April 5, 2019

G9: Diamondbacks 15, Red Sox 8

Red Sox      - 001 000 043 -  8 12  1
Diamondbacks - 001 427 01x - 15 18  0







The Red Sox also went through a 2-6 stretch during the 2018 season (August 19-26).
Rick Porcello / Zack Godley
Benintendi LF
Betts CF
Moreland 1B
Martinez RF
Bogaerts SS
Devers 3B
Swihart C
Holt 2B
Porcello, P (3-for-7, 1.143 OPS last year)
The Diamondbacks (managed by Torey Lovullo) are 3-4. They are 4th in the NL in runs per game (5.86), 7th in OBP (.324), 4th in OPS (.850), 15th (last) in ERA (7.14), and 14th in WHIP (1.714).

Arizona's big hitters: Christian Walker is batting .368 and slugging .947 (2 singles, 2 doubles, 3 home runs); David Peralta leads MLB with 15 hits (.455 average); and half of Adam Jones's 12 hits are for extra bases. ... Zack Godley gave up eight runs to the Dodgers in 5.1 innings in his first start.

Alex Cora, commenting on the fly ball that fell unmolested between Jackie Bradley and Mookie Betts (who both won Gold Gloves last year) on the warning track in right-center yesterday:
I pay attention to details. I love paying attention to details and ... right now, we're not paying attention to details.
Bradley (99% catch probability, according to Statcast): "It's on me. It's a play that has got to be made. I'm the leader out there. The play has to be made. It's a catchable ball. I've got to take control."

Betts (95% catch probability): "One of us should have caught it. ... One of us should have talked for sure. I think for any outfield, that ball is catchable."

Cora said that Betts also apologized for his baserunning mistake in the ninth inning, when he was thrown out at third base by Oakland center fielder Ramon Laureano:
The three plays [in which Laureano threw out a Boston runner] were bang-bang plays, but that one right there can't happen. And he knows it. He came up to me, and for how great of a player he is, he makes mistakes and he owned it. He came up to me like, "That's my fault."
Betts:
I should have known. ... That's what my instincts told me to do and I should have let myself know before anything even happened that my run meant nothing. ... [B]ut we don't want to play passive either. You have to make him make those plays and he made them all.
No team has played more than 10 games, yet it has already been a pretty crazy baseball season, as Jayson Stark is more than happy to point out (at length):
[W]elcome, folks, to another baseball season, where Week One was a classic refresher course in Anything Can Happen magic. How cool is baseball? So cool that …

* Russell Martin (he's a catcher) closed out a game the Dodgers won before Kenley Jansen (he's a closer)!

* The reigning NL Cy Young (Jacob deGrom) hit a home run before the reigning NL home run champ (Nolan Arenado)! ...

* Yasmani Grandal (he's a catcher) stole a base before Billy Hamilton (he's pretty close to the fastest dude in the history of baseball)! ...

* The Orioles (they lost 115 games last year) reached four wins before the Yankees and Red Sox – combined (they won 208 last year)!

And in a related development, the three last-place teams in the AL last year (Orioles, Tigers, Rangers) won five series this year before the four teams that reached the ALDS (Red Sox, Yankees, Indians, Astros) won any series! ...

What a season. Already. Anyone see any of this in your crystal balls?

THE FIRST MULTI-HOMER GAME OF 2019 – Came from Kolten Wong. And how many multi-homer games did he have last year? That would be none. How many did he have in the previous four seasons combined? That would also be none. ...

BLAKE SNELL – Faced 700 hitters last year – and gave up a first-pitch homer to one of them. By the top of the fourth inning in his Opening Day start against Houston, he'd faced 13 hitters – and allowed a first-pitch homer to two of them. ...

THE ORIOLES – Never did get around to winning back-to-back road series at any point last year. So how did they start 2019? By winning series in New York and Toronto. Obviously. ...

D-BACK-BACK-BACK – Possibly my favorite stat of the season so far, thanks to Zack Greinke and Luke Weaver:

HR by Diamondbacks pitchers: 3
HR by all AL Central cleanup hitters combined: 1

O-FERS IN THE OUTFIELD – There's also this:

HR by Diamondbacks pitchers: 3
Outfields with no HR: Rockies, Cubs, Twins, Indians, Reds, White Sox

THE HOMER HUNTER – Speaking of Greinke, how about this crazy note from the Elias Sports Bureau? Greinke on Tuesday: Two homers hit, two homers allowed – both to Hunter Renfroe.

You know how long it had been since any pitcher hit two home runs and served up two home runs to the same batter in the same game? Only 124 years – since Frank Foreman (Reds) hit two and gave up two to Walt Wilmot (Cubs) on July 4, 1895! And don't go looking for the Frank Foreman highlights on YouTube, OK? ...

AT LEAST THEY'VE GOT CHEESESTEAKS – An insane note from the Elias Sports Bureau: This was the first season the Phillies have started 4-0 since 1915. That 103-year streak without going 4-0 is the longest in the history of baseball.

And football. And basketball. And hockey. Seriously. ...

STRANGE BUT TRUE BOX-SCORE HITTING LINES OF THE WEEK – Some stuff in baseball just shouldn't be possible. But apparently, it is. Stuff like this, for example:

Jeimer Candelario (Tigers), Sunday in Toronto: 5 hits, 0 runs
Alex Gordon (Royals), Saturday vs. White Sox: 0 hits, 3 runs

You think Candelario was wondering how many leadoff hitters had a game all last season in which they got five hits but never made it to home plate? That would be zero. Baseball! ...

[Twitter]: "Yu Darvish threw 57 pitches to start the game before a ball was put in play."

So what went on in those first 56 pitches of the evening ... Strikeout, Strikeout, Walk, Walk, Walk, Bases-loaded strikeout, Walk, Walk, Runner thrown out stealing, Wild pitch, Walk. ...
BIG EEE OF THE WEEK – So there were the Mariners last Saturday, one out away from a routine little 6-2 win over the Red Sox, when this happened:

Throwing error by third baseman Dylan Moore.
Fielding error by third baseman Dylan Moore.
Throwing error by third baseman Dylan Moore.

That's back-to-back-to-back errors – on back-to-back-to-back hitters – by the same man. And how Strange But True is that? According to our friends at Stats, it's the first time anybody, at any position, has lit the E light on the scoreboard on three consecutive hitters since Hubie Brooks did that for the Mets back on May 10, 1981 (in an enjoyable inning that went Out, Out, E, E, E, Walk, Walk, Walk, Walk, Out).

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