March 14 was a perfect day for baseball as the Arizona Diamondbacks played their twenty-first spring training game of the 2024 season at Salt River Fields, but were shut out by the Kansas City Royals 6-0.
Tommy Henry started the game for Arizona against KC’s Michael Wacha.
Henry got roughed up in his fifth outing of the spring, allowing five earned runs, six hits, two walks and two hit batters. After two strong starts to open spring training, Henry has been hit hard in his last three starts, including five days ago by these same Royals. He now has a 9.00 ERA and 2.15 WHIP in 13 spring training innings.
D-backs Manager Torey Lovullo knows that Henry will improve off of this poor performance.
“It looked like Tommy ran out of gas there. Maybe I left him out there a batter too long,” Lovullo said. “I know that he’s going to go to the drawing board and continue to hammer away at what will make him better.”
Wacha was impressive for the Royals, allowing only two hits and struck out four in 3.2 innings of work.
Wacha signed a 2-year, $32 million contract with the Royals this off-season. Coming off of a great year with the San Diego Padres, the 32-year-old will be a key player in Kansas City’s future success.
Nate Eaton and MJ Melendez did most of the damage for the Royals, with Eaton hitting a double that scored two, and Melendez hitting a triple that also scored two.
The D-backs finished the game with only four hits with no runs scored.
Despite the D-backs’ lack of offense this game, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. continued his outstanding spring by going 2-2 with two doubles and a walk.
The only other two hits for Arizona were a pair of singles from Alek Thomas and Ketel Marte.
Arizona right-hander Bryce Jarvis came in to pitch in the 5th inning and did an exceptional job. He pitched 3.1 innings and struck out five batters, only giving up two hits. He has also recently added a cutter into his arsenal of pitches.
“He threw the ball exceptionally well today,” Lovullo said. “He introduced a cutter into his repertoire, in combination with his slider and the aggressive fastball. He had a good mixture of pitches that he was getting after.”
Jarvis debuted for Arizona in mid-August during the 2023 season, and made the most of his time in the Majors. He pitched 23.2 total innings in 11 games and had a 3.04 ERA with 12 strikeouts. Jarvis will most likely have a role in the bullpen in the 2024 season, so D-backs fans will be glad to see him pitch well for the Snakes so far this spring.
The NL West is one of, if not the most challenging divisions in the MLB right now with great players like Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the Dodgers, and newly acquired pitcher Dylan Cease landing in San Diego.
Lovullo wants to take this challenge head-on and prove to everybody that the Diamondbacks are an elite baseball team, despite not having a high payroll.
“We embrace the challenge, and we love it. It just means that we got to be spot on and we can only concern ourselves about what’s happening in our dugout,” Luvollo said. “Sometimes I would say things to the front office and they look at me like I’m an alien, but now I feel like I got a little bit of street cred’. We do believe in amazing things here and we believe in synergy.”
With only two weeks left until Opening Day, Lovullo’s Diamondbacks will be focusing on polishing off any rough spots to be ready for the season opener against the Colorado Rockies on March 28 at Chase Field.
