Henry Outdueled by Cobb in D-backs Loss to Giants

Tommy Henry's quality start goes for naught, as the Diamondbacks could not muster any offense against Alex Cobb.

Sportradar

Box Score

Tommy Henry deserved a better fate tonight. He engaged in a pitcher's duel with Giants starter Alex Cobb, falling one mistake pitch away from matching zeros with the Giants ace. That one mistake, a hanging curve in the second inning, turned into a two-run homer by rookie sensation Casey Schmitt. Henry left the game  with two outs in the 7th inning trailing 2-0.  The Giants blew the game open with four runs in the top of the 9th against Jose Ruiz.  The D-backs comeback efforts fell well short despite two runs in the bottom of the ninth to make the final score 6-2.

"We just couldn't get anything going today off their starting pitcher," said D-backs manager Torey Lovullo. "I thought he was doing a good job of keeping us off balance with an assortment of pitches. Looked like he could go to that split-change that we were well aware of at any time, threw an aggressive fastball. He's a very experienced pitcher, he's been doing it a long time, and it seemed like everything was working tonight."

Giants pitchers induced three inning ending double plays, two of them by Cobb against Gabriel Moreno. Moreno has hit into six double plays already this year. The third came in the eighth inning by Ketel Marte against Tyler Rogers.  Cobb also picked Alek Thomas off first base after a base hit in the third inning. The red hot pitcher went 7.1 scoreless innings, getting 12 ground outs, and lowered his ERA to 1.70. 

Henry shook off the homer by Schmidt to give up just 4 singles, a hit batter, and a walk the rest of the way. He threw 97 pitches, 60 for strikes. He walked two and struck out  two. He used all three of his secondary pitches to keep the Giants off the barrel of the bat, with the lone exception of Schmitt's blast which went 443 feet into the upper deck in left.  Henry lowered his ERA to 4.43 and threw his second straight quality start.

Henry explained how he was able to quickly bounce back after the home run to post a quality start.

"It was a reset button, trying to get back ahead, let the defense make plays," said Henry. "Gabby and I were on the same page all night tonight, Ro [Josh Rojas] made some good plays, Walk [Christian Walker] made that sick catch. When you have a defense like that behind you, you can trust it and just get after it."

Other than Henry's good outing, the only other bright spot in the game was the mini rally in the 9th at least forced the Giants to bring closer Camilo Duval into the game, which may pay off later in this four game series. 

The D-backs have now lost three in a row and are 20-18 on the season. They play game two of the series tomorrow night at 6:40 P.M. Ryne Nelson takes the mound for Arizona. The Giants starter has not yet been announced, but it's expected Alex Wood will be activated from the injured list to make the start for San Francisco.

Listen to Lovullo and Henry down below.