Zac Gallen Bounces Back as Arizona Takes Series vs Brewers

The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Milwaukee Brewers 5-2 and won the series, 2-1 against them. They achieved their revenge from last September and are now 9-7. They also won their homestand, going 4-2.

In front of 30,057 fans, the D-backs put up a complete team effort with plenty of great pitching, defense, and timely hitting. It also continued the chaos that fans love with plenty of great baserunning and important and patient at-bats.

D-backs manager Torey Lovullo shared his thoughts on the game, "We won a big series against a very good baseball team. Two occasions, we lost the first game of the Orioles, the first game to this Milwaukee Brewers team and came back to win the series. One thing I can say is this team is very determined, and we're moving in the right direction because the players are making that happen.

"They're going out there and doing their job. We had 14 base runners today, half of which got on via the walk, and we just seem to chip away. It's the group that is understanding what the at-bat is asking for, going out and executing.

"Josh Naylor, what more could you ask for? They walk the hitter ahead of him, and he comes up and gets a big base hit. It just was one thing after another, and I'm just proud of this team. They're very persistent, very hungry and even though we aren't playing our best baseball, we're getting very close. We're pushing in the right direction each and every day."

Zac Gallen pitched well despite a rough first inning. In the first, he gave up a leadoff single before getting two flyouts. After that, he gave up a laser home run by William Contreras to put the Brewers up 2-0. Sal Frelick singled but after that, it was relatively smooth sailing for Gallen.

He set down 15 of the next 22 batters, including five strikeouts, and induced plenty of weak contact. He set up hitters well with nicely located fastballs on the edges of the zone which allowed him to utilize his knuckle-curve and changeup to their best effect.

As mentioned in the pre-game article, Gallen had to start landing more of his pitches in the strike zone rather than missing and leading to bloated counts and extended innings. He did that as 62.92% of his pitches were strikes, 59 of 86.

Gallen induced nine whiffs, including four of them on his changeup alone. Meanwhile, he had 19 called strikes, 13 of which were on his four-seam fastball. Overall, it was a vast improvement for Gallen compared to Tuesday's start against the Baltimore Orioles.

Lovullo said, "Zac kept us in this game and, you know, it was a tough decision to take him out of the game because he was moving in a really good direction."

He took him out of the game to set up the matchups and because he trusted the bullpen.

Jalen Beeks came on in relief in the seventh inning in what was his biggest test of high leverage pitching this season. This was after it was reported that pitching coach Brian Kaplan had been pushing for Beeks to get a shot at more high leverage work.

It went swimmingly for the lefty as he induced soft contact and pitched a scoreless inning. He gave up an infield base hit that was hit 59.1 mph and was an extremely tough play to make between the first and second baseman. Beeks got a strikeout and passed the test to keep the game tied at two.

Justin Martinez pitched the eighth inning and should've struck out the side, had the umpire not squeezed a strike three in the first at-bat. However, Martinez settled for an easy ground out and two strikeouts, as his ERA stays a pristine 0.00.

The offense once again came alive late in the game as they scored a run in each of the fifth, sixth, and seventh innings to go up 3-2 against Freddy Peralta and the bullpen.

The team struggled to get runs across the board in the first four innings as they got four base-runners, However, that turned around in the fifth inning as they got Tim Tawa home on a wild pitch after he doubled.

In the sixth inning, Josh Naylor singled and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Jake McCarthy both walked to set up a Tawa sacrifice fly to score the tying run.

In the seventh, Carroll singled against a left-hander in Bryan Hudson. He got to second base on a crucial and obvious balk before getting to third thanks to Geraldo Perdomo's sacrifice bunt. Pinch-hitter Randal Grichuk then got intentionally walked.

That set up Naylor with a left-on-left matchup that could be in the Brewers' favor. However, he singled up the middle to put Arizona up 3-2, and later stole a base, his fourth already this year.

Lovullo noticed how Naylor did that outing, saying "I feel very good about his left-on-left approach. You could see as Grichuk was getting walked, I think he took that personally. I don't know if you noticed, but he was basically standing in the box, and there were two of our hitters in the batter's circle up at home plate at the same time because he wanted to get the job done.

"A very smart hitter and passionate about getting the job done and sacrificing for his team. The left-on-left thing doesn't totally concern me with Naylor. He handles both sides, and he's got a great approach."

Geraldo Perdomo once again was on base all afternoon with three walks. That makes for 10 walks this week's homestand alone. He's excelled at controlling the strike zone.

The team put together a complete eighth inning to get the game to 5-2. Tawa, who had an excellent day on defense and at the plate, put the ball in play by hitting it to third. It was a bad throw and sailed down the line to get Tawa to second base.

After Herrera got Tawa to third, the Brewers intentionally walked Carroll. Carroll promptly stole second, his first of the year, before Perdomo walked. That brought up the clutch hitter in Alek Thomas.

Thomas battled over a seven-pitch at-bat before hitting the ball through the right side of the infield to score two. It was a terrific display of the chaos that D-backs fans are used to watching.

Monday is an off day for Arizona as they travel to Miami to take on the Marlins who have been doing quite well this year compared to expectations. Game time is at 3:40 p.m. local time on Tuesday with Merrill Kelly expected to pitch. Arizona is now 9-7.