Zac Gallen Pitches Gem Without Best Stuff

The Diamondbacks defeat Marlins 5-2 behind their ace starter

What does an elite pitcher with a four pitch mix do when he doesn't quite have the feel for his secondary pitches?  He dominates with his fastball, locating on the edges, getting called strikes and swing and miss, and lets his defense do some work. That's what Zac Gallen did tonight in the Diamondbacks 5-2 victory over the Miami Marlins.

Box Score

Gallen went seven innings, allowing one run on five hits, one walk, and struck out  seven. The lone base on balls was his first given up since April 10th, having gone 35 innings without walking a batter.  Through out the season Gallen has used his four seam fastball 42% of the time. Armed with great game plans and an uncanny ability to identify which pitch was working for him early, Gallen seemed to feature a different  secondary pitch each start. One outing is heavy with the curveball. The very next outing he turns to the cutter. The outing after that he use a terrific changeup.  Tonight he went with the four seam fastball 60% of the time. 

After the game Gallen said "I didn't really have much semblance of an off speed pitch. It was a lot of fastball tonight. But my defense played really well back there behind me, they bailed me out a couple of times".

Pavin Smith made a nice running catch on a deep line drive to the right field fence on the second at-bat of the game by the Marlins. In the third and fourth inning, infielders Nick Ahmed, Christian Walker, and Ketel Marte took turns making outstanding defensive plays in support of their ace starter. Gallen had only thrown 60 pitches through five innings, but needed 19 pitches to work around the walk and a base hit in the sixth inning. He ended up being pulled from the game with only 90 pitches thrown as Torey Lovullo turned to the bullpen. 

Gallen had given the D-backs' tired bullpen what they needed. After a couple of tough nights in a row, the team needed a deep outing.  "I was just trying to make pitches" Gallen said. "The bullpen was a little zapped the last couple days so I just tried to get as deep in the game as possible." 

Lovullo said after the game that he was didn't want to push Gallen too far and also felt like avoiding having him face the Marlins lineup for the fourth time, as well as giving his reliever a clean inning to start with was the way to go. 

Jose Ruiz came in to record five outs, and Joe Mantiply got the last out of the game, but only after giving up an RBI double to get the Marlins within three runs.  

Christian Walker had an RBI double and a massive solo homer up into the second row of  Cold Beers and Cheeseburgers restaurant. (Formerly Friday's Front Row Grill). The ball traveled an estimated 459 feet, with an exit velocity of 114 MPH. 

Cold Beers, Cheeseburgers & Dingers, Courtesy of Christian Walker pic.twitter.com/DaMVoP9KdG

— Michael McDermott (@MichaelMcD8393) May 9, 2023

The blast seemed to energize the D-backs dugout as the lineup caught fire after that. Walker said after the game that "No matter who hits balls like that when balls are whacked and squared up it's fun for the dugout. Everybody is talking about how hard they are or how loud it was."  

Clearly it was infectious. Gabriel Moreno had a three hit night, an RBI and a stolen base. His lone out was a 109 MPH ground ball. Emmanuel Rivera had a double and a single, and hit several balls over 100 MPH for outs as well.  Alek Thomas came in late as a defensive replacement but ripped a ball 111 MPH to right for a single. Smith also chipped in with two hits, an RBI and run scored. In all the offense rapped out 13 hits, but were just 3-15 with runners in scoring position. 

Listen to Gallen and Walker discuss how their night went for them down below.

The win improves the D-backs to 20-15, allowing them to climb back within a half game of the Dodgers who lost tonight. Game two of the three game series starts tomorrow night at 6:40 P.M. Brandon Pfaadt will make his second major league start, going up against Jesús Luzardo.