Diamondbacks 1, San Diego 13: Knuckle(ball) Sandwich

Yeah, let’s not sugarcoat this. We got utterly annihilated tonight. Ryne Nelson, who pitched very well against San Francisco on Monday, went up against San Diego righthander and part-time knuckleballer Matt Waldron. I didn’t know that being a part-time knuckleball pitcher was a thing, but apparently it is a thing. Waldron is a guy who has a lot of pitches in his arsenal, it turns out, and one of those pitches happens to be a knuckleball. Earlier in the year, he was apparently throwing it about 30% or the time, but as the year has gone on, he’s gotten his usage up above 40%. And we couldn’t hit it, or him, like, at all.

Waldron was perfect through his first four innings, retiring the first twelve batters he faced on 58 pitches thrown. Ryne Nelson, meanwhile, only lasted 3¹⁄₃ innings for us, and needed 91 pitches to get that far. Needless to say, we did not get good Ryne tonight. After giving up a leadoff single to Luis Arraez to start, he then retired Fernando Tatis, Jr., Jurickson Profar, and Jake Cronenworth in order to put up his first zero. Not bad, but not great—he wasn’t commanding his pitches, and didn’t manage a first-pitch strike until the fourth batter he faced, and his control looked, well, kinda iffy.

The wheels came off, the first time, for Ryne in the bottom of the second, as he surrendered two opposite field singles to start the frame. Then rookie Jackson Merrill hit a ground ball to Christian Walker, who threw to second in the hopes of starting a double play. Alas, however, he committed a rare error, throwing the ball wide of Kevin Newman and into left field. The error allowed the lead runner to score and put runners on first and second, still with nobody out. Ha-Seong Kim then lined a three-run homer over the wall in left center. Nelson got out of it without further damage, but it took him 37 pitches to get through the inning, putting him at 50 pitches through two. 4-0 San Diego

Nelson managed to put up another zero in his half of the third, though again he had to work, pitching around two walks and a double that loaded the bases. Still, no further damage done, though it took him 29 more pitches to get into and out of that trouble, putting him at 79 for the night. And then the bottom of the fourth rolled around, which also marked the Padres’ lineup turning over for the second time. Anyone who has watched Nelson’s starts is likely aware that things get exponentially more dicey when he starts working through the order for the third time in a game, and this was no different, aside from the relative rarity of that occurring in the fourth inning. He retired Arraez for the second time, surrendered a double to Tatis, walked Profar, and got the hook from Torey Lovullo, who had seen enough as his starter was already at 91 pitches. So Logan Allen, Bullpen Savior and Devourer of Innings, took the ball, and….well. He gave up a dinger to Cronenworth, and one out later back to back doubles to David Peralta and Merrill before finally getting the third out of the inning. 8-0 San Diego

We did actually start to show a bit of life in the top of the fifth, and seemed for a couple of moments like we’d finally begun to figure our Waldron. Christian Walker doubled over the head of Profar to lead off the inning. Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. singled him to third. Blaze Alexander drew a walk to load the bases, all with nobody out. Then Geno Suarez singled to left, allowing Walker to cross the plate, and leaving the bases loaded with nobody out. Sadly, though, Waldron’s knuckleball superpowers reasserted themselves, as Kevin Newman popped out on the infield, Tucker Barnhart dribbled a ground ball in front of the plate that Waldron fielded cleanly and flipped home to force Gurriel at the plate, and then induced another weak grounder from Corbin Carroll that allowed him to wriggle off the hook with only minimal damage done. 8-1 San Diego

And that was pretty much it, except for the further piling on by San Diego against our substantially depleted bullpen. Four more runs scored in the Padres fifth, causing Allen to exit with only three outs recorded as new scrap heap pickup/bullpen addition Thyago Vieira relieved him. He got us out of the fifth with only four more Padres crossing the plate, and then pitched a bottom of the sixth that would have been clean but for the solo dinger he surrendered to the Padres’ backup catcher. 13-1 San Diego

Meanwhile, eventually Waldron left the game for San Diego, and some other guys came out of the bullpen and put up zeroes. Jake McCarthy managed a leadoff walk in the top of the sixth, Suarez draw a one-out walk in the seventh, Corbin Carroll led off the eighth with a cheap infield single to start the eighth, and Gurriel singled up the middle to start the ninth, but none of those baserunners came anywhere close to crossing the plate.

If there are any bright spots here, one would I suppose be that Scott McGough made his first appearance since his vacation in Reno, and actually retired the Padres in order in the seventh for the only 1-2-3 inning Diamondbacks pitching recorded tonight. And somewhat hilariously, Pavin Smith pitched the bottom of the eighth for us. His “changeup” touched 83 mph, and despite hitting the first batter he faced and then walking the next, and then having the bases loaded on a popup that Christian Walker dropped, uncharacteristically, for his second error of the game (!!!), he induced a Luis Arraez double play grounder to end the inning and put up a zero. So that was kind of amusing, I suppose.

Anyway. This one was no fun at all, really. I’m glad for you if you missed it.

Win Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs

Punching Bag: Ryne Nelson (3¹⁄₃ IP, 6 H, 6 ER, 4 BB, 1 K, 1 HR, -23.7% WPA)

The Gameday Thread started out reasonably strong, but depopulated quickly as the game went south early and continued heading south at speed. 133 comments at time of writing, and a fair number went Sedona Red. Tonight’s CotG goes to kilnborn, for his somewhat premature remark up the gong being struck for Ryne Nelson’s short outing:

Torey likely had seen enough, but like it or not, he saw plenty more before it was done. Heigh ho.

Anyway. Fourth game of the series is tomorrow afternoon, if you’d care to drop by and see if we can at least salvage a series split. Rookie Adam Mazur starts for the Padres, and judging by the information that MLB has up about tomorrow’s game, Mazur will be going up against….um, Scott McGough? Okay then. I guess it’s gonna be a bullpen game? Yikes. Who the hell knows, really?

Join us if you dare. Hope to see you. First pitch is scheduled for 1:10pm AZ time.

As always, thanks for reading, and as always, go Diamondbacks!