Diamondbacks go 3-4 on 7 game road trip

After falling to the San Diego Padres on Monday to complete a seven-game Southern California road trip with a 3-4 record, the Arizona Diamondbacks lamented their missed opportunities.

“It’s unfortunate because we played better than sub-.500 (on the) trip,” Arizona manager A.J. Hinch said following the Diamondbacks’ 6-3 loss to the Padres on Monday night. “There were a few innings each game that ended up really spoiling some pretty good baseball. Obviously at some level it’s the at-bats that they put against us, and at some levels we take responsibility. And multiple runs in innings is always a crushing blow to a team.”

After losing two of three at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles early last week, the D-backs ended with a split of their four-game series with the Padres at Petco Park in San Diego.

Monday’s game featured a four-RBI performance from San Diego third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff, who delivered a two-out, two-run single to the opposite field in right to put the Padres ahead to stay in the fifth inning and drove in two more runs with a double to left-center in the seventh.

“He hit the ball where it was pitched in the fifth,” Hinch said about Kouzmanoff, “and then in the seventh battled with two strikes and hit the ball pretty much in the outfield where nobody could track it down. It was pretty good placement, pretty good hitting, and they came at big spots. Those were the telling signs of this game, I think, as to how they scratched runs across.”

Arizona left fielder Eric Byrnes ran down Kouzmanoff’s long drive to the gap in the seventh, but he whiffed on his attempt to make the catch.

“He had to run a long way in a big gap,” Hinch said about Byrnes. “I thought he had a good angle on it. I thought he was tracking it, and then it just eluded him. It’s one of those plays, it’s a plus defensive play if you make it and it’s a tough one to swallow if you don’t. He had a good line on it and got a good jump on it and just couldn’t come up with the ball.”

Diamondbacks starting pitcher Jon Garland blamed himself for Kouzmanoff’s double.

“I know that ball should’ve been down better,” Garland said about the pitch. “I definitely left the ball up. Obviously he put pretty good wood on it.”

Garland (4-6, 5.61 ERA) was charged with six runs on seven hits in six and two-thirds innings. He walked five and struck out one.

“I tried to get as deep as I can after yesterday’s melee,” Garland said, referring to the Sunday’s 18-inning, bullpen-sapping marathon in which the Diamondbacks blew a 6-1 lead in the bottom of the ninth and rebounded to win 9-6 on a three-run homer by Mark Reynolds in the top of the 18th.

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Jake Peavy (6-6, 3.97 ERA) earned the victory Monday for the Padres. The San Diego ace allowed three runs (two earned) on seven hits in seven innings. He struck out eight and walked two.

With Monday’s loss, Arizona (25-33) plummeted into the basement in the National League West, 13.5 games behind the first-place Dodgers. The Diamondbacks concluded a seven-game road trip that included a 1-0 setback to Los Angeles, a 6-4 defeat against the Padres in which San Diego scored six runs in the sixth inning, and a colossal bullpen meltdown at Dodger Stadium in which the D-backs torched a 5-1 lead in the bottom of the eighth and lost 6-5.

“Obviously we’re in these games,” Hinch said. “We’re playing better. We’re playing with a little more bounce in our step. And the next step is we need to win the games that we’re ahead. And we’re going to work to do that.”

By: Tom Kessler
MLBcenter.com Arizona Diamondbacks correspondent

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