Diamondbacks fall 9-5 to Astros in a similar story

The Arizona Diamondbacks took a familiar road en route to their second straight loss against the Houston Astros.

Behind a poor pitching performance and lack of offense, the Diamondbacks fell to the Astros 9-5 in their second straight loss.

The story has been the same for the Diamondbacks lately. The starter struggles early and cannot maintain control of their pitches, while the offense barely scraps together a few hits, almost never with runners in scoring position.

However, the team always manages to put on their rally caps and earn a few runs to make games look a lot closer than it really was.

In the mid-week loss, this was exactly the case.

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Taijuan Walker continued his winless streak to nine starts. Walker has not earned a win since June 21. He gave up five runs and threw 101 pitches over five innings.

The Diamondbacks managed one run during those five innings, but they turned to the bullpen as the Astros held a 5-1 lead.

T.J. McFarland pitched two scoreless innings in relief giving the Diamondbacks offense the opportunity to wake up.

With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Jake Lamb, hit a line drive to center field. He was previously 0-for-3 on the night.

In true Paul Goldschmidt fashion, the first baseman sent his 29th homerun of the season over the left center field wall to make the score 5-3.

As mentioned in baseball’s best bromances, Goldschmidt and J.D. Martinez have an interesting chemistry on the field. Before Wednesday’s game, 18 of Martinez’s 31 appearances on base have come after Goldschmidt got on base or drove in runs.

This game was no different as Martinez knocked in his 24th homerun of the season right behind Goldschmidt’s two-run shot.

But, unlike previous games, the Diamondbacks bullpen couldn’t hold off the Astros offense.

A combination of T.J. McFarland, David Hernandez and Andrew Chafin gave up four runs in the bottom of the eighth. The once 5-4 attempt at a rally was now a 9-4 game.

But, again, the Diamondbacks offense went to work. Chris Iannetta led off the top of the ninth with a solo homerun, but nothing else would come of the inning.

The Diamondbacks couldn’t overcome a slew of bad pitching and they couldn’t top the Astros struggling bullpen. The team was 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position, including stranding two runners in the seventh against Tyler Clippard.

Dropping game two means the Diamondbacks have no chance of getting a series win, the best possible outcome would be a series tie with a win in Thursday’s game.

Next: Hot takes: W-L record, the DH in the NL and electronic strike zones

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