Diamondbacks claw back against Angels bullpen, fall with own late pitching woes
Despite Eugenio Suarez's two homers, the Diamondbacks withered late in a 10-5 loss to the Angels, surrendering four runs in the eighth inning.
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The Arizona Diamondbacks climbed back into Saturday’s game with a pair of eighth-inning runs against the Los Angeles Angels bullpen but dropped their third straight game, 10-5, with their own late poor pitching execution.
Trailing 6-3, Arizona turned three walks into two runs, as Corbin Carroll and Eugenio Suarez scored.
When right-hander pitcher Juan Morillo entered in the eighth, he appeared to silence a potentially disastrous outing with a strikeout of Angels’ Luis Rengifo. However, with the bases loaded, he gave up three consecutive singles and four runs before a double play mercifully ended the frame.
The D-backs (46-50) had no answer down five, Ketel Marte, Carroll and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. going down in order.
Andrew Saalfrank, a key piece of Arizona’s 2023 run to the World Series, made his return from a gambling suspension a solid one with no earned runs allowed (two hits) and two strikeouts in the sixth and seventh innings.
Suarez produced another multi-home run game with two solo shots in his first two at-bats on the night, but it came to no avail.
The top of Arizona’s batting order wasn’t particularly sharp (2 for 15), but Carroll’s double in the eighth meant his hitting streak was increased to five.
Backup catcher James McCann continued to rake since first donning a D-backs uniform on June 25, going 2 for 4 with an RBI in the eighth. He has recorded 11 hits, six RBIs and two home runs in 28 at-bats.
D-backs starting pitcher Zac Gallen took a step back following his best two appearances of the season, as he allowed six runs (all earned), eight hits and two walks in five innings.
With three strikeouts, Gallen moved closer to 1,000 for his career, now five away at 995.
Three of the four frames that the Angels (47-48) scored were multi-run innings — three in the fourth, two in the fifth and four in the eighth.
Diamondbacks’ next game
The D-backs will try to avoid a three-game sweep at Angel Stadium on Sunday with Merrill Kelly (3.41 ERA) squaring off with Los Angeles righty Jose Soriano (4.00 ERA).
Arizona was 49-48 and one game back of the final NL Wild Card spot entering the All-Star break in 2024. Now, at 46-50, the D-backs sit 6.5 games back and have three teams standing between them and the San Diego Padres (52-43) for the final postseason berth.
Listen to the D-backs-Angels series finale at 1:07 p.m. on 98.7 and the Arizona Sports app.
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Comments
20 Comments
Are you aware that Suarez, Naylor, Kelly and Gallen are free agents? When they sign with new teams during the off season, the Dbacks won't get anything for them. It makes sense for the Dbacks to sell them before the trade deadline.
The reason why the Dbacks lost the game is simple: Gallen! The game was basically over by the end of the 5th inning. He gave up 6 earned runs in 5 innings for a game ERA of 10.8. Yes, the bullpen gave up 4 runs but Gallen gave up 6 runs. The last three games, the Dback starting pitchers had game ERAs of 9.0, 9.0 and 10.8...I am tired of reading and hearing that there is NOTHING wrong with the starters.
Time for TL to exit stage left and bring a new voice and new view. The "message" is not resonating with the team anymore. The managing style has not been working for over a year now. The numbers don't lie, so if we are so focused on the numbers then listen to all of them. Injuries have been piling up starting from last year; that is a fact. Starting pitchers are getting less innings and therefore bullpen has been getting more innings, another fact. Offense has been relaying more on the long ball than the chaos mantra. The defense has been allowing more errors. All these have been trending since last year. They all present an inescapable fact, whatever TL is doing as a manager has not been working. Time to move on.