Carroll shines and bullpen grinds to victory over Twins

Game Summary

The Arizona Diamondbacks have a superstar. Ketel Marte is fantastic, as he showcased with the satellite he launched into orbit on his home run, but Corbin Carroll is a true superstar. Apple TV’s broadcast put Carroll in the center of the show tonight with the pregame promos and in-game interviews, and Carroll didn’t disappoint. Corbin finished the day a home run short of the cycle (or an inch short of being a double short of the cycle IYKYK), was on base 4 times, and made a great catch on defense.

To top it all off, he’s the most humble and team-first man on the diamond. When asked about Ketel Marte, he gushes over how talented a player he is. When asked about Torey as he records the final out in the inning, he doesn’t give a short, robotic answer to send the interviewers away. Instead he gives several sentences on his Skipper’s importance to him and the club before letting the overlords cut to commercial. Finally, when asked about himself and how much winning a Gold Glove would mean to him, he says it would mean a lot to Dave McKay for all the work that he put into Corbin. Corbin Carroll is a man every single person who is a fan of this organization can be proud of and it’s rare to have a player like that.

Now, stepping off my soap box, there was a game played tonight that the Diamondbacks didn’t always look like they were going to win. In fact, it looked like it might be one of those games where it just wasn’t their night. Michael Soroka left after 1 inning due to “posterior left hip discomfort”, whatever that may be. Then the Diamondbacks allowed 2 runs on rather freak plays: an error by Arenado (gasp!) and an inning-ending double play turned into RBI single thanks to the ball hitting second base and using it as a launch pad (d’oh!). After all that, the Serpientes found themselves in a familiar place: behind their opponent.

As they have all season now, though, the Snakes held tough and battled back. The bullpen was heroic, cobbling together 8 innings of about as good a ball as you can pitch besides the Stinkel appearance. No one really looked to have their A-game, but each man limited damage to little or nil (did you know the World Cup was happening?) and the defense did their job. The offense, for it’s part, took advantage of some shoddy Twins defense to get ahead. Still, it was Marte’s solo homer that was the difference in the game going into the bottom of the 8th, but the Snakes loaded the bases for Corbin and let him do the rest. Corbin tripled home 3 runs to give Sewald some breathing room in the 9th. Carroll is now 5/6 with the bases loaded this year and has 15 RBI! Only Luis Garcia Jr of the Nationals has more RBI with the bases loaded than Carroll and he’s had twice the ABs in those situations!

Great team win tonight. We took advantage of a less talented and struggling team tonight when several things just didn’t go our way. We’ll need to keep stacking those this weekend before we run the gauntlet heading into the All-Star break. Oh, that reminds me: go vote for Corbin!

Win Probability and Box Score

Outside the Box Score

• Lourdes Gurriel made an early impact defensively when he threw out Byron Buxton trying to hustle to second for a double. Buxton crushed the pitch off the left field wall but Gurriel played the carom perfectly and threw into second where Ketel had plenty of time to set up and apply the tag to Buxton who was in his home run trot out the batter’s box. Lourdes is too young to bang into the wall and make the catch like the young kids have been doing, but his way was just as effective.

• Gabi’s single in the first was of the infield variety. The Minnesota shortstop made an excellent play to range up the middle and stop the ball from rolling into centerfield, but he couldn’t get up and make the throw in time.

• Michael Soroka left the game before the beginning of the second inning after looking gimpy on his push off leg during his warm up tosses. Not great on any day, but especially not the same day that we put Ryne Nelson on IL with a likely longterm injury.

• Lourdes and Corbin picked up Taylor Clarke who was called in on short notice with their defense on the first two plays of the second inning. Lourdes made a sliding catch in shallow left (probably could have let Gerry make the catch ranging back from short but it all worked out) and then Corbin made an outstanding sliding catch in right-center. Unfortunately there was no defense that could save the next batted ball when Victor Caratini blasted the pitch 430 feet into the right field bleachers.

• Arenado’s been top shelf defensively this season, but he made a rare mistake on a tough but makable backhand chopper down the third base line which allowed a run to score with 2 outs in the third.

• Corbin got our first RBI of the game when he served a cue shot through the hole between third and short. Wasn’t pretty, but was effective. Plus, more left on left goodness for Corbin!

• Drey Jameson was a little wobbly in the 4th but he dialed up what looked to be an inning ending double play ball, but the ball skipped off second base and shot way over Domo’s head into center field allowing a run to score. Too bad that run gets scored against Drey.

• Corbin Carroll mashed double off the top of the wall in right-center field and everyone, and by everyone I mean me, the announcers and the stadium operations crew, thought it was homer. As the relay throw came in to the plate to keep Domo from scoring, the stadium lights went into the Home Run Sequence. Alas, it was just the least well lit double of the night instead of a game-tying homer.

• The Twins infield defense failed their pitcher leading to the D-backs tying the game in the 5th. First, with runners at second and third, Gabi chopped a ball to third that the defender botched resulting in Domo scoring and runners at the corners with still only one out. Then Lourdes hit a tailor-made double play ball to shortstop that the defender made an awful flip to second, forcing the second baseman to stretch out to record the out and not be able to turn two, allowing Corbin to score from third. Pitcher couldn’t blame the defense for the next 2 runs scoring in the 5th, though, as he balked 2 runners into scoring position who then scored on a hot shot single from Ildemaro.

• Ketel Marte’s homer in the 6th inning was a ceiling scraping moonshot into the home bullpen (into Brandyn Garcia’s glove between warm up tosses as a matter of fact). The 40* launch angle was the highest launch angle for a homer by the Diamondbacks this year.

• Gabi Moreno nabbed another would-be base stealer to complete a strike-em-out-throw-em-out with a nice assist from Perdomo. First, the Twins’ hitter just watched a fastball go by down Main Street for Strike 3 which was a nice, then Gabi short-hopped his throw to the wrong side of the bag. Thankfully, Domo was able to cleanly grab the hop and, since the throw reached Domo so early he had time to reach back to the sliding baserunner and apply the tag.

• Jordan Lawlar was pulled for a pinch runner in the bottom of the 8th after beating out a bunt single. He didn’t show any signs of distress during the replays of the run and he practically sprinted off the field so I’m hopeful that there is no real injury here. Hopeful.

Comment of the Game

The GameDay Thread was a little lighter than typical Friday night games, especially a Friday night win, but I suspect the AppleTV broadcast had at least something to do with that. The game reached a final tally of 187 comments at time of publishing. COTG tonight goes to Webb Gemz for his note on the Twins defense:

Coming Up

The Diamondbacks face the Twins for the second game of this 3-game set tomorrow evening with a 7:10pm first pitch Arizona time. Righthander Taj Bradley (5-3, 4.14 ERA) will take the mound for the Twin Cities and Zac Gallen (3-5, 5.35 ERA) takes the ball for the good guys. Gallen needs to soak up some innings tomorrow to give the bullpen a chance after they covered for Soroka’s injury today. I’m not sure that’s a great thing.