Game Summary
Full recap to follow shortly. For now, feel free to go wild in the comments!
Win Probability and Box Score
Outside the Box Score
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Nolan Arenado’s homer to open the scoring in the second inning just barely snuck over the outstretched glove of Teoscar Hernandez. Hernandez looked like he had a beat on the ball in the air and stopped a step short of the wall so I thought it was gonna die at the warning track. Then at the last second, Hernandez jumped up and reached for the rafters but the ball hit off the waiting arms of a friendly Snakes fan in the first row.
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Corbin Carroll made a stunning play in contrast to Teoscar’s failed home run robbery the half inning prior. Leading off the third inning, Tommy Edman hit a high fly ball that seemed destined to tie the game 1-1, but Corbin drifted back and timed his jump perfectly to get WAY up over the right field fence and make a home run saving catch. Incredible catch!
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Merrill was staying fairly efficient early in this one. Through 4 innings, he had only thrown 53 pitches and 6 of 14 hitters he faced had completed their AB in 2 pitches or less.
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Lars Nootbaar smashed his double in the 4th over the head of Andy Pages in center field. Pages can really cover some ground so you know Nootbaar hit it hard when Pages was nowhere close to snagging it.
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Tim Tawa’s steal in the fifth was thanks to a huge walking lead. The Dodger catcher’s throw was way late and not close to the bag for good measure. Excellent base running put a runner in scoring position with 1 out. The extra 90 feet didn’t matter since Domo later brought him home with a triple into the gap in left-center, but still job will done Tim.
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Tommy Edman got a leadoff single on a hard grounder to Tim Tawa to lead off the 6th. Tawa made a superb diving play in the hole between 1st and 2nd then when he got to his knees to toss to the covering Merrill at first, the ball popped out of his glove. That was the first hit allowed by Merrill on the night. Great job by everyone from the broadcasters to the Pitters to not mention the no-hitter! I totally forgot it until Bert mentioned it after the hit. Then Merrill went and immediately erased the runner by picking him off (thanks to replay review since Edman was ruled safe on the field).
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Merrill left with the trainer with 2 outs in the 6th after losing all command of his pitches. After the aforementioned hit by Edman to break up the No Hitter, he gave up a single and 2 walks to load the bases. He did induce a possible double play ball to get out of the jam, but it was just hit too slowly and the defense could only get the force out at second. Fortunately, the medical issue appeared to be simply cramping, but it’s an unfortunate way for this stellar start to end.
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Juan Morillo struck out Max Muncy to end the Dodger threat in the sixth with 100mph gas off the outside half of the plate. Beautiful.
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Brandyn Garcia came on with runners at 1st and 2nd and one out, gave up a single to Miguel Rojas but it was so close to being caught in center that the Dodger runner had to hold up and wait to see if it would be caught before advancing and stopping at 3rd. That brought up Shohei Ohtani who grounded into an easy double play to get the D-Backs out of the inning with a tie in the 7th.
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Gabi Moreno got a rally started in the 8th with a double to the wall over Teoscar’s head. Teoscar badly misplayed the ball but Gabi couldn’t eek an extra 90 feet out for a triple. That was followed by an intentional walk to Ketel and an unintentional 4-pitch walk to Vargas to load the bases. Nolan had an epic 12 pitch AB but ended up striking out on a half-hearted swing on a really good breaking ball that nicked the outside corner. Bummer.
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Max Kepler had a stellar plate appearance against Edwin Diaz to lead off the 9th. Fell down in the count 1-2, but worked his way to a lead off walk.
Comment of the Game
A solidly attended GameDay Thread tonight that really exploded thanks to certain heroics in the 9th inning. A total of 305 comments at time of publishing and several Sedona Red comments to choose from, but I’ll highlight the top couple responses to Waldy’s Walk Off from Dbacks fan from Japan and AzDesertLovr as COTG:
Coming Up
The Diamondbacks face the Guggenheims for the second game of this 3-game set tomorrow evening with a 5:10pm first pitch Arizona time. Yoshinobu Yamamoto (11-7, 2.76 ERA) is the probable starter for LA and Brandon Pfaadt (6-1, 3.66 ERA) will get the ball for the good guys.
Scoreboard Watching
Full scoreboard recap to follow shortly.
Read the full article here