In the life of a baseball player, each and every day brings new challenges on the diamond. The challenge right now for every player on the Diamondbacks roster is to figure out how to actually win a game, because it’s been a while since they’ve done that.
Arizona was riding a five-game losing streak coming into Thursday’s series opener against the Dodgers.
Make that six straight losses, following their 4-1 defeat at home to Los Angeles.
Red hot pitcher Wade Miley was tagged for four hits and two runs in the opening half inning. Miley settled in for the most part after that, but he couldn’t get any run support at all, which led to him losing his fifth game of the season.
Miley gave up eight hits and four earned runs in his 6 2/3 innings of work.
Definitely not the kind of night you want to have heading into your first All-Star appearance next week.
Miley knew he didn’t have his best stuff on the mound on Thursday night.
“Leaving balls up, and not executing,” Miley said. “Leaving balls up in the zone, they made me pay.”
Elian Herrera and Scott Van Slyke both hit home runs off Miley. For Herrera, it was his first major league home run.
On the Diamondbacks side, their bats were near comatose. They managed just five hits against pitcher Nathan Eovaldi, who was 0-5 , with a 4.61 ERA coming into the game.
The Diamondbacks had a golden opportunity to open the flood gates early but couldn’t capitalize.
They had the bases loaded in the second inning, but could only push the one run across. They also hit into three double plays, which of course, kills rallies.
“Give the Dodgers credit,” manager Kirk Gibson said. “They’re making their pitches where they want to get them and defending where the way they want to get it.”
Along with it being their sixth straight defeat, it’s also their fourth straight on this homestand.
Gibson says despite the loss, the team lives to fight another day.
“We always push on,” Gibson said. “We’ll come back tomorrow. It stings now. It’s a broken record. We’ll be pushing ahead and we’re going to go out and play a game.”
