ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS
D-backs’ control issues continue with Luke Weaver in loss to Padres
Arizona Diamondbacks starting pitcher Luke Weaver, middle, meets players on the mound before leaving during the fourth inning of the team's baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Monday, July 27, 2020, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
The Arizona Diamondbacks’ starters can’t seem to get a grip in San Diego.
Through four games, Madison Bumgarner, Robbie Ray, Zac Gallen and now Luke Weaver have been unable to command their pitches or the strike zone.
Through 16.2 innings, D-backs starting pitchers have walked 13 batters, which is also the amount of earned runs the quartet has allowed.
On Monday, Weaver finished with six earned runs in 3.1 innings of work on seven hits and two walks, striking out six in a 6-2 Arizona loss to the Padres.
The only real damage or threat of it on Weaver through three innings on Monday was a solo homer by the Padres’ Trent Grisham in the first inning.
The writing, though, was on the wall if Weaver wasn’t going to hit his stride. He threw a first-pitch strike to only five of the 13 batters he faced to get those nine outs. That included getting behind 2-0 or 2-1 to five of the eight batters who got ahead of him.
He did not course-correct his outing in the fourth inning and it all came crashing down.
“It ended up being an abomination,” Weaver said after the game.
With a 2-1 D-backs lead, Weaver opened the fourth giving up a walk, double and single before hitting a batter. The bases were loaded with no one out and one run across, then the Padres’ Edward Olivares singled to score one and Fernando Tatis Jr. tripled to bring home three more.
Weaver struck out Grisham before manager Torey Lovullo called it there at 79 pitches, 52 of which came in the first three innings.
The D-backs offense hasn’t been there to pick up the starters, either. Through the fifth inning, Arizona had two runs, and that follows the D-backs managing seven total runs through the first three games of the series.
A Starling Marte RBI double and Eduardo Escobar RBI single produced the two lone runs through five, and that was the final extent of scoring for both teams in the game.
As Lovullo pointed out after the game, the one positive the D-backs could take away was that their bullpen kept the Padres scoreless, and most of it was Taylor Clarke through 3.2 innings. Clarke walked two but kept San Diego hitless, and Junior Guerra had a perfect eighth inning.
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