There’s always the worry that a team will be mediocre the day after a thrilling win like last night’s comeback win. That’s why it’s important for starting pitchers to perform well – especially in a team’s bullpen – and Zach Gallen is exactly what the team needs. Unfortunately, his opponent is two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, who continues to prove why he is one of the best starters in the game right now. It’s rare for an Opening Day starter to play outside of a national holiday, but that was the case across the league today. We saw a tense, well-played, defensive and pitching masterclass game that the D-Backs narrowly defeated.
But thankfully, Skubal isn’t perfect. One of the few mistakes he made all afternoon was when Corbin Carroll fired a fastball over the top of the zone that just sailed over the center field fence to give the D-Backs a 1-0 lead in the first inning, opening and closing the scoring. The D-backs generated plenty of traffic throughout the game — there were only two innings where they didn’t have at least one runner on base — but they failed to capitalize on any of it. Instead, Skubal did what any starting pitcher wants to do: He drew weak contact and made his defense work behind him by calling three separate doubles that snuffed out the game before it even started.
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Galen, for his part, was ready for a pitching duel, tying up Skubal’s scoreless innings. He leaned harder on the knuckle curve on the slider and it worked well, collecting some whiffs on the pitch. But even better, Gallen also relied on his defense — far from the strength of the team the past two years — as he struck out just two in six innings. In fact, each team has just eight total strikeouts, ranking in the bottom third of total strikeouts so far this season. Instead, both sides have defensive gems that stop attacks. Crucially, Gallen ended his outing with incredible athleticism and quick thinking. After Kevin McGonigle’s one-out triple, Gleyber Torres hit a tying single to right field and Jose Fernandez caught the ball in the air and immediately threw to third base, allowing McGonigle to double-team and end the inning. It was a one-on-one game for a player in just his second career major league game, but Fernandez has shown a cool head in big moments and proved that again today.
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In classic baseball fashion, after getting swept early in the season by the pesky Dodgers, the D-Backs returned home and swept the AL Central favorites with a dynamic offense, stellar defense and enough pitching. The outcome of each game could easily hang in the balance for me, and it’s certainly easy to get caught up in that wavering feeling throughout the season, but it’s always worth remembering to take a deep breath and remind yourself that this is a long season and your confidence can change dramatically every day.
