemish on tonight’s victory is that Gabi Moreno had to leave the game early due to what the team was saying is lower back tightness. Doesn’t sound too severe, but leaving the game in the third inning is generally not what you want, especially for a guy who has had as much time missed to injury as Gabi has. James McCann hasn’t had the greatest start offensively while Gabi has been one of our best hitters so any extended absence for Moreno would be devastating. Come to think of it, though, tonight makes two nights in a row that the second catcher in the game got a pinch-hit RBI double in a critical moment. Maybe we should use 2 catchers every game! /s
Win Probability and Box Score
Outside the Box Score
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No notes from me tonight as I was detained elsewhere for the bulk of this game. Have to get back on it next week.
Comment of the Game
Looks like the GameDay Thread was fairly well attended with a total of 250 comments at time of publishing. Tonight’s COTG goes to the always optimistic ChefAZ with this postscript to the game:
Rolling we are! Not so bad when we aren’t facing a billion-dollar lineup!
Coming Up
The Diamondbacks face the Phillies for the second game of this 3-game set tomorrow afternoon with an early 10:05am start time on FS1 and DBacks.TV. Former Diamondback right-hander Taijaun Walker (0-2, 9.31 ERA) will take the mound for the Phillies and Brandon Pfaadt (0-0, 6.75 ERA) takes the ball for the good guys hoping to make a statement to the front office that he deserves to stay in the rotation after the return of the Mainstay.
Read the full article here
