Gallen Loses Game and Maybe Cy Young

Zac Gallen came into tonight's game against the Mets with a chance to make a Cy Young award statement and put his team in a stronger position in the NL Wild Card chase. None of that came to fruition however, as the right hander was charged with all seven runs in a 7-1 loss to the Mets. The D-backs are now 4-18 in their last 22 games against the Mets.

The game started out with hard contact when Brandon Nimmo hit a 112 MPH line drive to center field that Jake McCarthy made a diving catch on. A double off the right field wall by Francisco Lindor and a base hit by Pete Alonso plated the Mets first run however. It took yet another diving catch by Jake McCarthy, this time on a Jeff McNeil liner to get Gallen out of the inning.

Welcome back, Jake McCarthy! 🙌 pic.twitter.com/4QDvq4Iexa
— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) September 13, 2023

Gallen settled down, retiring 10 straight including the last two outs of the first, but with two outs in the 4th gave up a base hit to McNeil and a double to Rafael Ortega for the Mets second run. It all got away from Gallen after that as he faced seven batters in the fifth inning, giving up two more runs. Then he faced just three batters in the sixth, giving up another three runs, including a two run homer from Mark Vientos. Gallen's final line was 5 IP, 8 hits, 7 runs, 6 earned, 2BB, 4 K, and 1 HR.

With the loss Gallen's record goes to 15-8 and his ERA rose to 3.50. He had been coming off a complete game shutout in his previous outing, but had given up 11 runs in 10.2 innings in the two outings prior to that. On August 22nd Gallen's ERA stood at 3.11. The Braves Spencer Strider threw seven innings of one run ball including nine more strikeouts, bringing his league leading total to 259. His record is now 17-5 on the year with a 3.73 ERA. Blake Snell throws later tonight for the Padres and Justin Steele goes for the Cubs on Friday against the D-backs. While it may be too late to salvage his Cy Young chances, Gallen can still pitch well enough to help his team win enough games to get into the post season.

The offense meanwhile continued the concerning trend of struggling to put together hits and good at bats. Mets starter Joey Lucchesi, making just his 7th start of the year threw seven shut out innings, giving up just an unearned run in the 8th before coming out of the game. The D-backs were out hit 11-6. They've scored 51 runs in 13 games in September, for 3.9 per game. The combination of a faltering Gallen and a sputtering offense is not a recipe for the post season. Both will need to get turned around if the D-backs are to make the playoffs.

With the loss the D-backs fall into a tie with the Reds for 3rd Wild Card spot, both teams with a 76-71 record. Due to the head to head tiebreaker however the Reds are effectively ahead of the D-backs as they won the season series 4-3.

Merrill Kelly will pitch tomorrow, facing Mets starter Kodai Senga, game time is 1:10 P.M. MST, 4:10 P.M. EST. A win would give the D-backs a split of this four game series.