Arizona Diamondbacks can't close deal on series sweep, fall to Washington Nationals
Diamondbacks can't close deal on series sweep, fall to Nationals
The Diamondbacks offense did a lot of things right on Sunday: hit for power, drew walks, applied pressure, scored runs. But the things it did not do managed to stand out in a 9-8 loss to the Washington Nationals. It did not do enough, and it cost the Diamondbacks the game.
“It just wasn’t a complete game offensively,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. “We’ve got to get better.”
In speaking to reporters after the game, Lovullo seemed to be trying to toe a line. He wanted to acknowledge all that his team had done well in the game. There were the two home runs from Lourdes Gurriel Jr., plus yet another from Christian Walker. There were the eight runs, the nine hits, the 11 walks and generally good approaches that allowed all that to happen.
And he wanted to recognize that the things his team failed to do on Sunday — namely, deliver with runners in scoring position, or with a runner on third and less than two out — happened to be many of the same things the club had been doing well for most of the season. Entering Sunday, no team in baseball had been better at getting the runner home from third, and only one team owned a higher batting average with runners in scoring position.
But that effort, ultimately, did not quite win out in Lovullo’s mind.
“We did a lot right,” he said. “(But) I’m frustrated. We lost the game. I felt like we should have won this game. I’m not going to lie.”
Just as they had a night earlier, the Diamondbacks took a lead into the ninth and watched it vanish, this time in the hands of reliever Miguel Castro, who gave up three hits and three runs on four pitches to open the inning, turning an 8-6 lead into a 9-8 deficit. Only unlike on Saturday, there was no comeback awaiting them in the bottom of the inning.
That left the Diamondbacks lamenting all that came before. They had seven at-bats with a runner on third and less than two out. They pushed a run across in just one of them.
In some of those situations they scored anyway; they twice failed to get a man home from third in the fifth before Gurriel blasted a two-out, three-run homer, making the outs somewhat moot.
That big hit never came in the sixth or seventh. And, in Lovullo’s mind, those innings best explained the outcome. The seventh, in particular. The Diamondbacks loaded the bases on three consecutive walks to open the inning but scored only once.
“We just went up there and (did) some early-count swinging,” Lovullo said. “I felt like we had a lot going for us and it quickly evaporated. We’ve just got to continue to be patient throughout the whole process.”
It was a rough couple of days for the bullpen regardless. On Saturday, left-hander Andrew Chafin, the de facto closer, failed to retire any of the four batters he faced. Before that, another offseason import, Scott McGough, gave up a home run and left behind another baserunner who eventually scored.
On Sunday, in addition to Castro’s rough ninth, reliever Kevin Ginkel allowed four of the five batters he faced in the seventh to reach.
Lovullo noted that the unit has been taxed somewhat heavily, a result of a rotation that has not pitched deep into games consistently; that was again the case on Sunday as right-hander Ryne Nelson gave the Diamondbacks only five innings. Three relievers — Chafin, Castro and McGough — have made 16 appearances apiece, pitching in nearly half the team’s games.
“I think the bullpen is going to be fine,” Lovullo said. “We’ve got some guys who are throwing the ball well. Mantiply. Nelson. I just think that the guys that aren’t and need to got to start to figure some things out. They’ll get that done. They get coached up and they go out and execute.”
The Diamondbacks came away from the weekend with another series victory. They have not lost a series in two weeks and have lost only one in the past three weeks. At 19-15, they own one of the five best records in the National League.
It is a reminder of the things they have been doing right for much of the year — even if many of those things got away from them on Sunday.
“One game, even like a temporary stretch of leaving some guys out there, we’re confident that it’ll come back around and we’ll get back to making them count and driving them in,” Walker said. “You try not to be too reactive but also understand you’ve got to do better there and do my job.”
—Nick Piecoro
Rivera on a roll since Diamondbacks call-up
Emmanuel Rivera wasn’t upset about being optioned to Triple-A Reno after the World Baseball Classic, in which he played for Puerto Rico. And since he was called up to the Diamondbacks on April 25 after they optioned Jake McCarthy to Reno to work on his hitting, Rivera has provided offensive punch.
After his first home run of the season and two hits Saturday for the Diamondbacks in a wild 8-7 win, Rivera entered Sunday’s series finale against the Washington Nationals batting .423 in eight games since his callup.
Rivera has hits in seven of the eight games in which he’s played for he Diamondbacks. He wasn’t in Sunday’s lineup, but has stayed hot after batting .348 with six doubles, two triples, two home runs and 17 runs batted in for Reno, where he played 16 games.
“There’s no difference. Same work I’ve been doing every day. Working in the cage, working with a lot of confidence,” Rivera said in Spanish.
“I don’t have any control over those things,” he said of starting the season in Reno instead of Arizona, where he hit .227 with six home runs and 18 runs batted in over 27 games after being traded from the Kansas City Royals midseason. “All I can do is keep playing ball and playing well.”
Diamondbacks hitting coach Joe Mather said Rivera’s added experience since coming from Kansas City has made a difference.
“I really enjoyed watching all those guys in the WBC, watching him with Team Puerto Rico. You can see that he's a gamer. And he cares about one thing, and that's competing against the pitcher and winning the game, winning for his team,” Mather said of Rivera. “That type of mentality carries over through your work and into the game the more you play. So for me, man, he's going to get better every year he plays just because of the way he goes about his business.”
—José M. Romero
Sunday's Diamondbacks-Nationals pitching matchup
Chase Field, 1:10 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Ryne Nelson (1-2, 6.39) vs. Nationals RHP Trevor Williams (1-1, 3.41).
Nelson will be making his fourth home start of the season, but the first of his career against the Nationals and second of his career against an NL East opponent. On April 15, he faced the Miami Marlins in his first ever start against an NL East team. ... Nelson has lost his last two starts, most recently at Colorado on April 30 where he allowed six earned runs on nine hits in four innings of work. ... Williams will be facing the Diamondbacks for the first time in his career. He is coming off his best start of the season in which he struck out four with a walk and four hits allowed in 5 ⅓ scoreless innings against the Chicago Cubs.
Coming up
Monday: At Chase Field, 6:40 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Zac Gallen (4-1, 2.53) vs. Marlins LHP Braxton Garrett (1-1, 5.81).
Tuesday: At Chase Field, 6:40 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Brandon Pfaadt (0-0, 13.50) vs. Marlins LHP Jesus Luzardo (2-2, 3.66).
Wednesday: At Chase Field, 12:40 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Merrill Kelly (3-3, 2.75) vs. RHP Edward Cabrera (2-3, 4.78).
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Diamondbacks can't close deal on series sweep, fall to Washington Nationals
