The Arizona Diamondbacks pride themselves on strong pitching and defense. In their 10-6 Opening Day loss to the Chicago Cubs, they got neither. The pitching was erratic from the get-go, and the defense made some mistakes at inopportune times to give Chicago extra opportunities, which they cashed in on.
After the game, manager Torey Lovullo talked about those mistakes in his postgame presser.
"I think the theme of the night was that we made too many mistakes and they turned into stressors, too many stressors on this team at one time. It's a lot to overcome. I can tell you what some of them are, the plays we didn't make defensively, but inside of the game, the way we look at it, there were a few others we need to tighten up."
The Diamondbacks' stressors were self-inflicted, typically uncharacteristic of a Lovullo-managed ball club. Whether it was giving out walks to the bottom part of the order to turn the lineup over, physical errors on defense, or bad throwing decisions, the Cubs capitalized. At the major league level, all it takes is giving the opponent an extra out or baserunner for an inning to completely unravel.
The first big inning came against Zac Gallen in the second. After Josh Naylor had put Arizona up 1-0, Gallen lost the zone. He walked Pete Crow-Armstrong and Matt Shaw, the seven and eight hole hitters, on eight consecutive balls and fell behind Miguel Amaya 3-0. It would have been a third straight walk if not for a generous call by home plate umpire Dan Bellino, which led to a groundout. Gallen was in position to escape the inning unscathed, but a double by Ian Happ and a single by Kyle Tucker put Chicago up 3-1.
"Just maybe working a little too fast in the second inning," Gallen told Arizona Sports' Alex Weiner.
By the time he was finished with the second inning, he had thrown 29 pitches and ensured it would be a short night for him. Gallen lasted just four innings with four runs allowed on four hits, four walks, and four strikeouts. Only 43 of his 83 pitches on the night were strikes. Set to hit the free agent market after the season, Opening Day served as an inauspicious start to his season.
The big turning point in the game came in the fifth inning. The offense had clawed back into the game and trailed by only a run. Ryne Nelson induced a ground ball to shortstop for what should have been the final out of the inning, but Geraldo Perdomo underestimated Crow-Armstrong's speed and threw to second instead of taking the sure out at first. It was a rare mental error from Perdomo, an otherwise strong defender and captain of the infield. Chicago took advantage, as Amaya ripped a 109 MPH line drive that Jake McCarthy couldn't squeeze on a diving attempt that cleared the bases and effective took the Diamondbacks out of the game.
The game serves as a reminder that lapses in execution in the right moments will lead to a frustrating loss. The frustrating part was the Diamondbacks hitters on all over Justin Steele for the first four innings. The game was certainly winnable at that point, but in the end all the mistakes added up and they couldn't keep up.
For Lovullo and the coaching staff, it's important for them to quickly identify and correct those mistakes. The good news for the Diamondbacks is that there are 161 games left in the season and