D-backs’ La Russa addresses continued home struggles
Jun 29, 2016, 12:32 PM | Updated: Jul 5, 2016, 12:06 pm
The Arizona Diamondbacks continued their home-field woes against the Philadelphia Phillies Tuesday night when they fell by a score of 4-3.
“It’s a disappointing loss,” D-backs’ chief baseball officer Tony La Russa said on the Doug and Wolf show on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM. “We put that game at risk because we had the runner at third base three different times and only got one run.”
The D-backs were threatening to score numerous times, but couldn’t get anything going and stranded eight runners on base.
Arizona is 13-27 at home following Tuesday’s game, but has put together a decent 23-17 record on the road.
Although the D-backs hold the second-best away record in the NL West, trailing the San Francisco Giants, La Russa is not pleased with how the team is performing at Chase Field.
“The first place I’d look for blame or responsibility is within myself,” La Russa said. “It really is a team thing and when I say team I include the guys in the office.”
A big issue for the D-backs has been their tendency to give up multiple runs in an inning. On Tuesday, the D-backs held a 3-2 lead heading into the final inning, but the Phillies had a two-run ninth to overtake the D-backs.
“I think more than anything else, we have given up clumps of runs at home in a way excessive number and we’ve been trying to attack that big inning problem that we have,” La Russa said.
The D-backs have been able to keep their opponents under control in the beginning of games, but run out of gas later on.
In their last home game against the Phillies, the D-backs gave up six runs in the seventh inning alone. Before going out on their 10-game road trip, the D-backs lost to the Dodgers 3-2 at Chase Field after LA scored all its runs in the sixth. In a loss to the Miami Marlins, the D-backs gave up seven runs in the seventh.
With all the troubles on the field for the D-backs, the biggest problem could be between the ears.
“It’s gotten mental,” La Russa said. “You get your frame of mind where you’re really confident and you almost can’t do bad and you’re really struggling and you can’t do good.”
