D-backs not at their best in loss, ready to move forward

The Arizona Diamondbacks, after not playing since Sunday,
were, shall we
say, a little rusty Friday night against the Dodgers.

“We made mistakes, they made mistakes, but ultimately
unable to hold
them after Joe [Saunders] got out of the game, and that’s
what cost us the
game,” D-backs Manager Kirk Gibson said after his team
lost the game 6-
4.

Indeed, neither team was particularly sharp in the first
game since the All-
Star break. While Chase Field was home to (most of) the
game’s best
Tuesday night, Friday was a showcase of, well, anything
but.

Willie Bloomquist was thrown out at the plate in the first
inning and picked
off at first in the fourth. Xavier Nady committed an error
in the sixth inning
trying to field a ground ball; the runner scored on the
next pitch when Matt
Kemp crushed a home run, tying his total from the Home Run
Derby just a
few days prior.

The Dodgers capitalized on the D-backs’ mistakes on the
way to a six run
lead, but then, as is customary for this season, Arizona
battled back. Of
course, the Dodgers helped them along the way.

The Dodgers’ Juan Uribe booted a Chris Young grounder,
allowing him to
reach base. He reached second on a Clayton Kershaw balk
and, after
Stephen Drew struck out and Ryan Roberts walked, Miguel
Montero singled,
scoring Young. The next batter, Nady, hit a three-run
homer.

But it wasn’t enough, not this night.

Still, with nine games left in this home stand the
Diamondbacks, now
trailing the Giants by 4.5 games, are not willing to
panic. In fact, it seems
as though their confidence couldn’t be much higher.

“We wish we all could have played better but we’ll be
fine,” Gibson said.
“We’ll come back tomorrow.”

With the way this team has battled back — whether it be
in a game or
from a losing skid — you almost have to give Gibson’s
team the benefit of
the doubt and assume this loss is not a sign of things to
come. Even
Gibson is accustom to it, saying the team expects to come
back late in
games.

“We feel good, we feel strong, confident,” Ryan Roberts
said. “We’ve still
got a long way left.”

Pressure-packed debut for Allen

Brandon Allen has played with the Diamondbacks before, but
his first at bat
of this season came with as much pressure as any he’s
previously had.

Down two with a pair of runners on and two outs, Allen was
called on to
pinch hit.

He struck out looking on a pitch that seemed a little low.
Allen, who said
the pitch was “too close to take,” said he’ll learn from
this at bat and be
better prepared next time.

“Clutch moment, and they’ll give me plenty more
opportunities to be in that
situation,” he said. “Just one game and I’ll bounce back,
we’ll bounce back.”

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