Diamondbacks 0, Tiny Bears 2: Who Brought Bears to the Horse Race?!??

/deep breath

and while some of the more mature snakes occasionally ventured out onto the basepaths track during the second lap like Geraldo Perdomo who singled to lead off the fourth and Nolan Arenado who singled to lead off the fifth but both of them, like Carroll right out of the gate found themselves out in the open when the TV faded to black and were likely devoured by bears so the younger snakes I suspect found a pipe or a gutter or something and went to look for where the actual horses are because everyone knows that bears are the last thing you bring to a horse race because whether or not they are full-grown they will send the horses into a panic and besides it allowed them to explore the great city of Chicago and visit the Art Institute and slither around in the sand at the base of that peculiar silvery bean thing on the lakeshore and check out the mysterious elevated subway train that seemed designed to free up the streets for horse races, but they didn’t find any horses but they weren’t missed all that much because nothing much happened for the whole second lap thanks to the baseball gods having decided to arrange the winds so that they were blowing back into the ballpark racetrack which prevented any further bear cubs or any snakes whatsoever from taking flight which was good for our Ryno who has a problem with opponents launching his offerings into space but who kept lumbering on into the sixth furlong, but it also prevented any Diamondbacks from becoming airborne predators which would have been very bad for the city of Chicago as you will know if you ever saw that cinematic masterpiece “Snakes on a Plane” but no, it was all zeroes on both sides through the second lap aaand….

/deep breath

on into the home stretch though Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. risked venturing out onto the bases with a one-out double in the top of the seventh furlong, and young Jose Fernandez got back into the paddock from his outing to the Second City lunchtime set just in time to walk on four pitches which is always weird to say because of the whole snakes/legs thing but once more the TV screen faded to black, leaving both the veteran and the youngster out on the grass to be devoured by bears which was sad and which may have finally dissuaded any other snakes from really trying their luck because no subsequent snakes dared venture out onto the bases while in other news Snake Wrangler Torey Lovullo had returned the Ryno to his pen after 5 2/3 furlongs and gave some others a chance to play, which worked pretty well all things considered as Kevin Ginkel put up a zero, Juan Morillo gave up a run on an Ian Happ triple and a Seika Suzuki sacrifice fly to bring things to 2-0 Chicago before Johnny Lasagna came out to end the bottom of the eighth and our last chance in the top of the ninth ended with three successive ground outs to short against reliever Ben Brown to end this not-very-compelling horse race aaand….

/deep breath

Loss Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs

Chief Wallabee [9/1 odds]: Ryne Nelson (5 2/3 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 HR, 84 pitches thrown,+13% WPA)
The Puma [early betting favorite, withdrew from race]: Our entire offense (31 AB, 4 H, 1 BB, 6 K, -65% WPA)

Perhaps because it was an early start again, and perhaps because the Diamondbacks have not been playing particularly good baseball of late, it was another kind of light Game Day Thread, with 163 comments at time of writing. By popular acclaim, Comment of the Game goes to Snacks&Dbacks for this very true and timely observation:

Of course, Lovullo wound up pulling Nelson one out shy of six full innings. But at least he got closer, with far better results, than our other starters have been managing of late.

Anyhow, join us tomorrow morning once again as we try to avoid getting swept in the Windy City. Struggling mainstay Merrill Kelly goes for us (9.20 ERA, ulp), while struggling Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd (7.00 ERA) takes the mound for Chicago. So at least it should be a somewhat level playing field? First pitch is once again scheduled for 11:20am AZ time. Hope you can join us!

As always, thanks for reading, and as always, go Diamondbacks!