Diamondbacks Turn Harmless Sacrifice Bunt Into Sequence Of Screeching Embarrassment

For a team that’s stuck on the fence between selling and buying ahead of the trade deadline, a discouraging showing against a bottom-feeder is maybe all the nudge you need to trade everyone away and start over. That’s the sad position the Arizona Diamondbacks face Monday night after the crummy Marlins and their NL-worst offense put six runs on the board in one inning, in ridiculous, slapstick fashion. Anyone could be forgiven for trading away everyone even tangentially associated with this mess.

Diamondbacks pitcher Merrill Kelly put the first four batters on base on a walk and three singles; following a foul-out, the nine spot in the order came up, with Marlins pitcher Caleb Smith all too happy to drop down a bunt and give up a productive out. Kelly made a complete dog’s breakfast out of it, and everything went to shit:

The first mistake here is Kelly’s exaggerated feint to third to hold Curtis Granderson, which cost him any realistic shot at nabbing Smith at first. The wide throw plated Granderson and moved Harold Ramírez to third, which was bad enough. But Smith, God bless him, chugged for second, which tempted Tim Locastro into a wide throw of his own. My favorite part of this is the long delay between Kelly’s error and Locastro’s error—just as everything seemed to be settling down, more fireworks! Yay!

These Diamondbacks can sure cook up some painful ways to give up runs. Hey, so long as the Diamondbacks are going to be feverishly disassociating themselves from this mess, would it kill them to replace those hideous uniforms?