D-backs Face Uphill Battle After Another Loss to Phillies

For the second straight game, the Diamondbacks fell behind early to Philadelphia's big bats and could not recover.

The Diamondbacks came into the NLCS against the Phillies with a different game plan for a seven-game series than they had in a five-game series with multiple off days like they had in the division series.  Instead of the aggressive, win today at all costs approach, Torey Lovullo talked about "precious outs" when discussing the running game. It got shut down. He talked about having to play seven games in nine days, and preserving his best relievers for when he had a lead. He never had one, and they never got in the game. Instead Lovullo turned to his second tier relievers, who allowed the Phillies to blow open the game. For the second night in a row he pushed his starter one inning too far. It all resulted in a crushing 10-0 loss and an 0-2 deficit as the series heads back to Arizona.  

The loss puts the Diamondbacks in a deep hole. In best-of-seven postseason series all-time, teams to win each of the first two games have gone on to win the series a whopping 84% of the time (75 of 89 instances).

Corbin Carroll got on base to start the game, just like last night, this time on an error by Trea Turner.  Carroll was not able to take off however as Nola was getting to the plate too quickly with his slide step. Nola's time to the plate, which was being checked by stop watch in real time, combined with  J.T. Realmuto's pop time meant Carroll couldn't safely take off. With the middle of the order coming up Carroll  couldn't risk an out with the times he was getting. Unfortunately he never went anywhere as Ketel Marte, Tommy Pham, and Christian Walker were retired in order by Aaron Nola. 

The D-backs didn't get their first hit until the 4th inning when Ketel Marte led off with a base hit. Marte Also hit a one-out double in the 6th but was stranded there. Nola was lock down for his six innings of work, giving up just three hits and not walking a batter while striking out seven. 

Just like last night, the Phillies got on the scoreboard first with a solo homer, this time by Trea Turner on a fastball from Merrill Kelly.  Kyle Schwarber took Kelly deep twice, once in the third and again in the 6th. The second homer was on a changeup. Kelly had not allowed a homer in 686 previous change ups.  

Kelly said he felt pretty good, other than two pitches. "Obviously the home run to Trea I was trying to go cutter away, it just backed up on me. It was in the same slot as the pitch right before that. The Fastball to Schwarber was just middle away up, a good place where he could hit it ".  Kelly also said he felt he executed well on the change up, but having thrown two right before that to Schwarber "went back to the well one too many times on that pitch"

Kelly walked a batter, and got two more outs after the Schwarber homer in the 6th inning before giving way to the bullpen trailing 3-0. 

At which point the game spun completely out of control. Instead of going to his most effective left-hand reliever over the last six weeks, Andrew Saalfrank, Lovullo went to Joe Mantiply.  The manager insisted it was the right call. 

"I thought that Joe Mantiply has been throwing the ball real good. It's a great matchup. All the information that I have and everything that's showing me statistically that Joe is going to get under a barrel, and we're going to get back in the dugout down 3-0."

Instead the lefty gave up a base hit to Bryson Stott, followed by a couple of doubles, allowing three more runs to score, putting the Phillies up 6-0. Mantiply came back out for the 7th and walked Schwarber before getting  pulled.Ryne Nelson relieved Mantiply  and got just two outs, giving up four hits, a walk, and three more runs before giving way to Slade Cecconi. One of the hits Nelson gave up was a popup on the infield that Nelson, Evan Longoria and Gabriel Moreno allowed to drop in between them.  Lovullo did not mince words when it came to describing that play.

"I don't think we've done that all year. I don't think we've had a situation like that all year, so I think our competitive focus -- and those are things that I've been talking about this past month -- was lacking. We've got to catch that pop-up. That's baseball 101, and that is absolutely more than unacceptable to me."

The Phillies bullpen completed the shutout by throwing three scoreless innings, sending the D-backs to the airport to lick their wounds and try to figure out how to turn the series around back home.  The Game 3 starter will be rookie Brandon Pfaadt. The flyball, homer-prone pitcher will somehow need to figure out how to do what Zac Gallen and Kelly couldn't do, keep the ball in the yard.