The Diamondbacks turned in another flat performance in a 7-1 loss to the San Diego Padres. Slade Cecconi was roughed up for six runs and Dylan Cease shut down the Arizona lineup. After winning on Opening Day, the team has lost 10 straight series openers this season.
“We got beat tonight,” said Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo. “We got out-managed, we got out-pitched, we got out-hit, we got out-coached. We got to find a way to get the job done and go out there and play our type of baseball.”
For Lovullo, there were little things in the game that bothered him. It was the second straight game the hitters struggled to compete against the opposing team’s top starting pitcher. One such example came in the bottom of the third inning when Corbin Carroll and Blaze Alexander hit into outs on the first two pitches in the inning. That preceded a four-run inning by the Padres.
At the start of the game, it looked like a pitchers’ duel between Cease and Cecconi, as both teams traded zeros in the first three innings. Cecconi was ramping it up in the first inning, showing a 96-98 MPH fastball and swing-and-miss secondary stuff that baffled the Padres lineup the first time through the order. After retiring the first nine hitters he faced, he struggled to get outs going through the second and third time through the Padres’ order. From the fourth inning onwards, San Diego was 5-for-9 with two walks and two home runs against the young right-hander. Cecconi finished his start with six runs allowed on five hits, two walks, and four strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings.
“Slade was more than efficient in the first three innings,” said Lovullo. “He started to make mistakes in that fourth, fifth inning, and he got clipped. It was a solid outing until that fourth inning, and the mistakes that he made. Probably more middle-middle types of balls, and they made some adjustments against him.”
The D-backs lineup didn’t put much pressure on the Padres’ pitchers, who only faced two batters above the minimum. They barely scratched a run home in the fifth when Joc Pederson doubled to lead off the inning and scored on Eugenio Suárez’s RBI single one batter later. That would be their last baserunner of the night, as Cease and the Padres bullpen retired the final 14 Diamondbacks to close out the night. Cease finished with just that one run allowed and struck out eight in 6 2/3 innings to pick up his fourth win of the season.
The Diamondbacks will look to regroup in the second game of this weekend series against the Padres. Arizona will send right-hander Brandon Pfaadt (1-1, 4.63 ERA) while San Diego counters with right-hander Michael King (2-3, 5.00 ERA). First pitch at Chase Field will be at 5:10 PM MST Saturday, with the first 20,000 fans in attendance will receive a special Gabriel Moreno Gold Glove bobblehead.
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