Arizona strike early and never stop
Jordan Lawlar picked the right night to have the best game of his career. The Arizona infielder homered, collected three hits and drove in three runs overnight in Phoenix as the Diamondbacks blanked the Cincinnati Reds 9-0. Both the hit total and the RBI total were career highs.
Arizona struck early and never let the game breathe. Geraldo Perdomo added three hits, scored twice and drove in a run. Gabriel Moreno went 2-for-4 with an RBI and pushed his hitting streak to 14 games, the longest of his career.
Eduardo Rodriguez handled the pitching. The left-hander worked 5 2/3 innings, allowed four hits, all of them singles, and improved to 13-4. Cincinnati never put a runner across.
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Lodolo lasted 3 1/3
Nick Lodolo took the loss and fell to 3-2 after conceding 10 hits and six runs in 3 1/3 innings. The Reds bullpen absorbed the rest. Cincinnati has now lost six of its last eight games.
The night got worse before it got better for the visitors. Michael Toglia dislocated his right shoulder making a diving catch in the first inning and left the field. TJ Friedl replaced him and promptly ended an 0-for-30 drought with a fifth-inning single, which counted as the closest thing Cincinnati had to good news.
What it means
Arizona have found a rhythm at the plate at the point in the calendar where run differential starts to matter. Nine runs on a night when Rodriguez conceded nothing but singles is the sort of complete performance the D-backs have chased for weeks.
For Lawlar, the significance runs past one box score. A three-hit, three-RBI game with a home run attached is the kind of evening that keeps a young infielder’s name on the lineup card through September.
Cincinnati leave Phoenix with a shoulder injury to assess and a rotation question to answer.
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