The Arizona Diamondbacks won 2 out of 3 in Oakland, and a lot unraveled for Oakland to win game 2.  As the old adage goes, if you know a umps name it’s not a good sign.  Fans can more than point fingers at Brock Blue for a string of bad calls that lead to Luvello being thrown out and later Merrill Kelly.  The biggest problem with game 2 was the pitching and mental mistakes though.  

Tommy Henry pitched 4.2 innings, allowed 4 runs, 3 walks, and 6 hits against the worst baseball team in baseball.  This was the perfect opportunity to put together a great outing and to stay in the lineup and it was blown.  The loss may not have been completely on Henry but he didn’t show much to keep starting.  

The most disappointing part of this game was by far the errors.  Evan Longoria earned 4 strikeouts and the game-losing error allowing the bases to get loaded and the next batter to hit a grand slam.  In extra innings, Rojas had a chance to earn a double play to send the game to the 13th inning as he coughed up the ball.  This team prides itself on limiting mistakes and maybe they thought they could sleep their way to a victory they can’t have that mentality.

Today during game 3 of the series against Oakland, Ryne Nelson took the mound to prove his worth in the lineup.  Nelson had more success than Henry against the exact same team, Ryne pitched 5.1 innings, allowed 1 hit, 0 earned runs, and 4 walks.  His final inning was where Nelson struggled, walking 3 batters when Frias closed out the inning for Nelson.  Nelson looks like the clear winner including his ability to change his mechanics mid-season like he’s currently doing to get better.

Some key improvement to look for in the future is adding more arms to the bullpen.  Currently, Arizona is using more relief pitchers than any other team and it’s clearly weighing on not only the bullpen but the team.  So some key player to be traded might be Carson Kelly, currently, Herrerra has proven that the catcher position is his both offensively and defensively.  Another name that could be packaged in could be Longoria, he has potential and recorded 5 home runs this season already, yes he didn’t play today but you can convince a team to give him a chance.

Christian Walker is on fire this year already recording 11 home runs and 31 RBI’.  We are about a quarter of the way through the season so he’s on pace for almost 44 home runs and 124 RBI.  A huge reason the Diamondbacks are currently entrenched in the first wild card spot at 25-19.  The next series is in Pittsburgh against the Pirates where it looks like they remembered who they were.  The Pirates started off red hot but currently, they are 3-7 over the last 10 games and Arizona is looking to take advantage of that as they are trying to catch back up to the Dodgers.