Well, there’s honestly not so much to say about this one. Ryne Nelson was going for us today, which I actually felt pretty good about, given that the Ryno had pitched at least seven innings in his last three starts, and was rocking an ERA right around 2.70 for the month of May. He was going up against Bryan Woo, a very talented Seattle righ-thander who’s been pretty good but who has had a middle-of-the-road performance so far this year, much like the rest of the Mariners’ ballclub.
Sadly, though, tonight it was no contest.
It started off okay, or it seemed to. Ketel Marte led off the game by making good contact on the first pitch Woo threw him for a fading liner into shallow right. I thought it was going to drop for a hit, but Mariners’ right fielder Luke Raley made a nice diving-ish catch to snag it just before it landed in the right field grass. Corbin Carroll then struck out l0oking, and Geraldo Perdomo struck out looking, getting Woo out of the top of the first with all of ten pitches thrown.
Ryne Nelson matched him, sorta, and even did better, sorta—he gave up a leadoff single, but then induced a one-pitch double play and then a lineout to Tommy Troy in left to face the minimum with only eight pitches thrown. So that was cool….maybe it would be a pitching duel.
Woo came out for the second, however, and promptly struck out Gabriel Moreno, Adrian Del Castillo, and Ryan Waldschmidt on fifteen total pitches. So, six batters faced, and after what turned out to be a lineout he struck out the next five. Yeah. It was all like that.
Meanwhile, Ryne Nelson stumbled in the bottom of the second. After getting a one-pitch flyout to start things off, he allowed a solo home run to Raley, who sent a middle-middle fastball over the wall in right center. One out later, he threw a hanging curveball to old friend Dominic Canzone for the same result. 2-0 Seattle
Woo recorded three more outs in order against the bottom of our lineup in the top of the third, though in what seemed like it might be a hopeful sign (SPOILER: it wasn’t), there were no strikeouts involved. In the bottom of the inning, though, Nelson pretty much repeated what he’d done in the previous inning, surrendering his third solo homer to Mariners’ rookie and nine-hole hitter Colt Emerson, and then his fourth one out later to Julio Rodriguez. 4-0 Seattle
But the real story, aside from all the jokes that erupted in the Gameday Thread about “solo homers won’t lose you the game” and so forth, was really Bryan Woo, who continued to deal. He retired the top of our order again in the fourth, continuing what was to that point a perfect game. That, thankfully, was broken up with one out in the top of the fifth, as Adrian Del Castillo lined and single to center, and then, after Waldschmidt grounded to third but beat the throw that would have resulted in an inning-ending double play, Ildemaro Vargas singled to center. That was that, though, as Jose Fernandez, playing third after Nolan Arenado was a late scratch from the lineup, struck out looking to end our one threat. Woo then retired the Diamondbacks in order in both the sixth and the seventh. We could do nothing against the dude.
Nelson, meanwhile, settled down, I suppose, at least insofar as he stopped giving up solo dingers to random Mariners. He pitched around traffic in both the fourth and the fifth, but managed to put up zeroes in both frames, and given that he’d actually been very efficient, he was only at 78 pitches after five innings of work so he came out to start the sixth. Sadly, however, it did not go well, though this time it was not entirely his fault. Randy Arozarena hung a seven-pitch AB on him to start the frame, but hit an easy grounder to Jose Fernandez for what should have been the first out of the inning. Fernandez, however, air-mailed the throw to first, putting Arozarena on second on the two-base error. Luke Raley then singled to left to advance Arozarena to third, and a Cole Young sac fly to right scored him. All that mishegaas brought Nelson to 99 pitches, and with only the one out recorded, Torey Lovullo swapped him out for Ryan Thompson. Thompson gave up a double down the left field line to Canzone, but recorded the last two outs without any further damage. 5-0 Seattle
And you might think that that would be your ballgame—I expected it to be, myself. Woo was basically unstoppable through his seven innings of work, and our offense, which was basically everywhere all the time when they were needed over the last three series, were nowhere to be found. Their bullpen did their job, our bullpen did its job, with Thompson pitching a second scoreless inning for us and Taylor Clarke putting up a zero in the bottom of the eighth, and us squandering a leadoff single from Waldschmidt in the eighth and then going down to our last out with Ketel Marte and Corbin Carroll making easy outs on the infield to start the ninth.
But no! While everyone else on the team would have liked nothing more than to simply put this one to bed and absquatulate back to the hotel with all speed, Perdomo decided that he was having none of it. Facing Mariners reliever Alex Hoppe, Gerry drew an eight-pitch walk, then promptly took second on defensive indifference. Hoppe then uncorked a pitch that I thought was wild, but was scored a passed ball instead. It rolled to the backstop, Gerry advanced to third, and when Hoppe forgot to cover home plate, Gerry just kept on going:
Moreno promptly grounded out to short to end things after that, but at least Gerry’s hustle spared us the indignity of a shutout loss? 5-1 Seattle
Loss Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs
Good Rhinos: NONE
Bad Rhino: Ryne Nelson (5 1/3 IP, 7 H, 4 ER, 3 K, 4 HR, -26% WPA)
So, yeah. That was pretty much that. Only one Diamondback had a positive WPA contribution, and that was Ryan Thompson, who managed to contribute a whopping +1%. Adrian Del Castillo and Taylor Clarke, managed to be neutral, contributing 0% apiece in total. But, well, it was that sort of game.
Perhaps surprisingly, given that, we had a pretty well-attended Gameday Thread tonight, with 274 comments at time of writing, so that was nice. Comment of the game goes to Fearless Leader for this one that got the most rec’s, though to be fair it was one of many that appeared around the same time that worked the same theme:
To be fair, it wasn’t the solo home runs that beat us, I don’t think. It was more that we couldn’t score any runs of our own. Well, at least not until the very end.
Anyway.
Tomorrow we will try to avoid being driven back to the desert by sailors brandishing brooms, I guess. Merrill Kelly goes for us, Bryce Miller takes the mound for Seattle, first pitch is scheduled for an actually reasonable time for a weekend game, which is to say 1:10pm AZ time. Join us if you can, we hope to see you!
As always, thanks for reading, and as always, go Diamondbacks!
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