Diamondbacks 4, Friars 6: Problemas en el Bullpen

Well, we had our first “home game” in Mexico City this afternoon, and here at the end of it I find myself in an absolutely filthy mood. A big part of that, I’m sure, is how the game ultimately turned out. Some portion is also that, like others have remarked over the last couple of days, it seems grossly unfair that, in a divisional series, one team—the Diamondbacks, in this instance—got the “honor” of being assigned as the home team despite the fact that we, like the San Diego Padres, are playing very far from home in fact, and in facilities and at an elevation that are both deeply unfamiliar and likely uncomfortable for both teams.

And given that end-of-year tiebreakers, should they happen to come into play in September when postseason berths are being decided, have division records and whatnot pretty high up on the list, having two less actual home games, in our actual home park, against a divisional foe puts us at a distinct disadvantage, and makes these games much more high-stakes for us than they would be otherwise, and much more high-stakes than they should be. It seems distinctly unfair, and also pretty wildly unnecessary, at least if one’s primary interest is Major League Baseball. But more on that later, I suppose….

I’m supposed to be a recapping a baseball game here. So I suppose I should get to it. The Padres brought former Rockie German Marquez to play today, while we brought Zac Gallen.

Since we were pitching “at home,” Gallen got to go first, and while he was hardly wowing with his control or his efficiency—of the seventeen pitches he threw in the top of the first, only eight of them landed for strikes—he did retire the top of the San Diego lineup in order, and put up a welcome zero. Marquez did the same to us, in the bottom of the first, but with rather more efficiency, needing only thirteen pitches to sit down Geraldo Perdomo, Ketel Marte, and Corbin Carroll in order with two looking punchouts and a grounder to short. Gallen was a bit better in the second, recording another clean inning with two strikeouts of his own, and only throwing fifteen pitches.