Arizona Diamondbacks bats go big at Coors, bail out slumping No. 1 starter Zac Gallen - Yahoo Sports

Published 3 days ago• 6 minute read

DENVER — Zac Gallen’s pitches kept catching large swaths of home plate in the fourth inning, and the Colorado Rockies hitters kept punishing him for it. One after another, they crushed hard-hit balls or managed to find holes, turning what had been a solid night into another troubling performance for the Diamondbacks’ No. 1 starter.

In the end, Gallen’s rough outing — in which he gave up seven runs in five innings — did not prevent the Diamondbacks from coming away with a 14-8 win in what was a quintessential Coors Field slugfest. It didn’t even keep Gallen from picking up the win.

But it felt like the latest instance in which supposed steps forward by Gallen were followed by another step back.

“Thankfully,” Gallen said, “I pitched with this offense — in this ballpark — and they bailed me out today.”

Eugenio Suarez blasted a pair of long balls to become the 164th member of baseball’s 300-homer club. Ketel Marte homered and doubled twice, driving in five runs. Ildemaro Vargas homered, doubled and fell a triple shy of the cycle.

And the Diamondbacks won the first of what feels like three borderline-must-win games against a retched Rockies team.

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For Suarez, the home runs extended what has been an incredible tear that dates back to around this time last season. He started last season slowly but caught fire in July, and over the past calendar year has slammed 48 homers.

“The beginning of last year was tough for me,” he said. “A lot of people thought that that was it for me because I started the season so slow.”

He continued: “Like I always say, I never gave up working hard. I knew what I could do. All the hard work that I’ve been putting in, it showed up at some point.”

Still, Gallen’s struggles were hard to overlook, even if they came in a ballpark known for its friendliness to hitters.

Gallen is 16 starts into his season — the halfway point for a starting pitcher, more or less — and he has the highest ERA (5.60) of any qualified starter in the majors.

“I feel like I’ve tried just about everything, really,” Gallen said. “Or at least turned over every rock. I’m still trying to find rocks to turn over. But it’s getting pretty frustrating in that sense.”

It had been possible to look at Gallen’s previous three starts and see signs of progress. He pitched well in Atlanta, then watched outings against the Cincinnati Reds and San Diego Padres go south when he went back out for the seventh inning. Either way, he had worked into the seventh in all three; in a season filled with fits and starts, that felt like a step forward.

The first few innings against the Rockies were encouraging enough, as well, but the feeling quickly shifted in the fourth, when he served up homers to two of the first four batters he faced. The Rockies wound up sending 10 batters to the plate and scoring six times off Gallen to turn a 6-1 deficit into a 7-6 lead.

The throughline in that inning appeared to be location. Nearly every pitch the Rockies hit hard was left over the fat part of the plate. Some pitches caught more plate than others — and some were more blatant mistakes than others — but none could be considered a pitcher’s pitch.

Three of the hits in the fourth came with two strikes, an area that Gallen called “probably the most frustrating thing.” He called it likely a combination of factors, including execution, sequencing and imperfect shapes on his breaking balls.

“I’ve been digging on it,” he said. “I haven’t come up with any answers yet. Still digging, still trying to figure it out. I’ve got 16 more starts, whatever it is, so there’s still time to figure it out, but it’s getting pretty frustrating.”

Despite Gallen’s struggles, the Diamondbacks' offense rode to the rescue. Suarez’s first homer of the night tied the game to lead off the next half-inning, and the Diamondbacks went in front for good on Vargas' two-run homer later that inning.

Gallen says his arm feels good, his body feels strong, other than the normal wear and tear of the season. He feels like his previous two outings were good ones even if his final pitching line didn’t show it.

He sounded frustrated, but he also sounded determined, even hopeful.

“At some point,” he said, “the dam is going to break, so you just keep plugging away.”

Corbin Carroll was out of the Diamondbacks lineup for the second consecutive day due to a bruised left hand, and manager Torey Lovullo was noncommittal on when the club’s star right fielder would start again.

Lovullo said he was giving Carroll a chance to have a “work day” on Friday, June 20, ahead of the club’s series opener here against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field. He wanted Carroll to go through his usual pregame activity to “see how it feels.”

“The last thing you want to do is put a bat in your hand and have something sting you,” Lovullo said. “As of right now he’ll be available for the game and then we’ll hopefully trend upward from there.”

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Lovullo was asked if he would be surprised if Carroll didn’t start June 21 or if that would be too aggressive of a return to the lineup.

“I want to try to think aggressively and say that he will be, but I want to make sure that I’m patient here,” Lovullo said. “We just did that with (Gabriel Moreno) and it didn’t get us anywhere. I don’t think this is a Gabi situation; I think everything has been diagnosed and (Carroll is) feeling much, much better.

"I want to say that we’ll aggressively act and put him back in there tomorrow, but I won’t unless he’s absolutely ready.”

Carroll was hit by a pitch from Blue Jays lefty Justin Bruihl on the back of the left hand during a game in Toronto on June 18.

The news on Carroll comes at the same time Lovullo revealed that Moreno would be out until the All-Star break with a finger fracture, and pitchers AJ Puk and Tommy Henry would miss the rest of this season with elbow surgery.

At Colorado, 6:10 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Merrill Kelly (6-3, 3.41) vs. Rockies LHP Carson Palmquist (0-4, 7.76).

At Colorado, 12:10 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Brandon Pfaadt (8-4, 5.38) vs. Rockies RHP Antonio Senzatela (2-10, 6.72).

: At White Sox, 4:40 p.m., Diamondbacks LHP Eduardo Rodriguez (2-4, 5.93) vs. White Sox RHP Shane Smith (3-4, 2.85).

(This story has been updated to add new information.)

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Diamondbacks bats go big at Coors, bail out slumping Zac Gallen

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