'It shouldn't have come to that': costly wild pitch sinks D-backs

PHOENIX -- It’s not a play you see every day. In fact, as D-backs right-hander Merrill Kelly pointed out, the likelihood of it happening to them again this season is next to nil.

But that’s of little comfort to the D-backs after they watched Nico Hoerner score from second base on a wild pitch to tie the game in the ninth inning. The Cubs would eventually beat the D-backs, 3-2, in 11 innings Monday night at Chase Field.

There was a lot that happened in the game, but the wild pitch will be the one moment that sticks with the D-backs for a while.

It had been a frustrating night for the D-backs up until the eighth inning. Kelly wasn’t pleased with his command as his struggles with it, along with some tough at-bats by the Cubs, inflated his pitch count and forced him to depart after the fifth having thrown 95.

Over the first seven innings, the D-backs hit nine balls that had an exit velocity of 95 mph or greater, which is the definition of a hard-hit ball. Of those nine balls, only one resulted in a hit.

That one was a single by Jake McCarthy in the second that tied the game at 1 and it was the last hit for a while for the D-backs as Chicago pitchers retired the next 17 Arizona batters.

The D-backs finally broke through in the eighth with a run-scoring single from Corbin Carroll to take a 2-1 lead, and closer Kevin Ginkel came on for the ninth.

Ginkel allowed a pair of one-out singles to put runners at first and second before striking out pinch-hitter Miles Mastrobuoni to put the D-backs one out away from a win.

Ian Happ came to the plate and after Ginkel jumped ahead 0-1, he uncorked a slider that bounced in the dirt and hit off catcher Gabriel Moreno’s right hand and kicked away to his right. It rolled all the way to the backstop behind the first base batting circle.

Hoerner got a good read on the wild pitch and hit third base at full speed and barreled home. Moreno briefly had trouble locating the ball and by the time he got it and threw to Ginkel at the plate, Hoerner was in safely with the tying run.

“Gabi went down to block a baseball and it hit off a particular part of his hand that normally, when he feels that, the ball ricochets left,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. “So he was looking left originally and he just got a late jump to go get the baseball. I can't blame him. You know, he's an instinctual guy. He got down on his knees, he's trying to block the baseball and it just didn't happen and he couldn't find it. It’s just one of those things.”

Ginkel, who said he had never had a runner score from second on one of his wild pitches before, was caught in between. He saw the ball the whole way and was tempted to just run after it himself, but who knows if the result would have been any different.

“With Hoerner on the base paths, he runs really well,” Ginkel said. “And as that ball [got] away and I covered home, I saw him rounding third and I'm like, ‘Okay, well, this is the game right here.’ And he just beat it by a foot or two. If there was any other base runner that didn't have speed on the base paths they probably would have stopped at third.”

Cubs third base coach Willie Harris never hesitated in sending Hoerner home.

“I feel like I have a very lasting image of Willie Harris just screaming and pointing home,” Hoerner said. “I like to think I would have gone anyways, but that definitely gave me the extra confidence I needed. I saw a passed ball kicked the opposite direction of where the catcher saw it go and I was definitely thinking, especially with two outs, about scoring immediately after that. I was going to run until something stopped me, pretty much, in that situation. I’m glad it worked out.”

Ginkel was kicking himself, not for the wild pitch, but for the singles he gave up to Hoerner and Mike Tauchman before it.

“It shouldn't have come to that,” Ginkel said. “I felt like that game was in our hands and I just needed to make a couple of better pitches.”