Diamondbacks Fend Off Twins in Tough Extra-Inning Win

The Arizona Diamondbacks are not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, yet. In fact, with Saturday's 5-2 win over the Minnesota Twins in extra innings, they find themselves only 2.5 games out of a Wild Card slot as of this writing.

Arizona held a 2-0 lead into the eighth inning. But in familiar fashion, that lead disappeared into a 2-2 tie. The D-backs headed into extra innings and managed to put up three runs, with Gabriel Moreno hitting an RBI single with two outs and Blaze Alexander delivering a two-run double.

Right-hander John Curtiss, in his second inning of work, shut down the Twins with a 1-2-3 10th inning, securing a much-needed win.

Arizona Diamondbacks' Ryne Nelson Delivers Gutsy Performance

Arizona was given a chance by right-hander Ryne Nelson. Nelson had to deal with some traffic, but gutted out an impressive performance in an extremely important start, giving Arizona everything he had.

Nelson pitched six scoreless innings for his fifth straight Quality Start. He allowed four hits and walked three batters, but worked his way out of trouble on multiple occasions to continue hanging zeroes on the board.

The trouble started early. In just the second inning, Nelson got himself into a bases-loaded, no-out jam. But the 27-year-old righty strung together two strikeouts and a weak grounder to first base to end the threat without damage.

As Nelson began to tire in the sixth, he surrendered two more walks — the first coming on a 13-pitch at-bat to open the inning. With runners at first and second and no outs, Nelson was able to dial up a ground ball double play, then punctuated his outing with a 97 MPH fastball to strike out Royce Lewis.

Left-hander Brandyn Garcia got two outs in the seventh, but gave up two hits. Ryan Thompson collected the final out.

Taylor Rashi entered in the eighth, and could only record one out while loading the bases. He then gave up the tying two-run hit.

Arizona Diamondbacks' Offense Executes When Needed

The Diamondbacks' offense was mostly sluggish. The only runs of the game prior to the 10th inning came off the bat of Alek Thomas, who crushed an impressive 440-foot home run in the top of the fourth inning — his first blast in over a month.

Arizona faced an opportunity to tack on and put up a lopsided number one inning later, but loaded bases and zero outs resulted in no runs after two force outs at home plate and a strikeout looking of Blaze Alexander.

Geraldo Perdomo went 2-for4. Gabriel Moreno and Alexander were both 2-for-5, contributing both of Arizona's RBI knocks in the 10th inning. Second baseman Ketel Marte, who was cleared to play not long prior to first pitch, went 1-for-5 with two strikeouts.

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