Wow. I, and I suspect all of us, would have expected better from Brandon Pfaadt. Or anyone, really, that we’d pulled in off the street to pitch for us. But no. We got what we got tonight, and despite some of us maybe getting our hopes up late in the ballgame, this one was done from the beginning. Literally.

I’m not going to write this up in excruciating detail, because frankly I can’t think of many things tonight I would be less enthusiastic about doing, and also because it’s not necessary. Anyone who reads this knows we’ve been sucking lately, a lot, though mainly it’s been the bullpen that has been the dumpster fire. But no, tonight Pfaadt decided to let them off the hook, and to do so by setting the Diamondbacks up to accomplish something that, according to MLB.com, hasn’t been done in 77 years. He hit the leadoff batter, gave up three straight hits after that, hit another batter, then gave up three more hits, and was pulled from the game without recording a single out.

Scott McGough came in to relieve him, and I bet you can imagine how that went: another hit, another hit-by-pitch, and then another hit, before the first out of the ballgame was finally recorded, on a strikeout of Nathaniel Lowe, the Nationals’ first baseman. Nine runs were already in at that point, and while the Grime Dog did manage to end the inning eventually, he gave up a walk and another single, and allowed a tenth run to score. So yay. 10-0 Washington, before we’d even come to the plate.

McGough also came out to start the third, but walked the first two batters he faced before getting yanked. One of those runners scored, to make things 11-0 Washington. So that was fun.

That’s far more than the margin of victory right there. So. Game over, basically, even though there were still eight and a half more innings to play.

Some Good Things that Happened

The Diamondbacks offense, after lying there stunned and ostensibly dead in the road for the first eleven plate appearances against Washington starter Michael Soroka, showed a bit of life as Geraldo Perdomo broke up the perfect game with a single to right in the bottom of the fourth, and Josh Naylor followed with a ball into the seats in right center to break up the shutout. 11-2 Washington

The offense continued to chip away, up to a point (hence the hope I alluded to at the top), hanging what wound up being a five-run sixth on Soroka and his mid-inning replacement, a gentleman named Jackson Rutledge, thanks to a Josh Naylor double, a Eugenio Suarez single, a Pavin Smith triple, a Gabi Moreno single, and finally Randal Grichuk’s fourth home run of the year. 11-7 Washington

Aside from Scott McGough, the bullpen was pretty excellent, actually. To be fair, it was garbage time pretty much from the get-go, but as the offense kept trying to get us back into the ballgame, it felt less and less like it was actually garbage time, so. Jeff Brigham pitched two scoreless innings, Ryne Nelson put up zeroes for the next four, Kendall Graveman put up another in the top of the eighth, and Shelby Miller (remember him? He closes for us, when there’s an opportunity for him to do so) pitched a scoreless ninth. The bullpen, oddly, was nails.

The Terrible Things that also Happened

Corbin Carroll’s slumpy slumpishness continued, and it seemed to be contagious, as he went 0 for 5, and Ketel Marte (who was batting after him) went 0 for 4. So the top two in our lineup contributed, well, pretty much absolutely nothing.
We had a runner reach base in the seventh, and could have loaded the bases in the bottom of the eighth, but our offense had once again dried up, and we failed to get any more runs across.
Part of the problem in the eighth was that, on a Grichuk single to left, third base coach Shaun Larkin sent Pavin Smith to try to score from second, and he was thrown out at the plate. At least it wasn’t Geno getting thrown out at home this time, but still. Shaun Larkin sucks, and if there’s any justice he should be filing his unemployment claim right around the same time that pitching coach Brian Kaplan files his. Which, if there’s any justice, should be last Wednesday.
Scott McGough. ‘Nuff said.
Lest we forget, here’s Brandon Pfaadt’s pitching line for the evening: 0 IP, 6 H, 8 ER, 2 HBP, 31 pitches thrown. Sorry.

Win Probability, courtesy of FanGraphs

And yeah, we’re not gonna do the whole good/bad/ugly performers tonight, because when one team takes a 10-0 lead before the other team has even had a turn at bat, it basically breaks the FanGraphs algorithm for the team that’s on the wrong side of the score deficit.

Basically, it was entirely Pfaadt’s fault, as, along with the pitching line above, he wound up sporting a -45.4% WPA. If that seems a bit low to you, well, it does to me too. That algorithm is weird.

Oddly, though perhaps unsurprisingly, it was a very active and well-attended Gameday Thread tonight, despite a whole bunch of people loudly proclaiming that they were noping out at the end of the first inning. I’m glad they didn’t….I appreciated the company, and the often hilarious non-baseball tangents that people went haring off on. There’s 486 comments at time of writing, and a bunch that went Sedona Red. The hands-down people’s choice was our Fearless Leader declaring our first swearing-permitted GDT of the year, but I’m giving the Comment of the Game to VW Beetle, who quite inspiringly refused to nope out:

Thanks, Beetle. You will always be Bluto to me.

Anyway. If you don’t have anything better to do, are determined to continue making psychologically injurous life choices, enjoy having clear and unassailable justifications for your Sunday afternoon day drinking, or are simply doing the Masochism Tango, stop by and join us for the rubber match of this disappointing series, as we once more try to stave off a sweep. Corbin Burnes goes for us, because I guess he’s back on “regular rest” now or some damn thing. Mitchell Parker goes for Washington. 1:10PM AZ time.

As always, thanks for reading. And as always, go Diamondbacks!