The late inning heroics were setup by an ejection of Torey Lovullo as he did a great job of standing up for his players after Geraldo Perdomo was rung up on a very questionable call below the strike zone. This was the 4th such questionable call of the game against the Dbacks from the home plate umpire and Lovullo had enough and got his money’s worth with the home plate umpire. The next batter was Ketel and he unloaded on a low breaking ball sending it 445 feet to give the Dbacks the lead in the 9th.
Aside from Marte, the Dbacks offense in this one was largely dormant aside from the red hot Blaze Alexander who launched his 4th home run of the season in the 3rd inning. Blaze has certainly picked up the slack after the deadline trade of Eugenio Suarez and has really been providing some solid offensive and defensive production from the corner infield spot.
For me the highlight of the game was this young Dbacks bullpen as they went 6 innings and didn’t allow a single run. Jake Woodford came in relief of Anthony DeSclafani in the 4th inning and gave the Dbacks 3.1 innings of scoreless relief to keep the Rangers offense at bay and keep the Dbacks in the ballgame. Juan Morillo was able to keep the 1 run lead by pitching a scoreless 9th inning to earn his first career save. Morrillo’s inning was far from spotless as he fell behind a couple of the batters leading to some hard contact. However, the hard contact thankfully went straight into Ketel Marte’s glove on a diving play behind 2nd base. Hopefully Morillo can build upon this outing as there is a valid argument that could be made that he is currently the only guy in this bullpen with closer stuff. Time will tell.
The Dbacks will look to take the series vs the Rangers tomorrow in some must see game action as Zac Gallen faces off against long time Dback Merrill Kelly. It will feel strange rooting against Merrill, however it would be huge for this team to win the series against the Rangers before heading to Coors Field for 4 games.