Diamondbacks lean on brilliant Eduardo Rodriguez effort to win key series over Pirates

After a 12-inning marathon win on Tuesday, with a taxed bullpen and the season series against a fellow National League Wild Card contender in the balance, Eduardo Rodriguez gave the Arizona Diamondbacks everything they could have asked for in a 3-0 win against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday.

Rodriguez shut out the Pirates through eight innings with a season-high 105 pitches, and Brandyn Garcia earned the save as opposed to Paul Sewald.

It may have been Rodriguez’s most important gem of the year given the circumstances.

The D-backs (57-52) not only secured a series win, but they evened the season series against Pittsburgh (55-54) despite losing three of the first four games. That knocks the tiebreaker to the next rung, which is divisional record.

The Diamondbacks own a 21-11 record in the NL West this season, in large part thanks to their 13-3 mark against San Francisco and Colorado. The Pirates are 18-14 in the NL Central, so this tiebreaker is still up for grabs. The D-backs only have one more series against the first-place Dodgers, while the Pirates have seven more games versus the division-leading Brewers.

Additionally, the Phillies lost to the Marlins on Wednesday, so the D-backs moved into a tie for the second NL Wild Card spot.

Rodriguez has been terrific all season, making the All-Star Game for the first time. He has now responded to his worst performance on July 19 with back-to-back quality starts, quelling any regression concern.

On Wednesday, Rodriguez allowed five hits, all singles, and walked one batter. He only struck out two hitters, but he drew 15 whiffs, seven with an elite changeup.

He is tied for the major league lead with 14 starts of six-plus innings and two or fewer earned runs allowed. His 15 quality starts are tied for second.

The Diamondbacks’ starters threw 20.2 innings during this three-game series at PNC Park and did not allow an earned run, as the experienced arms of Merrill Kelly, Brandon Pfaadt and Rodriguez did what they could to provide stability after shakiness from rookies Mitch Bratt and Kohl Drake in Washington.

The Diamondbacks took the lead on Wednesday with a two-run home run from Gabriel Moreno off Pirates starter Jared Jones in the fourth inning. It was Moreno’s eighth home run of the year, and it extended his on-base streak to 26 games.

Diamondbacks turn to Brandyn Garcia for the save

A day after Sewald blew his third save of the season, the Diamondbacks decided to go in another direction on Wednesday.

Garcia has been consistently dominant for the Diamondbacks this season (2.17 ERA), spending most of the year as the club’s lone left-hander.

The meat of the Pirates’ lineup is left-handed or switch-hitting, so the matchup was more favorable to Garcia than Sewald, anyway.

Garcia struck out Brandon Lowe and Bryan Reynolds to start the ninth inning, and he stranded a two-out walk to secure the victory.

The game lasted two hours and nine minutes, quite a change from the four-hour runtime on Tuesday.

One more series until the trade deadline

The Diamondbacks get Thursday off before starting a three-game series in Cleveland against a Guardians team also fighting for postseason positioning.

It will be the last series the D-backs play before the trade deadline on Monday.

Arizona will start (in order) Bratt, Drake and Kelly.

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