TL;DR: The hitting was spot-on, Jordan Montgomery was outstanding, and the conclusion made me nervous.

One night after winning a “blowout” (by 2024 D-Backs’ standards) over the Reds, the D-Backs earned a series win through a tough, hardfought game against the freefalling Reds. Jeff recapped the offensive explosion last night here and boy was it refreshing to see some actual life out of Corbin Carroll’s bat and the rest of the Arizona offense. It was also a nice palate cleanser to see all the returning faces including Zac Gallen and Paul Sewald both of whom are key cogs on this D-Backs’ roster. Tonight’s win however featured two newcomers to the club in Jordan Montgomery and Eugenio Suarez. The latter of whom has been mired in one of the worst slumps of his career with a miniscule .173/.250/.227 slash line since April 13th. But an eighth inning home run and a dazzling, run-saving play like the one below goes a long way towards re-earning the fans’ goodwill.

Montgomery meanwhile battled through seven innings of yeoman’s work with just two clean innings in his seven innings of work, but he worked to his gameplan: put the ball in play and let the defenders do the work. In past years, and as recently as last season, that gameplan would have worked extremely well as Arizona owned the third-best defense in the National League. Surprisingly, despite the eye test indicating otherwise, the fielding statistics have actually improved as the team sits in second place in the NL by defensive runs saved. Montgomery needed every bit of that defense behind him tonight as he worked through traffic all evening while the Reds managed to run into two outs on the basepaths with two excellent outfield assists from Lourdes Gurriel Jr and Pavin Smith.

Early in the game, the veteran lefty looked to be struggling – especially in the second when the Reds stacked four hits together for an early 1-0 lead that could have been even worse absent the above play from Suarez and a nifty putout from Gurriel Jr. The scuffling left fielder actually had an entire game’s worth of action in the second as he struggled to corral Tyler Stephenson’s leadoff double down the line that allowed Stephenson to reach third. He then nabbed Stuart Fairchild trying to stretch his run-scoring single into a double and then ended the inning on a sliding grab. Whoever said that baseball players aren’t athletic clearly hasn’t been watching recently because this play was plenty impressive even without the sliding catch.

The D-Backs, once again facing a deficit, immediately responded with a leadoff single from Gabriel Moreno followed by a run-scoring double from Pavin Smith to knot the score 1-1. Encouragingly, Carroll worked himself a walk before Ketel Marte managed an infield single to load the bases with just one out and an impressively effective Joc Pederson stepping to the plate. Pederson managed to lift the ball, but not deep enough to score Smith from third and it looked as if the D-Backs would again waste a prime scoring opportunity as they have done all too often over this past rough stretch. Instead, Christian Walker earned a rare RBI walk for a 2-1 lead before a weak Gurriel Jr groundout ended the erstwhile rally. Still, given the way this team has performed in similar run-scoring opportunities over the past several weeks, it was an encouraging sign of the resilience the team demonstrated time and again last year.

Montgomery, having finally been given the lead for the first time in the game, could only make it stand up until the home half of the fourth when Jeimer Candelario crushed a changeup that missed becoming a two-run homer by a couple feet. It was still plenty deep enough for Santiago Espinal to score from first however after he beat out a double play attempt earlier in the inning to tie the score 2-2 again. The Reds would only mount one more scoring opportunity on Montgomery’s watch in the fifth when consecutive double play attempts were not converted from Jonathan India and Elly De La Cruz. Cruz then displayed exactly the kind of game-changing skills he possesses by stealing second and third on consecutive pitches – his major league-leading 20th and 21st stolen base respectively. Spencer Steer would walk and then steal second before Montgomery induced a weak popup from Stephenson to end the threat.

Conversely, the D-Backs managed to tack on runs in the visiting half of the sixth and eighth from some of the least likely sources. In the former, back-to-back singles from Gurriel Jr and Suarez set the table for Gabriel Moreno who dutifully poked a ball through the left side of the infield for a 3-2 D-Backs’ lead. Finally, in the eighth, Suarez again provided the offensive spark as he launched a Lucas Sims’ middle-middle slider into the left field bleachers for a 4-2 D-Backs’ lead. Tonight’s game marked the first multihit game for Suarez since April 30 and his first home run since April 12 – nearly a month between his second and third homers of the season. While it’s certainly a small sample, it’s difficult to overstate the importance of the offensive contributions from Suarez, Gurriel Jr, and Carroll towards the team’s success and all three are starting to show some signs of offensive life.