Zac Gallen's dominating 8 innings not enough in Diamondbacks' loss to Dodgers
LOS ANGELES — Zac Gallen went to a cutter to tie up Gavin Lux, a high fastball to blow away Trayce Thompson and a curveball to get a flailing Cody Bellinger. That was how the third inning transpired, but, really, there was little difference between it and just about every other moment Gallen spent on the Dodger Stadium mound on Thursday night.
Gallen, who in recent weeks authored a 44 1/3-inning scoreless streak, turned in perhaps the best performance of his career, dominating the best lineup in baseball with relative ease.
On a night the Diamondbacks lost, 3-2, to the Dodgers, Gallen set career highs with eight innings and 13 strikeouts. He did not walk a batter. He allowed two hits. The Dodgers hit just two balls with any sort of authority. Of the 98 pitches Gallen threw, 77 went for strikes.
“He just was in complete control,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. He later added, “We just didn’t have an answer for him.”
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Gallen came away from the performance with what seemed like a bittersweet feeling. He did not deny how well he pitched. He acknowledged the sharpness of his breaking ball and the precision he had with his command. He did not debate that it might have been the best outing of his career, particularly given the quality of the opponent.
“It’s a fair assessment,” he said.
But he did so while speaking in the quiet, choppy style he adopts after losses.
“Yeah, I mean, anytime we lose, I’m not really too thrilled about it,” he said. “It’s a double-edged sword in a sense. I did my job. I can be happy with that. But we didn’t win, so I’m not too pleased about it.”
For the second time this week, the Diamondbacks blew a late lead and lost to the Dodgers in a game they felt they should have won. In the top of the ninth, Diamondbacks slugger Christian Walker connected for a tiebreaking, solo homer. But relievers Reyes Moronta and Joe Mantiply could not preserve the slim, 2-1 advantage. The Dodgers’ Mookie Betts won it with a pinch-hit, walkoff single in the bottom of the ninth.
It marked the end of a rollercoaster five-game series for the Diamondbacks. They could rightly argue they could have won four of the games. For a young club looking to reestablish itself as a competitor, it was an encouraging week in which little separated them from the best team in baseball, particularly over the final three games.
“I think these last couple games have been great,” Walker said. “That’s the product we want to put out there.”
But for a team that still has not won a series here in nearly 4 1/2 years, it was just another series loss, another stretch of futility in the franchise’s recent history.
“Losing stinks,” Walker said. “We’re here to win. That’s literally why we’re all here. I just wish I could have done more to help the team today.”
Walker felt especially bad about the way things played out because of the how well Gallen pitched. The only run the Dodgers scored against him came via back-to-back hits in the fourth.
The first hit was on a loopy fly ball by Will Smith, a bloop that left fielder Stone Garrett could not catch on a lunging dive. The ball rolled to the wall in left; Smith raced into third with a triple.
Max Muncy followed with an RBI double, turning on a 1-2 cutter from Gallen just inside the right-field line. The pitch came after a conversation on the mound between Gallen and catcher Carson Kelly. The two did that regularly in big moments during Gallen’s scoreless streak, and Gallen felt they landed on the right pitch selection. He said he did not execute the pitch the way he wanted.
“I kind of missed,” he said. “I was hoping it was going to be a little more down, a little bit more kind of belt level, maybe thigh-high.”
The mood in the clubhouse was different after Thursday’s loss than it was when the Diamondbacks melted down on Tuesday afternoon. They beat themselves on Tuesday. They were beaten on Thursday.
“I’m proud of the way we keep progressing, but we still have a long way to go,” Lovullo said. “You come into this venue and we feel like we let a couple games get away. It’s obvious what happened and where it happened to us. We’ve got to tighten that up. I’m encouraged. I really am encouraged. But I don’t want any of these players to be complacent. We’ve got to keep working.”
Reach Piecoro at (602) 444-8680 or nick.piecoro@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickpiecoro.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Zac Gallen's dominating 8 innings not enough in Diamondbacks' loss to Dodgers
