Smith 'really disappointed' after shaky outing

The D-backs decided to take right-hander Riley Smith out of the bullpen and let him start on Wednesday afternoon against the Cardinals. It didn’t work out well, and he was out of the game after three innings as the Cardinals won the game, 7-4, at Busch Stadium.

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Arizona has lost 24 of its last 26 games and dropped its record to a Major League-worst 22-60.

By the time he left the game, Smith had thrown 60 pitches without a clean inning. The Cardinals initially went to work on Smith in the second inning when his mound counterpart, Kwang Hyun Kim, doubled to left field, scoring Yadier Molina and Edmundo Sosa.

“If the pitch was better … I don’t think he would hit a double,” Smith said. “It’s about every pitch I didn’t execute, more than just one pitch. I want to throw a shutout every time I pitch. I don’t want to give up a hit or a walk. So all of them hurt. All of them make me mad.”

An inning later, Tyler O’Neill added to the Cardinals’ lead with an RBI single, and Molina quickly followed by plating the fourth run of the game with a single to right.

“[The outing] sucked. I’m disappointed and pissed to say the least,” Smith said. “My job is to go out there and give quality innings for nine innings, if that’s what it is. If not, as long as I can. To not keep the team in the ballgame and to not make quality pitches in the times I needed to, I’m really disappointed in myself.”

Smith said he would like to remain a starter, but he acknowledged that he must get better in the role.

“If I would do what I needed to do, then maybe I would stick in the starting role,” Smith said. “That's what I would like to do. But you also can’t throw three innings and stick. When the opportunity comes again, I’m going to try and take advantage of it and not let it slip by, change my mindset a little bit going into outings and get ready to go.”

The D-backs scored one run off Kim in five innings, but they had chances to plate even more throughout the game. The leadoff hitter for Arizona reached base in five out of nine innings, and the team was 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position. That one hit came from Asdrúbal Cabrera, who singled home Josh Rojas in the third inning.

“It’s terribly frustrating when you build innings and [are unable] to get the big hit. That was the theme for us today,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. “We had the right guys up in the right situations. We couldn’t capitalize and put up that crooked number. …

“We have to bear down and be good hitters and take on that chore of just saying, ‘I’m going to get the job done by being myself.’”

Lovullo can’t figure things out by himself, but the team has to find a way to win games. According to Lovullo, it starts with a mindset. The team has to believe that they can beat anybody in baseball.

The D-backs also must play fundamentally sound baseball. Too many times in Wednesday’s game, Arizona let the Cardinals take the extra base. It didn’t help that the D-backs often threw to the wrong base after St. Louis collected base hits.

“Not worrying about anything that is distracting them,” Lovullo said. “Not worrying about anything else and knowing that your brother is hitting next to you and doing the same thing. That’s where it has to start.

“We do a lot right in the game, but you could tell when we do things wrong, it costs us the ballgame. They stick out. Winning makes all the bad go away. We are focusing on a lot of the fundamentals that aren’t going right. We have to dig on those as well.”