Ryne Nelson had been struggling his last couple of outings, giving up a lot of runs and walks, and not getting many strikeouts. He came into today's game with a 5.40 ERA in 12 outings. Today was a different story however as he threw 5.2 scoreless innings as the D-backs downed the Tigers 5-0.
Nelson gave up two-out hits in each of the first and second innings, but got the third out each time cleanly. After a leadoff single in the third inning, he retired 11 straight batters to get to two outs in the sixth. At that point he tired, and with his command slipping and fastball velocity dipping he gave up a two-out double and walked the next two. Austin Adams came in to get out of the jam with a fly out to center field, preserving Nelson's pristine pitching line.
There was a lot to like in today's outing. Prior to the sixth he didn't walk a batter, struck out four, and gave up just the four hits. He lowered his ERA to 4.95 in the process, and evened his record to 3-3. Torey Lovullo expressed satisfaction with the mechanical adjustments Nelson made after working with pitching coach Brent Strom. "I think the slider and cutter were very close to the zone. The misses were very close. He had a good mixture of pitches, he wasn't just relying on the fastball.....he was pitching today and he was around the zone with all of his pitches"
The D-backs got on the board with two runs in the top of the second inning against Tigers starter Matthew Boyd. Nick Ahmed followed a Pavin Smith single up the middle by tomahawking an elevated fastball over the left field wall for his second homer of the year. Then in the fifth inning Gabriel Moreno doubled to lead off and Ketel Marte walked with one out. Corbin Carroll was caught looking bringing up Lourdes Gurriel Jr. with two on and two out. He had missed four games with a groin injury, but resumed his great season by reaching down for a curveball at the bottom of the zone from Boyd, lifting it out for three run homer.
Gurriel Jr. is now batting .309/.357/.559, .916 OPS with 10 homers and 38 RBI in 53 games. Both he and Moreno, who had a two-hit day while catching shutout have had tremendous success since coming over from Toronto in the trade for Daulton Varsho.
Austin Adams, Kyle Nelson, and Jose Ruiz combined for 3.1 scoreless innings to close out the Tigers. But not before Ruiz gave up a two-out double to Miguel Cabrera in the 9th inning. It was the future first ballot Hall of Famer's second double of the game on his bobble head day, and likely the last time he will ever face the Diamondbacks.
Ahmed took a turn wearing the Victory Vest for the first time this year during his post game interview with Jody Jackson. He praised his young teammate for the outing, "Nellie threw the ball great for us today" he said. "He gave us a scoreless outing which is huge. He came out attacking, throwing strikes." Ahmed also gave a shout out to assistant hitting coach Rick Short for the work he did with him yesterday, helping him "unlock some things"
The Diamondbacks are 39-25, 14 games over .500 for the first time since August 18, 2018 when they were 74-60 to that point. They move to 3.0 games up on the Dodgers in the NL West pending the outcome of the Phillies-Dodgers game later this afternoon. Tomorrow they will go for the sweep, with their ace Zac Gallen taking the mound while going up against young left-hander Joey Wentz. First pitch at Comerica Park will be 11:35 AM ET/8:35 AM MST.
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