D-backs on wrong end of unusual K feat: 'We just didn't execute'
PHOENIX -- For the first time in the 27 years that Chase Field has been open, the Circle K Strikeout Meter in right field was blank when the game ended. Part of the ballpark when it opened in 1998, it charts the number of strikeouts by Arizona pitchers.
For just the third time in franchise history and the first at home, the D-backs failed to record a strikeout, which highlighted the pitching issues they had in falling, 8-4, to the Dodgers on Monday night.
It was quite a contrast to the last time the D-backs played the Dodgers.
That came Oct. 11 last year in Game 3 of the NL Division Series, as the D-backs completed a three-game sweep of their nemesis at Chase Field, with Lourdes Gurriel Jr. catching the final out in left field.
“When we won that game and Gurriel caught the fly ball, I felt this release of stress and frustration just immediately leave my body,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo recalled. “It was three or four years of frustration that emptied out of my body.”
After watching his pitchers walk eight and allow 10 hits without recording a strikeout Monday, you can imagine the frustration started to build back up.
“Today, we just didn’t execute on the mound,” Lovullo said. “It was a lot of walks, it was limited swing and miss with no strikeouts, so that is not a good recipe for baseball.”
The D-backs had been getting good pitching of late particularly from the rotation, but Monday was a self-admitted grind for starter Tommy Henry.
The left-hander held the Dodgers to two runs over four innings, but he threw 72 pitches in the process and had a lot of balls hit hard against him.
“He was feeling a little tired, a little fatigued,” Lovullo said of why he pulled Henry after four innings. “I felt like two times [through the order] with a gassed-up bullpen, the right matchups and what I thought would be the right situations for certain guys, just keep cashing in and moving the line that way.”
Instead, things fell apart when reliever Andrew Saalfrank walked three hitters with one out in the fifth and then gave up a two-run double to Teoscar Hernández.
Scott McGough came on, and he walked another two hitters and allowed three inherited runners to score. Suddenly, a 2-1 deficit ballooned to 6-1.
“Just couldn’t make the adjustment,” Saalfrank said. “Not throwing quality strikes or commanding the breaking ball, obviously. For me, a recipe for disaster there. I put the team in a really bad spot. Really disappointed with my outing today. Obviously, there’s a personal aspect to it, being frustrated, but feeling like you let the team down and put them in a really, really tough situation to win that game is what the worst part of it is.”
Said Lovullo, “We have to pitch better. Five walks in one inning is unacceptable.”
The D-backs were able to get back into the game by putting up a three-spot in the bottom of the fifth, but they would get no closer as the Dodgers managed to tack on runs in the sixth and eighth innings.
“Look, we got to spit this one out,” Lovullo said. “We know we're better than this in a lot of different areas. We'll be fine tomorrow.”