Deandre Ayton, the Suns’ No. 1 draft pick, throws the first pitch Sunday at Chase Field. The Giants beat the D-Backs to sweep the series.
For stretches on Sunday, Diamondbacks right-hander Zack Godley’s misses could best be measured in feet, not inches. He would sometimes spin off the mound, the balance he’d been trying to maintain in his delivery nowhere to be found. There were innings spent stalking the mound in anger after a pitch, his frustration evident to all.
Godley gave up seven runs in fourplus innings in a 9-6 loss to the San Francisco Giants. His struggles were befitting of a weekend in which the Diamondbacks never seemed to stand a chance.
In getting swept by the Giants, the Diamondbacks couldn’t hit in one game, couldn’t pitch in another and couldn’t do either in the third. It was an abrupt turnaround for a club that entered the weekend riding a hot streak that lasted pretty much all of June.
Prior to this weekend, the Diamondbacks had lost consecutive games only once since late May. They had dropped only one of their past nine series.
That lone series loss came back
in San Francisco against these same Giants, a club that has stormed into relevancy in the National League West with a run of its own that started in late May.
Since falling to five games under .500 on May 29, the Giants have won 20 of their past 30, and after cutting three games in as many days off the Diamondbacks’ lead in the division, they’re now just 2 1/2 out of first, tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers for second place.
“They kicked our butts, man,” Diamondbacks third baseman Jake Lamb said. “They came in here and beat us straight up. It sucks getting swept, especially how good we’ve been playing, but you’ve just got to flush it. It’s a long season and you’re going to go through stretches like these.”
The Diamondbacks tend to go through these stretches only when they’re facing good teams. Through 84 games, they’re an under .500 team (24-27) when playing winning clubs and a dominant force (2310) when facing baseball’s downtrodden.
Prior to the Giants series, they had won 21 of their past 29 games; 19 of those victories came against clubs that currently sport losing records. As for that brutal stretch in May, when they lost 15 of 17? Twelve of those losses came against winning teams.
“The overall record, the whole body of work, is what I’m more focused on,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said.
“Whether they’re .500 or not, I haven’t really thought about it.”
Godley’s ugly outing came on the heels of another rough one from righthander Shelby Miller. Godley gave up a run in the first, two in the third, another in the fourth and was charged with three more in the Giants’ four-run fifth, an inning in which all three batters he faced eventually scored.
“Overall today, for me, it just didn’t feel right,” Godley said. “Something for me just wasn’t clicking. I tried to battle my way through it as best I could and those
guys just took advantage.”
Meanwhile, a Diamondbacks offense that scored only once in the first two games finally got going but couldn’t punch enough runs across to win. The Diamondbacks stranded two runners in each of the first two innings then left the bases full in the fourth.
They managed to bring the tying run to the plate for Lamb in the ninth, but the Giants summoned lefty reliever Will Smith, who struck him out on four pitches, making Lamb 0 for 4 with four strikeouts against him in their careers.
In the three games, the Diamondbacks were outscored 18-7 by the Giants.
“Baseball is a long season,” Lamb said.
“You’re going to go through your ups and downs and you’ve just got to focus on playing good baseball. At the end of the season, the best team is going to be at the top and we go from there.”