Arizona’s bats finally come alive in blowout
Varsho homers, Beer has 3 hits – each have 3 RBIs
WASHINGTON — Daulton Varsho stood in the batter’s box and spoiled pitches, one after another after another. He fouled off curveballs, cutters, fastballs and a change-up. He waited out four pickoff throws to first base. All told, his fourthinning at-bat against Washington Nationals right-hander Erick Fedde lasted more than eight minutes, an eternity for a single at-bat.
For the first 11 games of the season, a disciplined, grinding at-bat for a Diamondbacks hitter has not been entirely out of place. What has been rare, however, is one that ended the way Varsho’s did. On the 11th pitch, Varsho rocketed a line drive into the seats in right-center field for a two-run home run, a shot that put a sort of exclamation point on the Diamondbacks’ first offensive breakout of the year.
In beating the Nationals, 11-2, on Wednesday night, the Diamondbacks scored half as many runs in a single game as they had all season. They hit balls hard. They put runners on base throughout the night. They made the act of scoring a run look like a relatively common task — which it is, of course.
Seth Beer had three hits, including the Diamondbacks’ first hit with two outs and a runner in scoring position this season. Ketel Marte doubled, singled and scored a pair of runs. Christian Walker reached base twice. It was more than enough for right-hander Merrill Kelly, who allowed one run in six innings in his third consecutive solid start to open the season.
“I think the best thing was we didn’t just let up,” Beer said. “We kept going. We kept putting guys on. We kept getting those big hits.”
Speaking with reporters earlier in the day about his team’s struggling offense, hitting coach Joe Mather was asked about the Diamondbacks’ penchant for drawing walks. Nodding, Mather pointed out that even though his team hadn’t been scoring runs, he figured they were making life difficult for opposing pitchers, some of whom might not want to face the Diamondbacks again. He was then asked if those type of at-bats tend to be a precursor to an offensive outburst.
“Generally, yeah,” Mather said.
Little did Mather know that such an outburst was just a few hours away. Still, it was a long, brutal wait for the offense to finally awaken. The Diamondbacks’ .156 average entering the game was the lowest by any club since 1901 in the first 11 games of the season. Their 53 hits were tied for the fewest with the 2003 Detroit Tigers, a team that went on to lose 119 games.
Of course, one good game does not a good offense make. But for the Diamondbacks, it at least proves — not least of all to themselves — that they are capable of doing some damage every now and then.
“That was awesome,” Varsho said. “It was fun. It was great to see everybody kind of put one on the board and trust the approach and the process. We’ll try to do it again tomorrow.”
There were early signs, perhaps, that Wednesday might be the night when it would finally turn. In the first, Ketel Marte smashed a would-be home run about a foot and a half foul. Though he would eventually pop out, it might have been the best contact he had made on a ball this season.
An inning later, Pavin Smith grinded through 10 pitches to work a walk, setting
the stage for a Sergio Alcantara sacrifice fly to make it 1-0.
The floodgates opened after that. In the third, they got four consecutive hits from Marte, David Peralta, Walker and Beer to make it 4-0.
Then, in the fourth, Varsho came to the plate with a runner, Yonny Hernandez, on first and one out. He quickly fell behind 0-2, but proceeded to foul off six pitches and eventually work the count even. He said the longer the at-bat went on the more he felt things shifting in his favor.
“I think you can just tell by the body language that he (Fedde) was getting a little frustrated that I wasn’t swinging and missing or just putting the ball in play,” Varsho said. “That’s with every pitcher, too. They want to be able to work fast and get the outs and move on to the next guy.”
Fedde left a cutter up in the zone and Varsho laced it over the high fence in right-center, clanking it off the first row of seats. The at-bat began at 8:13 p.m. EST. It ended at 8:21 p.m. Beer called it the best at-bat of the night “for sure.”
“He got all those pitches, worked a count, got to the point where he could finally get something he could handle and drove it out of the ballpark,” Beer said. “How much better can it get than that? I was so happy for him on that one. That’s uplifting as a team, too. In the dugout, you see a guy compete in an at-bat like that and not give in, that’s kind of what we’re going for.”
Said Fedde: “I think I showed him every pitch I have, and he just kept battling and ended up winning it. That’s the one where I wish I was on the other side of it. He gave me a hell of an at-bat.”
Beer’s double later in the inning drove home two runs to make it 8-0. It came with two outs and a runner in scoring position — the first such hit this season for the Diamondbacks, who snapped an 0for-34 skid.
“We knew that with the grind upon us, if we just kept battling and kept working, that something like this was going to take place and we were going to find our way into a big night,” manager Torey Lovullo said. “That’s what happens. The season ebbs and flows. As long as we’re following the process, we’re focused and we’re practicing the right way, I feel like this group is going to have these types of days.”