The Arizona Diamondbacks rookie right-hander battled through a quiet offense and late-inning fatigue against the Tampa Bay Rays, leaving Manager Torey Lovullo questioning the timing of his starter's mid-game exit.
Despite giving up a first-inning home run to Tampa Bay Rays superstar Junior Caminero, Arizona Diamondbacks' rookie starter Jose Cabrera held his ground.
Sure, the 24-year-old ended up earning his first MLB loss, but that was mostly due to Arizona's offense not giving him any run support.
After falling in the series opener, 6-1, the Diamondbacks also dropped game two, 4-2.
Cabrera was perfect in the middle innings, but he allowed a pair of runs in the fifth and was responsible for the run that scored in the sixth.
Diamondbacks Manager Discusses Cabrera's Second Start
In just his second big-league start, manager Torey Lovullo knows the team got about as much out of Cabrera as they could've expected. Five shutout innings like he pitched in his MLB debut is ideal, but that's not the expectations for a pitching prospect who's pitching away from Chase Field for the first time.
"I thought he was good," Lovullo said, according to MLB.com. "I was just discussing right now whether or not [I should have] given him that third time around. I thought he deserved it, he earned it, but those are little things that we got to figure out."
Hindsight is 20-20, but Lovullo just made the same mistake with Zac Gallen which really puts things into perspective. Now, Arizona is back to .500, and most of the time these losses boil down to when Lovullo decides to pull his starting pitchers.
Cabrera on Taking the Loss
"That's just my mindset: attack, attack, attack," Cabrera said. "It doesn't matter what happened, I just want to keep going and do whatever I have to do to keep following the plan I've got with my catcher."
He added, "Because for me, I feel really comfortable with my teammates. I got their support, everybody here supports me. I feel really comfortable with my friends, with my teammates, everybody here. I feel so proud of everybody here, and I feel really comfortable, so just I have to be who I am."
Arizona Falls to .500
The Diamondbacks are just 17-24 on the road this season, and it's not hard to realize why when watching a game like this.
Arizona jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning thanks to a pair of hits, but the team added just five more hits through the final eight innings.
After doing a whole lot of nothing from the second to seventh, Ketel Marte hit a 430-foot homer in the top of the eighth, but at that point, even only down two runs, this team didn't have enough in them to spark a rally.
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