Through the first five innings tonight, we were all going through the motions. Same old, same old- par for the course, we are used to it, right?
Let’s have some fun, aye?
Lance Lynn worked around trouble all night during his five innings of work, stranding eight Diamondback runners, including a bases loaded jam to escape a two run 2nd.
Lynn would strikeout seven tonight, six of them coming on the 4SFB, the other on a cutter to Corbin Carroll.
On the other side, Brandon Pfaadt would carry a perfect game into the bottom of the 5th inning, where he would be greeted with a leadoff single from Nolan Arenado. Pfaadt buckled down and got the next three batters, striking out Goldy and Herrera to take a one-hitter to the 6th.
That’s when things started to look up.
Ryan Fernandez would be the first of four relievers to throw up a goose egg, getting two strikeouts to begin the inning (Newman & Marte), needing just nine pitches to end his evening.
The Cardinals would draw three consecutive walks to open their half of the 6th against Pfaadt. Winn-Siani-Donovan would load them up for Contreras, who would fly out to Carroll in shallow CF- not deep enough to plate Winn.
Noot would come through clutch, slapping a two-run single to LF to score Winn and Siani to make it a one run deficit, 3-2.
Let’s go ahead and skip to the second most electric moment of the game, opening the bottom of the 7th inning. Goldy would get a center-cut heater from McGough and deposit it to RCF for his 2nd HR of the season, tying the game 3-3.
Kittredge-JoJo-Helsley would each work parts of the 7th, 8th, and 9th, keeping things evened up at 3-3.
Paul Goldschmidt, the man of the hour to this point, would leadoff the bottom of the 9th vs Thompson with an infield single to Suárez- his third multi-hit game of the season.
Torrey Lovullo then opted to go to his pen to grab the lefty, Kyle Nelson, to face Nolan Gorman who was a defensive replacement in the 8th.
Norm wasted no time, getting a hanging breaking pitch right out the gate and launching it 425 feet over the Cardinals pen for a walkoff, 2-run, HR as the Cardinals would win 5-3.
Steven Matz (1-1, 3.60) will get the ball in game two, as the D-backs have yet to name their starter. First pitch is scheduled for 6:45pm c/t.
Cheers, Stew