D-backs pull out extra-innings thrilling win vs. Brewers

PHOENIX — It is impossible to break down every single wild thing that happened during the Diamondbacks’ 11-10 walk-off win over the Brewers on Sunday afternoon at Chase Field.

Heck, just trying to sum it up is a challenge, but Arizona fill-in manager Jeff Banister came as close to anyone in doing so.

“It was a rollercoaster ride today,” Banister said. “Better than at Disney World.”

Of course, the ride was only fun because the D-backs came out on the winning side, because the stakes are high for them right now.

Arizona watched a 5-0 third-inning lead turn into an 8-5 seventh-inning deficit.

After the D-backs tied the game in the eighth, the Brewers scored a pair of runs in the top of the 10th, only to watch the D-backs rally for three in the bottom half.

Let’s take a look at a couple of key decisions that were made in the 10th, one by each team.

Banister walks Turang
Right-hander Justin Martinez pitched the ninth for the D-backs and retired the first two batters in the 10th with the automatic runner at second base.

That brought up the left-handed-hitting Brice Turang, who had three hits and a walk on the day.

Banister was filling in as manager for Torey Lovullo, who was in California to deliver the eulogy at former Major League player and executive Billy Bean’s celebration of life. Banister decided to intentionally walk Turang to get to Jackson Chourio, which raised some eyebrows because of the 21-year-old phenom’s ability.

The thinking behind the move, according to Banister, was that Martinez was almost at the limit of the amount of pitches the D-backs were going to allow him to throw. The only pitcher the D-backs had left was left-hander Blake Walston, who was warming up.

With the right-handed-hitting Chourio and Willy Adames up after Turang, Banister didn’t want to have Martinez use his remaining pitches against the lefty. That would have raised the possibility of the rookie Walston facing Chourio and Adames.

The move didn’t work the way Banister hoped, as Chourio grounded a triple down the right-field line to score a pair of runs.

“Obviously I walked J-Mart into that situation and I take full responsibility for these decisions,” Banister said. “I walked him right into their hottest hitter. I know that that’s on me. I take that responsibility. And so, it came down to a little bit of math for me. If we had to face Chourio and Adames, two right-handers against our best guy out of the bullpen right handed, I’d rather have whatever pitches that [Martinez] had left against those two guys.”

Murphy sticks with Koenig
In the bottom of the 10th, Brewers manager Pat Murphy stuck with lefty Jared Koenig, who had pitched the ninth instead of closer Devin Williams.

Had Williams pitched, it would have given him appearances in four of the last six games, so Murphy wanted to avoid that and use Williams for only one batter, if needed, with two outs.

“Yeah, it was a consensus decision,” Murphy said. “Devin’s thrown a lot lately. If we brought Devin in for one hitter, a specific hitter, or something like that, we could have done it with two outs. He was available, but not for any extended period.”

It never got to the two-out scenario because the D-backs got three straight singles to open the inning, scoring one run and loading the bases. Koenig then hit Christian Walker with a pitch to force in the tying run, and Eugenio Suárez hit a ball to right field for a single to bring home the game-winner.