2022 Diamondbacks Game of the Year - 8/29: 7-run deficit? No problem!

Dec 3, 2022 - 7:00 PM
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It was initially quite a close contest, but in the end, the biggest comeback in team history pulled away down the stretch, to stand at 49% of votes as I write. Oh, and it was also the major-league debut of Corbin Carroll. Welcome to the bigs, young man. The opening sentence of my recap at the time proved thoroughly prophetic: “This is certainly going to be a contender for Game of the Year.” But as it quickly notes, you would have got very long odds against that in the top of the fourth, where Philadelphia had taken a 7-0 lead, and were threatening to score more, with the bases loaded. Per Fangraphs, our odds of victory were 2.8%, but it felt like the decimal point there needed to go at least one place to the left.

You would certainly have got even longer odds if you’d placed a bet that, a mere five Arizona outs later, our Win Probability would be a stunning 96.3%. Reading the Gameday Thread is quite the roller-coaster, participants being about one pitchfork short of forming a mob with torches, and marching on Chase Field. But let’s not sugar-coat how terrible Bumgarner was that night. The Phillies were teeing off on him. At one point they had put nine balls in play at 101 mph or harder; the D-backs had managed precisely none. NikT and Snacks&Dbacks both mistook the thread for an airport, and announced their departure, and really, who could blame them? If I hadn’t been recapping, I’d not have stuck around either.

Oh, Justin... If only you had forgotten the sarcasm font, this would potentially have been the most remarkable prediction in SnakePit history. For the comeback did, indeed, begin. The D-backs batted around in the bottom of the fourth, sending ten to the plate - poor Josh Rojas made both the first + third outs - and scoring six runs, to pull within one. Remarkably, they then surpassed that in the fifth, sending an even dozen to the plate there, and putting up another six-spot to take a 12-7 lead. The Phillies needed 51 pitches to get through the frame, which included only three hits, but five walks and a hit by pitch - three of those freebies were with the bases already loaded. Here’s the condensed version of the game

Carroll played his part, scoring in the fourth and getting his first MLB hit in the fifth, driving in a pair (including the go-ahead tally) with a double. Meanwhile, Luis Frias, Caleb Smith and Reyes Moronta - only Frias now remains on the team at the time of writing - combined for 5.1 scoreless... actually, make that hitless inning of relief. It felt as if the Phillies simply rolled over after being hit by the truck of the fourth and fifth inning, even if it was largely their own fault. I had documented all the team’s six-run comebacks earlier in the year, including one from 6-0 down against the Padres. But this game set a new franchise record, Arizona never having come back from seven runs down to win.

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