The Arizona Diamondbacks fell for the second-straight night to the Texas Rangers. This time, they got a great outing from their starter but were still unable to generate any offense. Lefty Wade Miley was spectacular but he was done in late by a bad call and poor defense from Ryan Roberts.
The Rangers finally broke through on Miley in the bottom of the eighth through no fault of his own. He walked Mike Napoli, but the replay showed the 3-2 slider was in the zone. Napoli advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt and then Miley stuck out the dangerous Nelson Cruz with three pitches. But Craig Gentry hit a rocket to third base that Roberts couldn't handle.
Instead of getting himself in front of the ball so he could at least knock it down and prevent the run, Roberts played it off the hop to the side of his body. The ball bounced off his glove and into left field allowing Napoli to score from second.
And with that unfortunate turn of events, Miley's fantastic game came to an end with 7.2 innings, 93 pitches, three hits, one "walk", and the one run allowed. Wade had a career-high eight strikeouts thanks to a devastating slider that completely fooled the Rangers hitters.
On the other side of the coin, the D-backs offense was held down for the second-straight game. They managed six hits but couldn't put together any kind of sustain rally to drive one or two home.
Rangers LHP Matt Harrison was finally lifted in the eighth inning when Willie Bloomquist doubled down the right field line. In came highly competent reliever, Mike Adams, who proceeded to get the next two outs to end the threat. Harrison's final line was 7.1 innings pitched with six hits and no runs allowed. He struck out three and walked two.
The D-backs and Rangers play the final game of the series on Thursday night with Arizona looking to avoid the sweep.
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