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Five losses in a row. Below .500. Top-ten Mississippi State coming to town? Everything is horrible, right?
Wrong
I've got your three positives (and biggest negatives) from the two-game sweep by Long Beach St., which was by scores of 3-2 and 11-4.
Three Up:
1. Scott Kingery
Kingery is on here a lot. 2-for-6, one run driven in, one run scored, and two walks is enough to get on the three up side this week. Wednesday, he was the DH, which was different, but didn't seem to effect him at the plate. And it gave Zach Gibbons a chance to play some center.
2. Zach Gibbons
I have a hard time keeping these two straight in the first place, but now they're the only two doing anything offensively, and they both played centerfield this week, so now I'm really confused. But Gibbons went 3-for-7 (all those hits in game two) with 4 RBI, two walks, and no strikeouts. And he got to play center. Gibbons and Kingery, gettin' it done.
3. Cody Ramer
Ramer just keeps chugging along this season. 3-for-8, two runs scored, and again, no strikeouts. And he's been really good defensively at third base. 0.976 fielding % good. Brandon Dixon was just 0.886 with his fielding % at third last year.
Three Down:
1. Catchers
Whatever is going on at the catcher position needs to stop. Riley Moore played game one, and Jordan Berger played game two. They combined to go 1-for-7 with 2 Ks (both Riley), no RBI. Berger had a passed ball, and an error which led to a Long Beach run, while Moore allowed four stolen bases Tuesday. Just an overall bad couple of days behind the plate for Arizona.
2. 3 thru 7 hitters Wednesday
This is a little specific, but it's necessary to bring up. For the Wednesday game, the 3-7 hitters (Newman, Dalbec, Gilbert, Meimerstorf, and Berger) combined to go 0-for-19. What?
Those hitters also had four Ks and one walk. Sweet work by the middle of the lineup right there. That was good enough to account for 8 runners left on base. Arizona lost by 7.
3. Tyger Talley
Remember when Talley was supposed to be the closer this year? Me neither. Talley went 1 2/3 innings on Wednesday, walked four batters, threw a wild pitch that scored a run, surrender two earned runs (three total), and all on 42 pitches. Talley has been a hot mess this season. In five appearances, he's only made it through 4 2/3 innings, walked eight batters, and has an ERA of 9.64.