The Dbacks were not able to complete what would’ve been their 5th straight series win on Thursday as they lost to the Chicago White Sox on a 3 run home run in the top of the 9th inning.
After the offensive explosion that happened last night at Chase Field with the 6 home runs, today was very much the opposite type of game. Michael Soroka pitched well today and did a great job quieting the red hot White Sox offense. Soroka was able to go 5 innings and only allowing 1 run, however due to a few particularly long innings with base traffic wasn’t able to pitch into the 6th inning. He was able to notch 6 Ks today generating 13 swing and misses. Soroka’s slurve was especially sharp today generating a 29% whiff rate. Definitely one of the best pitches on this team for sure.
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The Diamondbacks bullpen was good for the most part this afternoon as Ginkel, Morillo, and Loasiga combined for 3.1 innings of 0 ER with 4 Ks. However the strange trend with non-save opportunity Paul Sewald reared its ugly head again today as he came in in the 9th, walked 2 batters, and then gave up the go ahead 3 run home run on a fastball that literally could not have been more center cut. I mean when Paul Sewald misses, he misses really really bad. The ball may as well have been on a tee and that simply cannot happen with the game on the line.
Im inclined to just chalk this one up as Sewald maybe just isn’t as locked in in non save opportunities as he is in save opportunities, however I just don’t know how much I buy that. You should always be locked in entering a major league baseball game and there is NEVER a good time to throw pitches middle middle like that. Sewald owns a 27.00 ERA in tie game situations so far this season after allowing his 5th ER in just 1.2 innings of tie game action so far this season. And I feel like the majority of those runs came on center cut fastballs middle middle.
Certainly this was a series you wanted to win if you were the Dbacks, however I also think the White Sox played some pretty good baseball over the past couple of days especially on offense and the series essentially came down to 1 mistake in the heart of the zone.
The other argument here as to why the Dbacks lost this game which is valid is that the offense was only able to piece together 1 run. Especially considering they scored 11 runs in the game last night. Carroll went 0-4 and the rest of the offense was only able to scatter hits here and there while only drawing 1 walk. Pretty tough to win a major league game with offensive performances like that.
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The Dbacks will look to get back to winning series in Mexico City on Saturday when they take on the red-hot San Diego Padres in a quick 2 game series. I think it will be fun to see the energy that Mexico City brings to the ball park as well as how the ball plays at almost 2,000 feet ABOVE Coors Field elevation.
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