D-backs get Paul Goldschmidt, bullpen rest at cost of ugly loss to Nats
PHOENIX -- Paul Goldschmidt's night came to an end by the end of the third inning Monday.
If that didn't tell you enough about the Diamondbacks' 11-1 loss to the Washington Nationals, then there's this: By the time D-backs starter Josh Collmenter had faced five batters, Washington was up 4-0.
The Nats were all over him. Denard Span took the second pitch of the game over the right field wall and Ryan Zimmerman smacked a three-run homer to left. The only out in that span, Bryce Harper's fly to right, also nearly cleared the fence.
"Even the couple good pitches I made turned into a couple of slow rollers, couple hits," Collmenter said. "Couldn't control the damage."
Arizona didn't record a hit by the time Washington had 10 runs and 10 hits, and Collmenter lasted 1 1/3 innings, which included 47 pitches, eight hits and nine runs.
It came at the price of a loss, but the game became a prime, albeit disappointing, opportunity for manager Chip Hale to rest his star first baseman, who in the first 30 games had off just four innings. Pulling Goldschmidt also hinted at more.
"It's a hard thing to do for the manager because you're basically throwing in the towel, people think that, that's what it looks like, but with our (pitching) situation ... we knew we weren't going to use any other relievers, except (Enrique) Burgos for an inning," Hale said.
"We were looking into using position players if we had to," he added.
Replacing Collmenter, Triple-A call-up Vidal Nuno's solid 6 2/3 innings were followed by Burgos' quick close.
"(Cliff) Pennington actually has a pretty good arm," Hale said.
A 10-0 lead for the Nats by the bottom of the second provided a lengthy opportunity for Nuno to show his stuff immediately after being recalled from Reno. The lefty set a career-high with eight strikeouts while allowing seven hits and two earned runs.
"He saved us. Now he put our bullpen back in to play for this series. It was over early. It just counts for one loss," Hale said. "By him pitching tonight and doing what we did, it enables us to have the rest of the bullpen good."
With or without Goldschmidt, the offense did little against former D-backs pitcher Max Scherzer, who went seven frames while allowing five hits and one earned run. Jordan Pacheco, Goldschmidt's replacement, did his best Goldy impression in rocketing a Scherzer pitch to the D-backs' left field bullpen in the sixth for Arizona's only run.
"I thought we battled. (Chris) Owings looked good at the plate, Pacheco came in and had a real good night," Hale said. "That's a great pitcher. Actually what I was saying to the bench, he looked like he was pitching in a tie game or a one-run game. That looked like his mindset out there, he was going after our guys, he was using his breaking ball well, and obviously he's got a knock-out change-up."
9 -- The number of earned runs allowed by Collmenter, the most in his career as a starter.
* Nuno's split-change-up worked against Washington. Though he gave up seven hits, 70 of his 105 pitches were for strikes and he never found himself losing control in his first major league action since Sept. 24 of last year. "I've been working on it since I got down to Reno," he said. "Just trusting it, just having that feel for it and just trusting Tuffy about when he's calling it, when he's putting it down, just throw it conviction."
* Searching for positives, the D-backs didn't allow reigning NL Player of the Week Bryce Harper do much damage. He left two on and had an RBI single in four plate appearances. That's relatively little production considering in the past seven days he recorded six home runs, 13 RBI and 10 hits in 22 at-bats.
* Collmenter struggled with his control, but he said he'd need to look at the film to determine why his pitches were both high and with such little movement. "Tonight it was up in the zone and flat. It's pretty easy to hit, as evidenced by tonight. I was just unable to get the ball down," he said.
The last out of the game came with controversy. Even though the D-backs might've wanted to forget the game, Hale attempted to challenge a called batter's interference out when Owings' bat connected with a ball that hit him while he was clearly in the batter's box. The play wasn't reviewable, but it turned into an odd ending with Hale talking to umpire Joe West before the game was called. "The explanation was he was out of the box," Hale said. "We looked at the replay, he was not -- not even close. Both feet were in the box when he got hit by the ball. The other thing was the ball was hit in foul territory, not fair territory."
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