D-backs Shellacked by Phillies 15-3 in Worst Game of Year
Kyle Schwarber launched a 450 foot home run off Zach Davies in the first at bat of the game and it all went down hill from there. The Diamondbacks followed up the most emotional victory of the year by playing arguably their worst game of the year. Poor starting and relief pitching, poor defense, mental errors, failure to control the running game, and a mostly ineffective offense when it counted led to a 15-3 loss to the Phillies.
According to Torey Lovullo, "this was for me a total outlier, we've just gotta digest it, throw it out, and be ready tomorrow. The game just didn't have a rythm to it. They jumped on Zach from an early point, he was just missing off the edges with some of his pitches and they started to pile up some base runners, put up some big crooked numbers"
The Schwarber homer was followed by a walk to Trea Turner, who stole second base with Carson Kelly behind the plate. A double by Nick Castellanos scored Turner. That runner came around to score on a throwing error by Emmanuel Rivera on a grounder by J.T. Realmuto, who also scored a couple batters later on a groundout. The four run inning was a punch in the nose the D-backs just never recovered from.
In the third inning Bryce Harper hit blooper into shallow center on which Jake McCarthy broke back on before charging in to attempt a sliding grab. The ball glanced off his glove and was scored a base hit, but it was a bad read. Realmuto walked and he and Harper pulled off a double steal on Kelly, the fourth Phillies stolen base of the game. Alec Bohm singled home Harper but the worst was yet to come.
With only one out, Corbin Carroll ran under a pop up by Kody Clemens with Realmuto now on 3rd base. Carroll's hat flew off as he ran under the ball, and thinking that was the third out, he jogged back to his hat to pick it up. Realmuto, heads up as always, ran home with the sixth Phillies run with a wry smile on his face as an embarrassed and perplexed Carroll trudged back to left field. It was an uncharacteristic rookie mental mistake from a player who has so far shown to be mature beyond his years.
Davies was done after three innings, giving up six runs, four earned on six hits , three walks and a homer. He threw 85 pitches, 50 for strikes. It was a disappointing start following up an excellent start his last time out.
Jose Ruiz worked two innings of relief giving up a run on a Bryson Stott solo Shot. Joe Mantiply worked three innings, giving up four runs and had a minor incident that added insult to injury. After he gave up four hits and three runs in his third inning of work in the 8th, Torey Lovullo came out to replace him with a position player to pitch. Mantiply wasn't having it, and shouted at Lovullo and waved him back to the dugout. Lovullo came out to the mound and spoke with his reliever anyway, but left him in the game to get the last out of the inning.
Lovullo said at that point he didn't want to push Mantiply past 45 pitches for his outing, but the pitcher insisted the last guy (Stott) was his. "He waved me off, and I said what's up, what do you got, he said, I want this guy, and I'm like, you got him man. I like that type of stuff". That was going to be his last hitter either way. but he got the out.
Zack Wheeler threw six strong innings, giving up just four hits and one run, which came in the 6th when the game was already out of hand. Carroll walked with two outs and came around to score on Christian Walker's, third hit of the game, a double into the left center field gap. Walker later singled to give him a four hit night. The D-backs got another run off reliever Luis Ortiz in the 7th when Jake McCarthy led off with a triple to right center and scored on an RBI ground out from Kelly. Finally Carroll hit a solo homer in the bottom of the 8th for the D-backs final tally of the game. All three runs came after the game was effectively decided.
Josh Rojas moved from second base to the pitcher's mound for the top of the 9th and things went about as you'd expect, as the Phillies stat padded their way to five more hits and four more runs. In total they scored 15 runs with 25 base runners, (20 hits, five walks and two homers) After the game there was some levity with Rojas, who gave a fun interview with the media.
"It was awesome.....I was telling these guys it's not safe being that close to the hitter. I felt very nervous they were going to hit one right back at me. I wanted to let it eat a little bit more but I didn't get to warm out."
After hearing that his velocity range was between 70-35 MPH he said ..."I definitely should have mixed a little bit more...I went to the lob ball a little too much and they were teeing off." He joked about needing to work with pitching coach Brent Strom and was upset about his era. He tried to channel Johnny Cueto's delivery on a pitch or two as well.
Listen to Rojas discuss his pitching debut
The two teams square off again tomorrow in game three of the four game set at 6:40 P.M. Merrill Kelly goes for his 9th win against Ranger Suarez and the Phillies.
