I hope you all will forgive me for spending a portion of my Saturday mornings sorting through various somewhat bleak baseball things in preparation for the coming recap. For instance, today I found myself roaming around looking at the recent game logs for Harrison Grant Holmes and comparing them those of Eduardo Rodriguez (Holmes had a better run recently, at least until today), and then looking at how the Braves as a team hit versus left-handed pitching (10th in the majors, as opposed to 8th vs. right-handers). The Diamondbacks, incidentally, are 2nd in the majors facing lefties, at least in terms of OPS, which was nice to see. But Grant Holmes is not a lefty, so I scrolled down to see how we do against righties, and discovered the rather depressing fact that we rank 29th in the majors in OPS against right-handed pitching. I tend to try to look for something interesting that I could touch on and organize my thinking around, in case a Saturday game goes badly for us, as it feels like they often do.
Anyway. As it turns out, I didn’t really need to, though it certainly didn’t look like it was going to be that way in the early going. Holmes caught leadoff man Lars Nootbaar looking to start off the game, then got Corbin Carroll to pop out on the infield and Geraldo Perdomo to strike out swinging on three pitches to make short work of the Snakes in the top of the first. Everyone’s favorite hologram then came on for the bottom of the frame and gave up hits to the first three batters he faced: a home run to absolutely straightaway center field to Ronald Acuña, Jr., followed by a double to Drake Baldwin and a maddening bloop single just behind shortstop that fell in and advanced Baldwin to third. ERod finally recorded his first out on an Ozzie Albies pop fly to shallow right, but Baldwin crossed the plate on a grounder to second. That wound up being all the damage done, but we were already in a hole and Rodriguez had already thrown 24 pitches. 2-0 Atlanta
Given our dismal 0 for 14 performance last night with runners in scoring position, and given how easily Holmes had disposed of the top of our lineup in the top of the first, it seemed like we were in a very deep hole. But the bottom two thirds of the lineup, perhaps shamed by yesterday’s aforementioned dismal performance, were having none of it today. Gabriel Moreno drewa five-pitch walk to lead things off, and was promptly advanced to third by a Max Kepler double into the alley in right center that rolled to the wall. Nolan Arenado grounded out slowly to third, allowing Moreno to score. Then Tim Tawa grounded a single to left, driving in Kepler and tying things back up. But we weren’t done! Ildemaro Vargas, starting at second today due to Ketel Marte’s gimpy knee, rolled over to second for the second out, but then Ryan Waldschmidt hit an opposite field liner to right that dropped for a single and scored Tawa from second. 3-2 DBACKS
And it was basically off to the races after that. ERod surrendered a leadoff double to Atlanta left fielder Lane Thomas to start the bottom of the second, but then sat down the next three batters to leave Thomas stranded there and put up a very reassuring zero. Corbin Carroll led off the top of the third with a double to right. Perdomo launched a fly ball to deep center that allowed Corbin to tag and take third. Moreno then doubled off the wall in right center, plating Carroll. Kepler popped out the infield, which was unfortunate and frustrating, marking as it did the second out of the inning, but Nolan Arenado came to the plate for the second time in two innings and launched the third pitch he saw from Holmes into the seats in left center field:
Tim Tawa flied out to end things, but Nolan’s 29th of the season had extended the lead substantially. 6-2 DBACKS
Things kind of cooled down after that for both teams, at least for awhile. Holmes walked Nootbaar and Carroll on five pitches apiece with two outs in the top of the fourth, which earned him an early end to his night, but the Braves bullpen got involved and put up three straight zeros in the fourth, fifth, and sixth. Eduardo Rodriguez, however, had settled down nicely, and was doing the same. He retired Altanta in order in the third and fourth, pitched around a two-out Acuña single that just trickled in and out of the glove of a diving Perdomo, and then recorded a 1-2-3 bottom of the sixth to end his night on a very satisfactory note.
But our offense still wasn’t done. In fact, Arenado himself wasn’t done. He stepped to the plate with two outs in the seventh against Atlanta lefty Brent Suter and launched his 20th home run of the year to pretty much the same place that he’d deposited his 19th:
So that was fun. 7-2 DBACKS
The game was mostly in the bag at this point, with Jonathan Loaisiga and Kevin Ginkel each pitching a pristine inning in relief, while the Braves relievers continued to toil along haplessly. Corbin Carroll tripled with off the wall in right with two outs in the eighth, but wasn’t able to score. In the top of the ninth, Moreno singled to lead things off, Arenado drew a one-out walk, and then with two outs Ildemaro Vargas, who’d been quiet all evening up to this point, sent a third souvenir over the wall in left to pad things a little more. 10-2 DBACKS
With an eight run lead, Torey Lovullo opted to go with Philip Abner, an admittedly low-leverage arm, out of the bullpen for the final three outs, and Abner got it done, though he did cough up one more run thanks to a Matt Olson leadoff double and then a couple of infield groundouts that allowed Olson to come around and score. But no harm done, and we had a very emphatic second win of the series! 10-3 DBACKS
Win Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs
Heroes: Nolan Arenado (4 AB, 2 H, 2 R, 4 RBI, 2 HR, 1 BB, +13% WPA), Cabriel Moreno (4 AB, 3 H, 3 R, 1 2B, 1 BB, +11% WPA)
Zeros: None! Lars Nootbaar, Geraldo Perdomo, and Ildemaro Vargas each contributed negative WPA, but at ultimately negligible levels. Everyone played real good ball tonight! Good job, Snakes!
It wound up being a nice and well-populated Gameday Thread tonight, with 289 comments at time of writing. Our Fearless Leader got the most rec’s for his observation regarding how helpful it might be for tomorrow to chew through some more of Atlanta’s bullpen, but I’m giving today’s Comment of the Game to piratedan for this early comment that aptly captures the whiplash many of us felt seeing the offense go off like this less than 24 hours after last night’s Dismal Performance (TM):
Didn’t have this in my bingo card going into last night’s game, but I hope you can join us tomorrow as we go for the three-game sweep against the runaway leaders in the NL East! Michael Soroka goes for us, Bryce Elder goes for Atlanta. Elder got lit up last time out with 7 earned runs allowed to the lowly Mets on August 10, so with any luck we can make his month of August even worse. First pitch is scheduled for 10:35 AZ time, TheRealRamona will have the guest recap, so we hope to see you with all of your favorite morning baseball snacks tomorrow as we go for the sweep!
As always, thanks for reading, and as always, go Diamondbacks!