Diamondbacks – Giants Series Recap: Soft Bats

Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Yesterday, the Arizona Diamondbacks finished off a four-game series with the San Francisco Giants. The D-Backs went into this series having recently faced the Giants the week before in a 3-game series. Arizona lost their earlier series 1-2 hoping to strike back in this one. Unfortunately, they fell short of a series win as the two teams split with two wins a piece.

The Diamondbacks won Game 1, thanks to a strong performance on the mound by Trevor Cahill and some excellent defensive plays to start off the series on a high note with a 4-2 victory. But Game 2 was a totally different story, which featured pitchers Patrick Corbin for the Diamondbacks and Yusmeiro Petit for the Giants. In one sense, this was a rematch of September 1 game which featured the same starting pitchers. In that game, Petit got the win for the Giants with a career-high 10 strikeout performance. In the subsequent match-up, Petit was even better with a complete game shutout and a near perfect game.

The Snakes then went on to win Game 3, but unfortunately could not finish strong. Game 4 featured poor offense with several blown opportunities to win the game. The Diamondbacks were down 2-0 for several innings until they scored two big runs in the eighth. The game went into extra innings, which has been a good sign; they had won six of their last six extra-inning games. Unfortunately, the Giants won it with a walk-off single by Angel Pagan in the eleventh inning.

Although this series had its ups and downs for Diamondbacks fans, it featured some very poor hitting by them overall. In the four games, they had a combined total of only 8 runs scored…yikes! On a separate note, Arizona have now broken the franchise record for most extra-inning games in a single season with 22. They are also making a run for the MLB record of most extra innings played.

What We Learned:
Extra-Innings is not a guarantor of success. After winning six of their last six extra-inning games, the Diamondbacks dropped Game 4 to the Giants in 11 innings.

Brandon McCarthy has a heck of a glove. The 30-year-old made an impressive sliding catch for the first out in the bottom of the 8th.

The 22-year old SS Chris Owings may have won a starting job after just recently being called up. Owings has four hits in his last two games.

Blown Opportunity:
In Game 4, the Diamondbacks blew a big opportunity in the top of the 9th when the game was tied 2-2 and Matt Davidson got a leadoff walk. Tony Campana was then subbed in to pinch run, but was caught stealing after getting himself in a pickle. This was very unfortunate, as Miguel Montero had singled into right shortly thereafter. Had Campana stayed on base, he would have easily reached third and possibly score.