Diamondbacks embarrassed by Nationals in home run fest
Adrian Del Castillo pitched, Ildemaro Vargas got hit by a pitch one day after colliding with Max Muncy and the Nationals hit five home runs in a dud for the Diamondbacks.
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PHOENIX — One night after walking off the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Arizona Diamondbacks played an “unacceptable” baseball game against the Washington Nationals.
The Nationals swatted five home runs to embarrass the D-backs, 14-1.
Several of the Diamondbacks’ starters had been pulled by the end of the game, and catcher Adrian Del Castillo filled the James McCann role as the position player pitching.
Ildemaro Vargas even entered the game as a defensive replacement one night after crashing into Max Muncy at first base, and he was hit by a pitch in his lone at-bat. It got him on the foot and he stayed in the game. Manager Torey Lovullo had said pregame that he was feeling well and would be available off the bench.
This was the first game in which Arizona allowed five home runs this season, and it was the first time the club allowed at least 14 runs since its 17-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves on April 2.
“Overall, we’ve got to pitch better and we just never got into a rhythm,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “This game had no feel to it. Maybe we had a little bit of an emotional dump last night. … We got to be better.”
Diamondbacks’ pitching crumbles vs. Nationals
The game got away from starting pitcher Merrill Kelly pretty early.
Kelly entered the matchup with a 2.36 ERA over his last five starts following a rough start to the season, but he was not sharp from the start of Friday’s game. After walking lead-off man James Wood, he allowed a two-run shot to Luis Garcia Jr.
Lovullo called Garcia a D-back killer pregame, and Garcia later added to that reputation.
The Nationals piled on four more runs off Kelly in the third inning and another in the fifth, as Wood and Daylen Lile both took him deep.
Garcia’s and Wood’s home runs were on pitches out of the strike zone, but Kelly put himself in harm’s way too often with three walks and a hit batsman.
Overall, Kelly allowed seven earned runs on six hits against a lineup of eight lefties.
“A bad day,” Kelly said. “Just not enough strikes. Just getting behind guys, pretty much, I feel is the gist of it.”
The game got worse when he exited, however, as Philip Abner surrendered a five-spot, including a grand slam to Garcia.
Kade Strowd made his D-backs debut after coming over in the Blaze Alexander trade with the Baltimore Orioles, and he walked the bases loaded in the eighth inning before leaving with the trainer.
Lovullo said Strowd was being evaluated but mentioned that he felt like he had a dead arm and could not get a feel for the baseball.
“We might know more in the next 24 hours,” Lovullo said.
The game became scrimmage-like, with Del Castillo lobbing 55 mph floaters and players switching positions left and right. LuJames Groover, called up before the game, went from playing first base to third base in what was certainly not an ideal MLB debut environment.
Del Castillo was the lone Diamondbacks pitcher on Friday to throw more innings (1.2) than runs allowed (one).
As for the D-backs’ offense, there was not much to report.
Nationals starter Foster Griffin threw five innings with one earned run, a solo shot from catcher Aramis Garcia. It was his first big league home run since 2022.
Groover went 0-for-4 in his debut, and the D-backs finished with six hits, two coming from Geraldo Perdomo.
“We were losing 6-0 at one point and I didn’t feel the energy in the dugout today,” Lovullo said. “Overall, we’ve got to fight through that. We’re professional baseball players and we got to continue to fight.”
Arizona fell to 33-30.
The Nationals have had success scoring runs at Chase Field recently, winning a pair of contests last season 11-7 and 9-7. They scored eight runs before recording an out against Brandon Pfaadt in one of those games.
Washington is a .500 team (32-32), but its offense has scored the most runs in MLB this season with 345. Wood is sixth in the league in home runs with 17.
Friday attendance
24,272
Saturday matinee
Saturday’s game will have an early start at 1:10 p.m. MST.
The D-backs will turn to southpaw Eduardo Rodriguez (5-1, 2.24 ERA) to get them back on track. The Nationals will start right-hander Zack Littell (5-4, 5.01 ERA).
Catch the game on 98.7 and the Arizona Sports app.
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Comments
17 Comments
Money, ignorance and pride are their reasons.
They gave Pfaadt a $45M-5YR contract when he was AND still is a 5.0+ ERA pitcher.
They signed Jordan Montgomery as a free agent for $ 25M after he had one good season with the Rangers. He was 30 YO (most but not all pitchers starts to 'decline' between 27 -30) and been in the majors for 7 years already. He had a 6.23 ERA for the Dbacks.
They spent $2M for Carlos Santana who was batting .083 before he went on the IL.
Then the Dbacks front office complain that they have no money to sign good players. It is their own fault that they don't have the money. They don't spend it wisely.
Hey, but we gave up Blaze for Stroud!
Another example of how this organization is running the show. But, you don't understand their reasoning.