Back-and-forth battle between Diamondbacks and Padres to be continued
The Diamondbacks and Padres have played three series against each other this season, and neither team has won a set.
Watch: Exclusive 1-on-1 with Lars Nootbaar | 4 mins
PHOENIX — The Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres cannot seem to get an upper hand on one another.
The National League West rivals have played three series against each other this season, and neither team has won any of them. With the Padres’ 5-1 win over the Diamondbacks on Thursday, the trio of series have finished 1-1, 2-2 and 2-2.
The Diamondbacks (61-55) and Padres (60-56) remain neck-and-neck in a race for the third NL Wild Card spot with 46 games left. Their final series will close the regular season at Petco Park to determine the head-to-head tiebreaker.
Over the past two seasons, the D-backs took on the Padres at the end of the campaign with their playoff fate in the air. The chance of that happening again is legitimate.
Their remaining strengths of schedules are nearly the same (.502 for Arizona, .504 for San Diego), and both clubs are expecting to get help off the injured list to bolster their stretch runs, particularly on the mound — Nick Pivetta and Joe Musgrove for San Diego, while Michael Soroka and Justin Martinez are next in line to return for Arizona.
FanGraphs‘ updated odds gave the Diamondbacks a 47% chance and the Padres a 36% chance to make the postseason.
Kohl Drake does not make compelling argument for rotation
On Thursday, the Diamondbacks got one more look at rookie starter Kohl Drake before likely having to make a decision in the rotation. Soroka appears increasingly likely to return next week against the Colorado Rockies, and therefore the Diamondbacks can choose between Drake and Mitch Bratt to keep in the starting five.
Bratt delivered seven shutout innings to earn his first victory on Wednesday, while Drake followed with a rocky, 3.2-inning outing with three earned runs on Thursday.
Drake’s outing was a grind, as he needed 82 pitches to record 11 outs and only threw 46 strikes. He acknowledged that he was not in the strike zone enough, calling it a “bad feel” type of day.
The southpaw has thrown 176 pitches to get through 7.2 innings over his last two starts. He only walked two hitters in those games, but he has not thrown enough strikes to be efficient, leading to frequent deep counts and stressful pitches. That should not be surprising given some of his control troubles in Triple-A this season (10% walk rate).
Was there any added pressure on Drake given the circumstances?
“A little bit, and that’s what this game’s all about,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “Who’s going to step up, who’s going to block out all the noise and go out there and execute. It’s no mystery. You guys know that Michael Soroka’s coming back here pretty soon. They know it, too.”
The damage from San Diego early in Thursday’s game could have been worse. Right fielder Corbin Carroll made a highlight sliding catch off a perfect break in to lead off the second inning. Ryan Waldschmidt then in quick succession made a leaping catch in center field, as he held onto the ball while banging into the wall.
The defense had its lowlights, too.
A potential double play with the bases loaded and no outs in the third inning turned into a simple 6-3 putout after shortstop Geraldo Perdomo bobbled the ball. Ty France followed with a sacrifice fly that could have ended the inning, but it gave San Diego its 3-0 lead, instead.
There may need to be some bunt coverage refreshers, as well. Lovullo said first baseman Tim Tawa needed to be more assertive fielding Luis Rengifo’s bunt to the right side during the first inning. Drake said he needed to communicate better.
Was this the Diamondbacks batting order to expect moving forward?
The third frame was the sliding doors inning, as Nolan Arenado flew out to center field with two outs and the bases loaded in a 3-1 ballgame. The D-backs recorded three more hits the rest of the game.
Padres starter Walker Buehler only lasted four innings, but by limiting the damage, he allowed the Padres to lean on their high-leverage arms to close out the game. The Padres have a top-five bullpen in terms of ERA, strikeouts and strikeout-to-walk ratio, led by All-Star closer Mason Miller.
The Diamondbacks needed to take advantage of their opportunities early.
Lovullo shuffled the lineup again, moving Perdomo to the lead-off spot, re-inserting Ketel Marte and Arenado and bumping Lars Nootbaar to fifth.
“I’m going to play around with that a little bit,” Lovullo said pregame. “I think Corbin likes hitting in the second spot, so I’ll continue that. Nootbaar, in this case, will be a little bit of the backer for Marte and the first four hitters, because he’s going to see, I’m going to guess, 20-plus pitches today. We like that.”
Lovullo was pretty close in that assessment, considering Nootbaar saw 17 pitches in a 1-for-4 performance.
Perdomo entered the game with a .382 on-base percentage in the second half, but he went 0-for-4. The red-hot 5-9 portion of the order went 3-for-19.
This was simply a slog of a loss for the Diamondbacks in all three phases.
The question was whether it was fatigue-driven. The leadup was a 10-game road trip, then these four games against the most important opponent on their schedule.
Or can they shake it off before facing a Los Angeles Dodgers team that has lost six games in a row?
“We have a big series coming in,” Lovullo said. “So little things that happened in this game, I’ll focus on those. A few bunt plays, a couple things got away from us and those little sticky fundamentals we’re so good at, and that was definitely a reason why we gave up a couple early runs. We’ll tighten that down. We’ve got a big series starting tomorrow, so we’ve got to understand what happened and just get better.”
Thursday attendance
21,884
Diamondbacks vs. Dodgers
The Diamondbacks continue their NL West-fest homestand against the Dodgers this weekend. Merrill Kelly (5.04 ERA) pitches for Arizona on Friday, with right-hander Roki Sasaki (4.46 ERA) probable to get the ball for L.A.
First pitch is at 6: 40 p.m. MST on 98.7 and the Arizona Sports app.
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Comments
3 Comments
The Crud backs can't rise to the occasion, they have zero killer instinct, and no sense of urgency. Gee, I wonder what manger that comes from? Mr. "good man," player friendly, record be damned Louvello, that's who.
SP which is in dire straights, they needed help at the trade deadline and what did Hazen do? He traded away a top notch pitching PROSPECT for a mediocre outfielder that had a horrendous July at the plate.
Its freaking August and they can't field right, STILL? JFC this is embarrassing. Hazen should've stood pat and not wasted a potential SP for a team that is going to miss the playoffs AGAIN .
One more night all the "great" players failed to produce
Fire Louvello and Hazen at the end of the season.
Yesterday, Kellan Olson wrote "Who needs a SP?" The answer is the Dbacks because tonight's loss is the result of not having a starting pitcher. Drake had a game ERA of 7.36.
By the way, just because Bratt had a great game yesterday, that doesn't make him the next Greg Maddux. Wait until he pitches 10 games like last night before anointing him.
Isn't every game important? Isn't every series important until the end of the season? I don't understand the lack of urgency?