Little things add up to spoil D-backs' opener

PHOENIX -- In baseball, sometimes the little things can turn into big things. It’s why Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo always talks to his players about “winning the inch” and he tells them there are inches all over the field during a game to be won.

Thursday night’s season opener was a perfect example of what can happen when a little thing isn’t taken care of -- the Diamondbacks lost the inch and then the game, falling 10-6 to the Cubs.

A sellout crowd of 49,070, the largest attendance for an opener at Chase Field since 2012, showed up filled with excitement over a Diamondbacks team that added $210 million free agent Corbin Burnes to a team that won 89 games a year ago and missed the postseason due to a tiebreaker.

The game was tight through the first four innings with the Cubs holding a 4-3 lead, but things turned sour for Arizona on a play in the fifth inning.

With two outs, the Cubs had runners at first and second and rookie Matt Shaw at the plate. Zac Gallen got Shaw to hit an easy grounder to short where Geraldo Perdomo fielded it cleanly. Instead of going to first where he would have thrown Shaw out easily, Perdomo decided instead to go to second for a forceout.

The problem was Perdomo had not taken into account that it was speedster Pete Crow-Armstrong running from first to second, so his throw to second was late by just a hair.

Instead of the inning being over, the Cubs now had the bases loaded.

Miguel Amaya then lifted a fly ball to left-center and center fielder Jake McCarthy raced into the gap and had the ball go in and out of his glove as he dove. All three runs ended up scoring on the play to push the Cubs' lead to 7-3, and that would prove to be the difference in the game.

“When I talk about the top play of the game, that's probably the one,” Lovullo said of Perdomo’s decision to go to second.

There were even smaller details within the play like not letting Crow-Armstrong get such a good break off first base to begin with, but Perdomo knew right away that he had made a big mistake.

“I went right away to [Lovullo] and I told him it was my fault,” Perdomo said. “I should have thrown it to the right base. You have to know who's running, too; PCA is really a great runner. He’s got speed and like I said, I should have thrown it to first base. That was the big difference right there. If I make that out, it’s three outs. You saw what happened next -- three-run double. It’s tough to start out the season like that, but I have to move on from that.”

Perdomo’s play isn’t the only thing the Diamondbacks will need to clean up going forward.

Gallen, who got the Opening Day start over Burnes, felt he was rushing his delivery a bit and lacked command on his fastball, leading him to walk four and at one point he threw 11 straight balls in the second inning. The team as a whole walked six and gave up 12 hits.

“There's a lot of things that we have to tighten up and we will,” Lovullo said. “At the end of the day, it's our job as coaches to identify these things and talk about these things.”

The Diamondbacks did have a chance to blow the game open in the sixth when they loaded the bases with no outs against reliever Nate Pearson. Back-to-back sacrifice flies did plate a pair of runs, but a big hit or two would’ve really helped.

“I think we were in some advantage counts,” Lovullo said. “Yeah, you’re looking to pop a ball in the gap and really get things moving in the right direction. So that was a key moment.”