Arizona Diamondbacks bullpen fumbles sweep of Philadelphia Phillies

It should have been a fairly clinical Arizona Diamondbacks win that maintained their outstanding form as the hottest team in the National League. But the bullpen made the afternoon in Philadelphia against the Phillies dramatic, and then they blew it, 6-5 in 10 innings.

Starting ace Zac Gallen nearly bounced back from a rough go in his last outing and had a 5-0 advantage to work with in the sixth inning.

Gallen put two runners on with two outs in the fourth and fifth innings, able to escape without damage both times after a painless opening to the game.

But once he did it for the third straight time in the sixth, up to 100 pitches, he was pulled for reliever Kevin Ginkel.

Ginkel gave up an RBI single that should have been it for the inning after a throw into third by center fielder Dominic Fletcher was in the dirt that would have been the final out. Instead, Alec Bohm advanced to second and then both he and Kody Clemens scored on Brandon Marsh’s two-RBI single.

Gallen’s line was two earned runs in 5.2 innings on five hits and two walks with three strikeouts.

That cut Arizona’s lead down to two and the D-backs were hoping that leaving the bases loaded with no outs in the sixth after three straight walks would not come back to bite them. Ditto for two on with one out in the seventh, which ended with the bases loaded on a Pavin Smith popout.

It eventually did.

Ginkel let the bottom half be eventful, with a runner getting to third on two outs following a single, wild pitch and groundout. Scott McGough cleaned that up against Nick Castellanos by striking him out and then turned in a 1-2-3 eighth inning.

Jose Ruiz was the defacto closer called upon for the ninth. He retired his first two batters but a Bryson Stott single and two-run dinger for Trea Turner tied it and sent the game to extras. Ruiz stayed in, walked one and gave up the walk-off single to Bohm.

Emmanuel Rivera drove in three runs for Arizona and Evan Longoria brought home a pair with his two-run shot in the third inning that had it at 5-0.

Longoria has been slotted in the lineup by manager Torey Lovullo against both righties and lefties but the latter is where the veteran hitter still has lots of success at this stage of his career. That has translated this season. While 56.7% of his plate appearances coming into Wednesday are against left-handed pitchers, 78.3% of his 23 times reaching base this year have come against those guys. It’s over 300 points of a difference in his OPS.

His homer was crushed off Phillies lefty Ranger Suarez, who has now given up 12 earned runs in 11.0 innings this season.

🚨 LONGO BOMB 🚨 pic.twitter.com/1QtvYqedrF

— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) May 24, 2023

The D-backs return home after going 6-3 on a three-series road trip. Their four-game winning streak is donezo and their record now sits at 29-21.

Corbin Carroll had a hit and a walk on Wednesday, wrapping up his road trip with 10 hits, nine walks and one hit by pitch in 42 plate appearances.

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