Game Summary
One year ago, I had the unfortunate duty of recapping the Diamondbacks playoff-eliminating-loss on the last Friday of the season in San Diego. All day, I was nervous that history would repeat itself, but thankfully there was no punctuation mark on the Snakes season tonight. Instead, the Diamondbacks red-hot offense caught the plane from Coors and gave Brandon Pfaadt a more than comfortable lead to work with resulting in the Phillies Wild Card lead shrinking from 2 games to 1 with a pair of games left to play.
The Diamondbacks offense jumped out in front on the very first pitch of the game with a Lars Nootbaar launch into the seats in right field. It was all downhill from there as the Snakes scored 2 more runs in the first and then scored in 6 of the first 7 innings total to run away from the Padres a night after they punched their ticket to the playoffs. It was quite strange to look at the final line and see the D-backs scored 11 runs on a mere 8 hits, but they also worked 8 BBs and got several big hits in the form of 3 homers and went 2-5 with RISP, only leaving 5 LOBsters on the night.
Nolan Arenado hit his 30th bomb of the year for his 9th homer in his last 17 games, continuing to defy Father Time and all the preseason naysayers (myself included) who were wondering how long his glove could support the inevitable decline of his bat. Gabi Moreno tallied 2 more hits to bring his batting average up to .311, a single tick above Luis Arraez (who may be out for the rest of the regular season after appearing to injure his ankle yesterday) in the race for the batting title. If Gabi were to lead the NL in batting average, he would be the first Diamondback to ever win a batting title.
Brandon Pfaadt pitched a fine game, I’d wager a much better game than his final line would indicate. Pfaadt took the run support from his offense and ran away from the Padres hitters with it. Big Game Brandon pitched into the 8th inning, allowing Torey to save the bullpen for what may come tomorrow. It wasn’t like he was pitching against a lineup full of backups tonight, either. The Padres certainly had stakes to play for: home-field advantage in the Wild Card round set to commence Tuesday. Pfaadt abused the Padres for 7 Ks, only 2 BBs, and no HRs allowed. Mop up duty fell to Ryne Nelson and Zac Gallen. Ryne allowed an inherited runner to score but secured the final out of the 8th before handing the baton off to Gallen who secured the final 3 outs of the night on only 7 pitches. With that light of a workload, it’s very likely both would be available later this weekend if needed.
The Diamondbacks laid an egg in this exact same game last year, but tonight, they showed up and showed out. Job’s not finished, but Torey’s boys are playing connected ball. As we all remember from ’23, a connected team is a dangerous team.
Win Probability and Box Score
Outside the Box Score
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No OTBS tonight since I was mostly following the box score myself.
Comment of the Game
A great turnout tonight in the GameDay Thread with a total of 379 comments at time of publishing. Tonight’s COTG by popular vote goes to Tim Tawa’s dad, JTawa, with his contribution to tonight’s thread. Thanks for stopping by Mr. Tawa, and make sure your son knows he’s got a group full of fans here at the ‘Pit!
Coming Up
The Diamondbacks face the Friars tomorrow at 5:40pm. With Corbin Burnes going on the IL earlier today, good ol’ TBD will take the mound for the good guys while veteran right-hander Walker Buehler (9-6, 4.56 ERA) will get the ball for San Diego.
Scoreboard Watching
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The Phillies lost at home to the Rays earlier tonight 2-0 to bring their lead over the D-backs to a single game.
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Phillies play tomorrow night at 4:15pm on FOX. A loss tomorrow night paired with a win by our Snakes would give the Diamondbacks control over their own destiny for the final game of the season.
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