It’s rare in baseball for a single player to single-handedly win a game because of the structure of the sport. There are very few things a single player can do to have that much leverage in a game and instead requires much more active participation from the rest of the team on the field or in the dugout. This afternoon was one of those exceptions when James McCann took the first pitch he saw in the home half of the eighth straight into the left field bleachers for the game’s sole run. It was a needed cathartic release to end what was a tense, hard fought series against one of the team’s primary rivals in the Wild Card race. This series also included one of the hottest teams in the league right now who showed no sign of slowing down either and could easily be a first-round playoff preview if things break the way we hope they do.
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Andrew Painter, the Phillies’ top-ranked prospect and the eighth-ranked prospect in the sport, struggled to start the year by posting an ERA of 7.06 before being demoted. Since returning to the big leagues however, he’s looked like a different pitcher. Today’s seven-inning, dominant scoreless outing lowered his ERA all the way down to 3.12 since his return. The rookie buzzed through the lineup, allowing just three baserunners to reach on the afternoon by leaning on a combination of his fastball, sweeper, and slider to devastating effect. Impressively, the D-Backs failed to get a single hit with runners in scoring position during the entire series, going a combined 0-for-17 on the series. Unsurprisingly given that context, the team managed to only score one run in each game, which puts that much more pressure onto the starting and relief pitching as a substitute.
If Painter was the lone Old West lone wolf, the D-Backs countered with an entire posse of nasty relief pitchers in a planned bullpen game. There is always an inherent risk to such a game plan as a single reliever having a bad day could easily occur and completely ruin the rest of the plan. Thankfully, the plan went off nearly flawlessly with just one reliever (Jose Cabrera) covering more than a single inning, and all but one reliever picking up at least one strikeout for their efforts.
There’s no way to sugarcoat it. This was a near-disaster of a series – even as they avoided the sweep this afternoon. It was a prime opportunity for the team to create some additional separation between them and the rest of the teams chasing them in the Wild Card race and maybe even gain some ground on the Phillies and the second Wild Card spot. Instead, the offense continued to scuffle, the bullpen looked shaky at times, and the team looked exhausted. I understand that we’re coming to the home stretch of the season but this team is all too aware of how thin the margins can be for reaching the playoffs after the past two unsuccessful seasons.
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