Diamondbacks 7, San Francisco 5: FLETCH!!!!!!!!!!!!

So yes. The Diamondbacks’ bullpen has been losing a bunch of games for us lately, and Ryne Nelson…well, he hasn’t exactly excelled so far and he hasn’t usually been able to get deep into games as a starter. I was nervous. I figured this would be a relatively rare, long, tiring game to watch on a Friday night and then recap, which I haven’t generally experienced until now. As oven born As I later commented on in the GDT, we were 6-1 on Friday night and we are now, but it certainly didn’t feel that safe tonight that we would achieve that goal.

Things didn’t start out badly, but with poor results for Nelson when he dropped a leadoff single to SF first baseman LaMonte Wade Jr. and then, after recording two outs, DH, the former doyer and all-around baseball allowed player that Diamondbacks fans shouldn’t love when Joc Pederson hurls one over the right center wall to put us in an early hole. 2-0 San Francisco

John Brebbia, a right-hander, was supposed to start for San Francisco, but for some reason, like you, we had our right-hand squad there. I’m guessing that was because Brebbia tends to start a game like he did tonight playing the role of ‘opener’ and presumably we were hoping to prevent SF from getting a after Brebbia’s first inning Raised an army of left-handed pitchers to mow us down I don’t know. Anyway. We didn’t do anything in our half except Emmanuel Rivera blocked the first base bag with an out and then Christian Walker hit a two-out walk. didn’t matter. Brebbia put up a zero.

Unfortunately, Ryne Nelson failed to score again at the start of the second half. Michael Conforto, the well-underperforming SF right fielder, led the inning by hitting Nelson with a twelve-pitch at-bat, the twelfth pitch being the one he sent over the wall directly to right field of center. Nelson then allowed a one-out double on the left field line but managed to pin the guy in third. Still far from ideal. 3-0 San Francisco

A certain Ross Stripling came out to pitch second place for SF. Stripling is another offshoot of the Doyers who joined them in 2016 and lasted a few years before taking an extended vacation to Toronto and then signing with these guys in the off-season for a whole lot of money. So far, the Giants haven’t gotten what they paid for, and that continued tonight. Lourdes Guerril, Jr. led right at the end of the second half with a line drive single. Nick Ahmed left. Gabriel Moreno then slammed down three pitches and arguably hit the worst AB I’ve seen him do, but don’t worry. Tonight’s good guys Dominic Fletcher hit the ninth hole and sent a ball down right center across the pool for his first home run of his career:

Whole new ball game. 3-3 draw

One could have hoped Ryne Nelson would calm down if it was tied again, and it was – he didn’t allow a run in the upper part of the third – but he still allowed a single and a walk, which could have been done would have been detrimental were it not for Moreno’s absolute gun control and the Diamondbacks’ shrewd judgment on challenging calls when Moreno kicked out San Francisco third baseman JD Davis tonight when he was trying to get second on anything (the MLB game day). I can’t say for sure, and I honestly don’t remember…that happened early on, and this game was action-packed, with a lot of ups and downs).

Even better: We took the lead at the end of the third period. Stripling was still in and with two outs, current hitter Evan Longoria threw an out to the left that was well over the foul rod and called a foul, although it was hard to judge. We asked for a review and after reviewing this request was granted. It didn’t matter to Longo though as he just waited five or six more shots and then launched another shot to the left, that was clear Inside the foul pole:

Boom. First lead of the game. 4-3 D BACKS

Ryne Nelson, now with the lead, then recorded his first (and sadly only) clean inning in the top of the fourth, knocking out San Francisco. In the bottom half, we gave Stripling more trouble with a couple of singles and a walk, but didn’t really manage to get any more runs.

Regrettably, Ryne Nelson’s night ended before he advanced to the end of the fifth when he hit a long AB strikeout and then gave up the deciding run, giving Wade a one-out double, a flyball to the right which Wade did allowed to switch and moved up to third, and then a single to the left that brought Wade home and gave Nelson the hook. He made way for Anthony Misiewicz, recently recalled from Reno, who finished the bleed and then finished a flawless sixth place. 4-4 draw

Stripling was retired at the end of the fifth, and Jakob Junis took over the mound for San Francisco, throwing a clean bottom of the fifth before wreaking havoc at the end of the sixth. After getting Gurriel to fly off center to start the inning, he went to Nick Ahmed (Nick’s second of three walks that night, it turns out – someone has obviously responded to our ongoing complaints about the lack of walks , which we drew ) and then handed off a Gabriel Moreno single to the right. It was Dominic Fletcher’s turn after that and again he didn’t disappoint, doubling into the left midfield gap to put both Ahmed and Moreno on target:

happy times. 6-4 D BACKS

Six runs was enough for us tonight, although we did get another run at the end of the seventh with a Josh Rojas thingy down the left, and San Fran also got another at the end of the eighth thanks to a little run of bullpen stupidity by Scott McGough and Andrew Chafin who both took part in this game and both did their jobs at least enough that we didn’t lose tonight’s game.

You may also be wondering what Josh Rojas was doing in the lineup at this point in the game, and honestly I am too. Christian Walker managed to appear to be thrown off the team while sitting in the dugout saying nothing or yelling. He was gesturing, which resulted in Rojas coming in and taking third base while Rivera went on after a deeply erroneous affair between the umpires transitioned to first base at the end of sixth base:

Yes, there is a clip of it. And no, I don’t really get it either. But there you are. Imagine that. That was really the only drama in the last part of the game. And we won, which is always nice. 7-5 D-BACKS FINALS

Added winning probability, courtesy of FanGraphs

CEO: Dominic Fletcher (4 AB, 3 H, 1 R, 4 RBI, 1 HR, +43% WPA)
VP of Walks: Nick Ahmed (1AB, 1H, 2R, 3BB, +13% WPA)
This one guy who should maybe be back in the Reno office for a while: Ryne Nelson (42⁄3 IP, 7H, 4ER, 2HR, 4K, 1BB, -19% WPA)

Good gameday thread tonight, a bit sparse but what can you expect when Ryne Nelson is at the start and San Francisco is in town and the bullpen is doing what it has been doing for the past week? At the time of writing there were 183 comments and we have four that I can see. One of these is a GIF, which unfortunately disqualifies it. One of them is one of mine, which unfortunately disqualifies him. One of these is from Snake_Bitten, which in no way disqualifies it, but the non-GIF that received the most recommendations was that of our Fearless Leader, who expressed admirable sentiment towards young Mr Fletcher, which is why Jim won the CotG tonight receives :

After Thursday’s unfortunate deal, we’ve now leveled that four-game set and we have a chance to at least secure a series split and also work towards another series win tomorrow if Zac Gallen climbs the mound for us to kick against SF right-hander Anthony DeSclafani, who seems to be a pretty good pitcher himself at the moment. A pitcher duel could be imminent. Come and check it out… the first pitch is at 5:10pm AZ time. I hope you can join us!

As always, thanks for reading. And as always, come on, Diamondbacks!

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