The Diamondbacks were three outs away from completing a three-game series sweep. Carrying a 1-0 lead into the ninth inning, Justin Martinez was unable to keep Chicago off the board, and the Cubs would walk off Arizona 2-1 in 10 innings.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Martinez was on the mound for the third game in a row, with primary closer Paul Sewald unavailable to pitch after back-to-back saves in the first two games of the series. His first pitch was smoked down the right field line by Nico Hoerner for a leadoff double. Hoerner then scored the tying run on a single up the middle by Seiya Suzuki.
“We had three pieces down in the bullpen today,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo told Dbacks TV reporter Jody Jackson. “We got to remember it’s a long season and we’re going to have some grinding days ahead. We need those guys to stay healthy and strong. Three of the four weren’t available, we talked about J Mart’s availability, and we felt comfortable and confident he was going to give us that last inning if needed.”
After the Diamondbacks failed to score in the top of the 10th, the Cubs won it in the bottom half. Manager Torey Lovullo elected to intentionally walk Dansby Swanson to open the inning. Miguel Amaya rolled a perfect bunt down the third base line to advance the winning run to third. A shallow fly ball to left kept the winning run at third, but then Lovullo turned to Humberto Castellanos. Castellanos badly missed the strike zone on four of the next five pitches to push the winning run across.
The loss wastes the best outing of Brandon Pfaadt’s career. Facing All-Star left-hander Shota Imanaga, Pfaadt was more than up for the challenge. He held Chicago to just one hit, an infield single to the hole at short, one walk, and seven strikeouts. At one point, he set down 14 straight Cubs.
Imanaga was dominant for his seven innings, but made a mistake with a 91 MPH middle-middle fastball to Eugenio Suárez. Suárez crushed the pitch out of Wrigley Field to give the Diamondbacks a 1-0 lead. Unfortunately, that also served as Arizona’s final hit of the game.
Armed with the lead, Pfaadt walked Michael Busch to open the bottom of the seventh, but put up his seventh and final zero of the day. He got Suzuki to fly out to center, a check-swing groundout by Ian Happ that needed a replay challenge to overturn a safe call, then struck out Christopher Morel on sweepers to punctuate his start. On a day where much of the backend of the bullpen was unavailable, it was Pfaadt’s finest hour of the season.
“He was on the attack and he’s being doing it all year long for us,” said Lovullo. “On a day where we did have three really good backend pieces down, we needed that type of outing.”
Without much of their A-bullpen, Lovullo had to be creative to try to get the final six outs with no margin of error. He sent in Bryce Jarvis for the eighth inning, who pitched around a one-out walk to get the ball to the ninth inning. However, the rest of the bullpen was unable to get the job done, and the Diamondbacks had to settle for just the series win.
Next Game
The Diamondbacks will travel to Kansas City to take on the Royals at Kauffman Stadium. All-Star left-hander Cole Ragans (6-6, 3.16 ERA) goes for Kansas City while rookie right-hander Yilber Diaz (1-0, 1.50 ERA) pitches for Arizona. First pitch will be at 5:10 P.M. MST.
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Michael McDermott covers the Arizona Diamondbacks, Arizona Cardinals, and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @MichaelMcDMLB
