Diamondbacks 5, New York 3: That Was Just Silly!

The game started late, due to a truly lovely celebration on the field of the 25th anniversary of the Diamondbacks' World Series victory over the New York Yankees, who happened to be our opponents tonight. A ton of players from the 2001 club attended and appeared on the field. Bob Brenly came down from the broadcast booth to throw out the first pitch, which he bounced to 2001 Diamondbacks catcher Damian Miller, who in a cool side note was reunited with one of his old catcher's mitts from back in the day, that some equipment guy had found in a box somewhere. It was pretty cool, all of it. There was some hope, at least in the early remarks in the Gameday Thread, that the invocation and evocation of the 2001 team would inspire their 2026 counterparts to rise to the occasion tonight.

It didn't look great in terms of that in the early going. Schlittler was tough, no-hitting us through four frames with his only blemish being a four-pitch walk to Corbin Carroll in the bottom of the second that led to nothing. Brandon Pfaadt, meanwhile, matched him through his first two innings of work before getting a little wobbly in the third with a one-out walk and a subsequent single that seemed like they might be harbingers of another One Big Inning, though thankfully he managed to settle down and put up a zero.

Brandon retired the side in order in the fourth, but opened the fifth with back-to-back singles, a really good bunt that catcher Gabriel Moreno made a fantastic play on to cut down the lead runner at third, and then a third single to load the bases. Somewhat surprisingly, manager Torey Lovullo decided that he'd seen enough, and pulled Pfaadt at that point, and it was likely very good that he did. Justin Martinez relieved him, and quickly recorded the final two outs on fly balls to left, the first of which allowed the runner on third to tag and score. But it could have been a whole lot worse. 1-0 New York