McCann Goes Deep Twice, Arizona Buries LA 9-2
James McCann hit two home runs and drove in four, single-handedly turning a tight game into a rout. Arizona walked out of Los Angeles with a 9-2 final, handing Yoshinobu Yamamoto one of the uglier lines of his season.
The game was quiet through three innings, but Arizona cracked it open in the fourth when Moreno scored on a Tawa groundout — a play the Diamondbacks challenged and survived — to go up 1-0. That lead held until the sixth inning became a demolition. Kepler's sacrifice fly made it 2-0, then Tawa doubled to left to score Moreno again. Then McCann stepped in. His 375-foot shot to left cleared the bases, scoring Tawa and Arenado, and just like that it was 6-0. That swing is where the game died: LAD's win probability cratered from 20% to 4% on a single pitch. Los Angeles scratched back with two runs in the bottom of the sixth — Pages singled home Edman, and Betts singled home Pages — but the deficit was already too steep, and the rally felt more like noise than a threat.
Arizona kept piling on. Kepler added a seventh-inning sacrifice fly to right, scoring Perdomo and pushing the lead to 7-2. Then the eighth inning belonged to McCann and Arenado. Arenado went deep to left at 356 feet to make it 8-2, and McCann followed with a 399-foot shot to left center for his second homer of the night, capping the scoring at 9-2. McCann finished 2-for-4 with 2 HR, 4 RBI, and 2 runs scored. Tawa was relentless at 3-for-5 with 2 RBI. Moreno scored twice without recording an extra-base hit, which looks like exactly the kind of table-setting that makes a lineup dangerous top to bottom.
On the mound, Yamamoto's night was rough: 6.0 innings, 5 hits, 6 earned runs, 4 walks, and 6 strikeouts. The walk total appears to be the story — four free passes against a lineup that didn't need the help. Brandon Pfaadt went 5.1 innings for Arizona, allowing 6 hits and 2 earned runs with no walks, which is a serviceable outing when your offense drops nine on the other side. Juan Morillo was sharp in relief, throwing a clean inning with two strikeouts and nothing allowed. Landon Knack absorbed the final three innings for Los Angeles, giving up 4 hits and 3 earned runs. The story of this game was Arizona's sixth inning and McCann's bat — a performance that looks like it will be hard for either side to forget quickly.