Cahill Solid Again, Homers Hold Up In Dbacks Win

Aug 15, 2014; Miami, FL, USA; Arizona Diamondbacks relief pitcher Trevor Cahill (35) throws against the Miami Marlins during the first inning at Marlins Ballpark. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Trevor Cahill has been really impressive as of late, and on Saturday night he took another step in the right direction. Cahill pitched six and two thirds innings allowing two runs on six hits to lead the Diamondbacks to a 3-2 win at Marlins Park.

Cahill picked up his second consecutive win to improve his record to 3-8 on the season. Since Cahill has been back in the rotation, he has dropped his era by almost a full run. After Saturday’s outing, his era for the year sits at 4.68. In the process, Cahill also picked up his fourth quality start of the season.

Based on the raw numbers only, you could probably say that Cahill breezed through a pretty easy outing. However, that is far from the truth. Despite picking up the win, and going deep into the game, it wasn’t easy for Cahill. He had to escape several jams, and got a lot of help from his infield defense.

When Cahill is on, he gets a lot of ground ball outs, and he did that inducing three of the four Marlins double plays in the game. The big double play probably came in the third inning after Cahill had given up back to back one out walks. Casey McGehee who is not the easiest out followed the walks by grounding into a 5-4-3 double play to end the threat.

Cahill really commanded his slider in this outing getting alot of swing and misses down in the zone on that pitch. That is a key for Cahill, and it is a really good sign for the Dbacks moving forward.

Both teams combined for five runs in the first, and it looked like it would be a offensive show for the small crowd in Miami. It didn’t turn out that way. Both pitching staffs put up zeros the rest of the way, and the 3-2 lead held up.

In the top of the first, Cliff Pennington who has been swinging a hot bat since coming off the D.L, hit a solo shot down the left field line, just keeping the ball fair to make it 1-0 Dbacks with one out. Then Mark Trumbo hit a fair ball down the third base line. The Marlins let it go thinking that would go foul. Instead, Trumbo ended up at first with an infield single. That was followed by a two run homer to left from Aaron Hill and it was suddenly 3-0 Snakes.

However, the Marlins offense responded against Cahill in the bottom of the inning. Miami opened their scoring with three straight singles, the last an RBI knock by the leading RBI man in the National League Giancarlo Stanton. Then with one out, Garrett Jones drove home a run with a single to cut the Arizona lead to 3-2.

In the eighth, Cahill allowed a single and hit a batter after getting the first two outs, and Dbacks Manager Kirk Gibson decided to go to the pen. Rookie Matt Stites came on. He walked the first batter he faced before getting Donovan Solano to ground into a force out to end the inning.

Closer Addison Reed pitched a 1-2-3 inning for his 29th save.

Today, the Dbacks and Marlins face off in game 3 of the series. Wade Miley goes for Arizona and Henderson Alvarez will take the mound for the Marlins. The big key for Miley is to keep the ball in the yard, and out of the middle of the plate. Miley has allowed 22 home runs this year which is the third most in the National League.