Mistakes fuel another close loss
It was a fastball count and Stephen Vogt got a fastball. It was the eighth inning on Tuesday night, the Diamondbacks trailing by a run, and the pitch from Cardinals closer Alex Reyes was over the plate and 97 mph. It was a pitch to hit, but Vogt fouled it off. He then immediately conked himself on the helmet with his bat in frustration.
“I’ll wake up in the middle of the night swinging at it again, I’m sure, at some point tonight,” Vogt said later. “I’d like to have a go again at that pitch.”
One pitch later, the St. Louis Cardinals had themselves an inning-ending double play, and the Diamondbacks were one step closer to what would become a 3-2 loss at Busch Stadium.
The Diamondbacks did not play, in the vernacular of manager Torey Lovullo, a pristine game. They did not play an awful one, either. It was just one among countless others over the past two months in which they did just enough wrong to assure themselves of defeat.
Vogt would rank his swing in a 2-1 count with runners on the corners in the eighth among such plays. There were others.
Left-hander Caleb Smith pitched competitively for five innings, but he left a fastball over the plate that Nolan Arenado lined off the foul pole for a key tworun homer.
Baserunner Tim Locastro seemed unaware of where the defenders were behind him on a ground ball in the eighth, missing a potential chance to score.
Reliever Matt Peacock got two quick outs in the sixth but still couldn’t keep the Cardinals from adding what turned out to be a crucial tack-on run.
It is no wonder the Diamondbacks have lost 42 consecutive games in which they have scored four or fewer runs, extending their modern-day major league record. Close games tend not to be won by mistake-prone clubs.
“I can’t give you one answer,” Lovullo said, when asked what his club’s 1-43 record in such games means. “It seems like it’s one thing tonight and one thing tomorrow night. We’ve got to pile it all into one game, and that’ll turn into one week and that’ll turn into one month. And we’ll see where that takes us.”