Diamondback Journal

NEW YORK– Armando Galarraga suffered his first loss of the season as the Diamondbacks were the third NL West team to get swept this past weekend.  Arizona has now dropped four in a row after winning the first two in Cincinnati while the New York Mets are on a four game winning streak.

The Mets pounded Galarraga for six runs as he departed after three innings.  David Wright started the damage with a two-run homerun to left field in the first inning.  Wright then reached first safely on a throwing error to lead off the third inning.  After a double by Carlos Beltran that moved Wright to third, Josh Thole hit a sacrifice fly to center that brought Wright home.  Jason Pridie then stepped up, and cracked his first homerun of the season to right-center, a three-run blast that put New York up 6-0.

Justin Upton got Arizona on the board by scoring on Chris Young’s groundout from third in fourth.

David Wright was not done though, in the fourth inning he hit another homerun, a solo shot, that gave the Mets a 7-1 lead.  Ike Davis added the eighth run of the game with a single to center that scored Beltran.

Arizona added a run in the sixth, seventh, and eighth to cut the deficit in half, but they would never catch New York, falling 8-4, and 8-12 on the season.  Things do not get much easier as the Diamondbacks now travel to the high-powered offense and rotation of the Philadelphia Phillies.

8-12 isn’t what I’d call a spectacular start.  What’s really disappointing is that the team clawed it’s way back up to the .500 mark and now they’ve dropped four straight games including three losses to the hapless Mets.  I don’t know what the MLB odds were for the Diamondbacks winning the division, but with the way they’ve started, I’m assuming they were pretty low.

You have to like the start that Stephen Drew is off too.  Despite missing most of the first week of the season, Drew has an OPS .968 and in his last seven games, he’s had multi-hit games in four of them.  He’s tied with Chris Young for the team lead with 14 RBIs but Young is hitting a pedestrian .212.

Of course the pitching is plain ugly.  Somehow Armando Galarraga has three wins despite a 6.00 ERA.  And as a team, the Diamondbacks are dead last in ERA (5.16) although a few teams have worse WHIPs.  And if things work out, Daniel Hudson could be the first 200 strikeout pitcher to lose 20 games in a long time.

And it doesn’t get any easier because the Phillies roll into town for a three game series.  It’s Ian Kennedy against Cliff Lee in the series opener.

PHOENIX– After dropping the first two home games to San Francisco, the Arizona Diamondbacks were not about yet to drop their fourth straight and get swept for the first time this season already two weeks in.  Arizona won in the twelfth inning on a single by Stephen Drew that scored Justin Upton, winning by a final of 6-5.

Arizona got rolling in the third inning with three straight hits to load the bases.  Chris Young got the Diamondbacks on the board first with a sacrifice fly allowing Willie Bloomquist to score from third.  Stephen Drew, the Diamondbacks soon to be hero, tripled on the very next at-bat bringing in the other two base runners and giving Arizona an early 3-0 lead after three innings.

Aubrey Huff put San Francisco on the board with his first homer of the season, getting out of his early season slump.

But the Diamondbacks Justin Upton got Arizona’s three-lead right back with a powerful home-run to left-center, going 464 feet to a lucky fan.

Aaron Rowand continued his hot streak for San Francisco by once again leading an inning off with a base hit by doubling in the sixth.  Freddy Sanchez followed with a single to left moving Rowand to third with no outs and Huff at the plate.

Huff got another RBI, sending a sacrifice fly to Upton as Rowand tagged from third cutting Arizona’s run total in half.  San Francisco then hit back-to-back home-runs as Buster Posey sent one of own to the bleachers to tie the game and Pablo Sandoval hit his fourth to give the Giants the 5-4 lead.

Xavier Nady drew a two-out walk in the bottom of the eighth and moved to third on a single by Miguel Montero.  Ryan Roberts prevented a necessary ninth inning rally by singling home the tying run.

Arizona stayed alive and prevented a loss because of their bullpen.  For the last five innings of the game, they did not allow a base runner to get aboard.  San Francisco reliever Dan Runzler registered the first out of the twelfth.  But, Runzler walked the next two batters which included a pass to Justin Upton.  With Upton at second, Stephen Drew came up to the plate and became the hero in Phoenix as he singled home the game winning run on the right side hole, leading the Diamondbacks to victory.

PHOENIX–   Even with the struggling Albert Pujols, the Arizona Diamondbacks still could not capitalize as St. Louis rolled to an 8-2 victory.  With run support throughout his night, starter Kyle McClellan of St. Louis got his first win of 2011.

McClellan threw for six innings issuing only one run on seven hits with four strikeouts and posting an impressive 2.25 ERA at the end.  Diamondbacks starter, Barry Enright did not fair to well as he got hit with four of the eight runs after pitching six innings too.

McClellan started off the runs in the third by doubling to center and scoring Yadier Molina all the way from first.  With a pile of singles an inning later, the Cardinals were able to take a four run lead before Arizona got on the board with Melvin Mora’s RBI single in the fourth.

But it did not matter as St. Louis went on to get three more runs in the ninth, leading by six runs.  Two home runs in the inning was more than enough for the Cardinals bullpen to end this game quickly and easily.  Lance Berkman hit his second home run of the season, with Matt Holliday on base.  Also, Jon Jay homered his first of the season to complete St. Louis’s eight runs.

St. Louis reliever, Mitchell Boggs, came in and struck the side out.  St. Louis and Arizona square off again tonight.  Armando Galarraga makes his home debut for the D-backs going against Chris Carpenter.

CHICAGO — The Arizona Diamondbacks came into cold Wrigley Field well rested after their game at Colorado was postponed due to snow and seemed likely to steal one from the Chicago Cubs.  The Cubs were vulnerable early as the memory from the previous game against the Pirates probably was still lingering.  Chicago closer, Carlos Marmol surrendered a one run lead in the top of the ninth, and Pittsburgh left with a 6-5 victory.

As soon as Arizona’s lead off hitter Willie Bloomquist homered in the first inning, it seemed like Arizona possessed all the momentum and would surely escape from the Friendly Confines with a win.  But, the talent the Chicago Cubs have is too great to drop a second game after a lead off homerun, and it showed as Chicago scored four unanswered runs en-route to a 4-1 win.

Randy Wells settled down after his first inning of the season and went on to pitch six solid innings.  He allowed six hits, but, struck out six and just had one too many walks on the day in his mind.  He earned the win as his teammates were able to give him and the bullpen enough run support to shutout the Diamondbacks for the remainder of the game.

Joe Saunders, the Arizona starter, made a couple of mistakes that led to his loss in a six inning effort in which he surrendered two runs.  Alfonso Soriano led off the third with his second home run in two days, tying the game 1-1.  In the forth, he misplayed a grounder by Marlon Byrd allowing Byrd to reach first.  A single by Aramis Ramirez and walk to Geovany Soto put Byrd on third with only one out.  Newly acquired first basemen, Carlos Pena, hit a sacrifice fly to right fielder Justin Upton, bringing in what would be the game winning run.

In the eighth, the Cubs added a couple more insurance runs in hope that they would not have back-to-back comeback victories in the ninth for the visitors.  The Cubs had back-to-back doubles to left field from Ramirez and Soto.  Soto scored the Cubs fourth run on a single from Soriano.

Closer Carlos Marmol came into the ninth, and it was déjà vu for Cubs fans again.  Marmol again walked the leadoff batter that led to the Cubs loss to the Pirates the previous day.  However, Marmol redeemed himself, and got the next three Diamondback hitters out to earn his second save of the season.  Randy Wells got his first win of 2011, putting the Cubs back at the .500 mark to keep pace with the Cincinnati Reds.

The Diamondbacks had chances in this game, but just could not convert on open opportunities.  If they could have just found a way to get one more run off Wells, they had a very good chance of shaking his confidence and gotten a few more.