A Look Back: Favorite D-Back Moments From 2013 Season
By Matthew Hochberg
Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports
The Venom Strikes staff takes a moment to reminisce on the Arizona Diamondbacks season, recalling their favorite moments from 2013.
Tom Lynch: When your team finishes 81-81, there is an equal split of positive and negative memories during the course of a season. I guess for me, there were two memories from the 2013 D-Backs that stick out. Since I am a naturally positive person, both of these were happy endings.
The first is the May 18th game against the Marlins. This was the game that Gerardo Parra homered on the first pitch and Brandon McCarthy threw a complete game shut out. Parra’s blast was the only run the D-Backs would score until the ninth inning of the following game. The win was McCarthy’s first since that gruesome injury he suffered in September 2012 when a batted ball nearly left killed him.
The second was the three game sweep of the Orioles in mid-August in which they won each of them in their final at-bat, two of them in extra innings. I remember coming home from work before the last game was complete, turning it on and thinking, “it can’t happen again, can it”? It also marked the last really good stretch of the season. After that series, the D-Backs took two of three in Pittsburgh before closing out the season 17-23.
Some good memories, some bad ones but it was baseball. There is no sport better.
Noah Dougherty: While my immediate thought for a favorite D-Back moment of 2013 would favor Paul Goldschmidt and his ridiculous year, I found myself attracted to the clubs walk off win on August 12th at Chase Field that I was able to attend. This game included the infamous quote by Adam Eaton: “I’m not sure what happened—I just blacked out.”
The Orioles got runs across in six of the nine innings played including one in each of the final two frames to add a couple more clicks to the D-Backs’ MLB leading blown save mark. The Snakes continually battled back as they fell behind 2-0 in the second inning, and 4-2 through the sixth before scoring three in the seventh to take a 5-4 lead. And even when Joe Thatcher surrendered a no doubter to Chris Davis in the eighth that tied the game at five, the D-Backs answered with a surprising home run by Wil Nieves who hadn’t gone yard in over a year. When Brad Ziegler couldn’t close the door in the ninth by allowing a run to tie it at six, Adam Eaton came up in the bottom half and sent the first pitch he saw into the pool out in right center field to give the team their 23rd win in their last at bat and send the fans into a wild celebration- one that we had come to expect during the first two months of the season but had been dormant since the All-Star break.
Christian Moffett: The best moment of 2013 was pretty much the entire series against Los Angeles that ended with the brawl at Dodger Stadium. At the time of this series, Arizona was the big men on campus in the NL West and they flexed their muscles a bit. Ultimately, we know which team ended the season better, but it was fun to watch the Diamondbacks during this part of the year because they were fairly intimidating and actually playing well. Naturally, brawls are just fun to watch so that will always be a fond memory for me.
Paul Goldschmidt’s walk off against Baltimore was a great memory. I think Goldy even smiled a little after that game! I thought the series against BAL was going to be a season-changer, but I was wrong. Arizona beat a good team in exciting fashion each night. Very impressive.