This game, with Mitch Bratt starting the second game of a rare Saturday doubleheader before a Sunday off day, felt like it was gonna be a long shot even against the lowly San Francisco Giants, and so it was. Merrill Kelly pitched a gem in the early game to secure us the series split and to pull us briefly ahead of the San Diego Padres for the third wild card spot, so winning this one would have been gravy anyway, but alas, it was not to be.
The Giants started AA hand Yunior Marte today, and he walked Lars Nootbaar to start things off, but Nootbaar was quickly erased when Corbin Carroll hit a hard liner right to Bryce Eldridge at first base for an unassisted double play. Perdomo then rolled over to second for the third out. Bratt, meanwhile, started his day by walking Jonah Cox on four pitches, earning him an immediate mound visit so he could be reminded of where the strike zone actually was. That proved effective enough, as he got through the rest of the first with only eight more pitches thrown, but unfortunately Jonah Cox turns out to be a very speedy baserunner and he stole second and third before Eldridge singled him home with a grounder to left. 1-0 San Francisco
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The middle of our lineup sat down in order against Marte in the second, but Bratt settled down quite well in the bottom half, only needing five pitches to retire the Giants. We broke through against Marte in the third, tying the game thanks to a one-out Ildemaro Vargas single followed one out later by a Lars Nootbaar bloop double into shallow left that left fielder Grant McCray dove for and missed. 1-1 TIE
Bratt pitched around a one-out Jonah Cox single (and subsequent stolen base) in the bottom of the third to put up another zero, and then retired the side in order in the fourth, with a total of 44 pitches thrown through four innings. It actually seemed to be shaping up to be a genuinely good and efficient Mitch Bratt outing, despite that first-inning blemish.
Sadly, however, that ended once the bottom of the fifth rolled around. Bratt gave up a leadoff single to McCray and then walked the next batter before a perfect sacrifice bunt moved both runners into scoring position and earned Bratt the hook, perhaps because he’d completed his second time through the San Francisco order and Torey Lovullo felt like that was quite enough. Geraldo Carrillo came in to relieve him and, uncharacteristically, it went rather badly. He wound up going walk-single-single-walk to the first four batters he faced before finally buckling down and recording the final two outs of the inning, but by then three more runs were in and there was your margin of defeat. 4-1 San Francisco
We were well into the Giants’ bullpen at this point, and managed to get another run across courtesy of singles by Max Kelper, James McCann, and Vargas in the top of the seventh. 4-2 San Francisco
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Sadly, however, that was all we were going to get, and meanwhile the bullpen was unable to do its usual job of putting up zeros and keeping things close. Derek Law, called up today from Reno and making his first major league appearance since 2024, threw a very nice scoreless sixth but allowed a run to score in the seventh, and Justin Martinez and Dennis Santana combined to allow two more runs (unearned, but runs nonetheless) to cross the plate to take the score to its final resting place of 7-2 San Francisco
Loss Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs
Cioppino: None
Rice-a-Roni: Geraldo Carrillo (2/3 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 1 K, -19% WPA), Nolan Arenado (4 AB, 0 H, -12% WPA), Ryan Waldschmidt (3 AB, 0 H, 1 K, -10% WPA)
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Perhaps because it was the second game of a doubleheader, or perhaps because this one just didn’t seem to be going well from the get-go, we wound up with a rather sparse 159 comments in the Game Day Thread at time of writing. Most of the comments that went red were embedded in existing and often off-topic side conversations, so I’m going to award Comment of the Game to Diamondhacks for this one that, along with being a hilarous callback to a comment from the afternoon GDT, also feels like it works right now completely unmoored from its proper context:
As you wish!
On that note, you will not have the option to join us tomorrow, as we have a rare (and deeply weird) off day tomorrow. So stop by on Monday when we are back home at Chase Field, hosting the Phillies with firs tpitch scheduled for 6:40pm AZ time. No starting pitchers have been announced yet for either club, so I guess it will just have to be a surprise. Have a good Sunday, everyone….sorry that this was the note we ended the weekend on.
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On the bright side, even after tonight’s loss we remain tied with San Diego for the third wild card spot going into tomorrow’s off day, and Corbin Burnes pitched two perfect innings in Reno this afternoon, needing only seventeen pitches to record six outs against the Sacramento River Cats, so at least one of the long-awaited rotation reinforcements is getting closer to his long-overdue return.
As always, thanks for reading, and as always, go Diamondbacks!
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