The Diamondbacks showed a little more fight compared to their campaign opening loss last night, but still came up short at Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium (ugh). Ryne Nelson started the game for the good guys against Emmet Sheehan and very-much-bad-not-good-at-all guys, and it was a bit of a mixed bag for our talented righty. Ryne finished the night with a line very similar to Zac’s from last night, a not incredibly impressive 4 ER over 4.2 IP. Nelson did leave a better taste in our mouth than Zac did thanks to Nelly’s 4 runs all coming in the 3rd before he bounced back and retired the last 7 hitters he faced, compared with Zac mowing the Dodgers down for 4 innings then getting lit up at the end. Nelson has room for improvement, but this was largely a good start for him and I imagine it will be somewhat easier to limit his blow-up innings against teams that don’t stack 8 straight All Stars at the top of the lineup.
The offense showed more punch than the night before as well, but for as many opportunities as they gave themselves with the bat, they took away some key opportunities with mistakes on the base paths. Pavin Smith getting sent from first to home should be something on the Do Not Do list given out to the coaches when pitchers and catchers report in February, but apparently our third base coach was feeling froggy and wasted a prime scoring opportunity in the second by sending Pavin to his doom on Alek Thomas’ first RBI double of the evening. Then, Alek undid his own good when he tried to stretch an RBI double into a triple in the fourth inning. It wasn’t the last out of the inning, and he did actually beat the throw, but having Alek at second with one out and a potential to flip the order over would’ve been a favorable outcome for the Snakes.
The defense was again pretty solid, with the only real miscue being Gabi’s throw into centerfield when trying to throw out a stealing Kyle Tucker, but that didn’t end up hurting the team’s chances. The bullpen was mostly brilliant for the second night in a row, with a single pitcher allowing a run that wound up being the difference on the night. While Loaisiga and Thompson looked solid, almost brilliant, Ginkel and his diminished fastball velocity made one mistake too many and cost his team the game. Giving up a leadoff double to the only Dodger not expected to be an All-Star this year was the death knell as the Dodgers ‘fundamentaled’ the go ahead run in with Shohei’s grounder to second advancing the runner to third and Tucker putting the ball perfectly into the hole between Ketel and Santana to put the Dodgers ahead in the 8th.
Coming into the 8th inning, the Dodgers had scored 4 runs on 2 hits. The D-Backs had quadrupled that hit total, but had still only scored the same 4 runs. The margin for error against this squad is too small for the D-Backs to afford making extra outs on the bases or giving up costly hits to the 9-hole hitter (2-3 with a 2B and HR). Make one mistake and that is all they need.
Loss Probability and Box Score
It wasn’t Opening Night levels, but the GDT was still well populated, finishing at 267 comments at time of publishing. Many went Sedona Red, but first COTG for the season goes to VW Beetle with a game-leading number of Recs with his reaction to Alek’s hit and the base coach assisted TOOTBLAN in the second inning:
The Diamondbacks face the Dodgers for the third and final game of this series tomorrow night at 6:10pm. WBC hero – and the Snakes only LHP – Eduardo Rodriguez will be on the mound trying to stave off a season-opening sweep, while the Fighting Guggenheims counter with Tyler Glasnow. Tune in and join the GDT to give the recapper Dano some company.