Edinson Volquez no-hitter adds to Diamondbacks’ road woes

MIAMI – As Edinson Volquez was engulfed in a sea of teammates, the Diamondbacks filed out of the dugout toward the visitors’ clubhouse, where they quietly dressed before departing Marlins Park. Their offensive ineptitude away from Chase Field has been an issue for months, but it reached a nadir on Saturday.

Volquez became the third pitcher in history to no-hit the Diamondbacks, facing the minimum and striking out 10 in a 3-0 win. He punched out the side in the ninth, getting Nick Ahmed, Daniel Descalso and Chris Owings – all of them on (literally) unhittable change-ups – to secure the first no-no of his career and the sixth in Marlins history.

A few hours before taking the mound, Volquez posted a photo on social media of him and Yordano Ventura, his former teammate with the Kansas City Royals who died in a car accident in January and whose 26th birthday would have been Saturday. Volquez had no expectation of throwing a no-hitter in his friend’s honor, but he was emotional after having done so.

“It means a lot,” Volquez said. “I was pretty close to him. This really hurts. To do something like I did today, that is really special for me to dedicate the game to him.”

For the Diamondbacks, the afternoon represented the latest unsightly performance from their offense, only this time they were unable to overcome it. Their struggles on the current road trip, which ends on Sunday afternoon, had been masked by sometimes-dominant pitching and the occasional late-game heroics, to the point that the club has broken even through 10 games despite hitting .210 with a meager .623 OPS.

And while manager Torey Lovullo has tried downplaying his team’s home/road splits, the disparity became even harder to ignore after Saturday. In 29 games at home, the Diamondbacks are hitting .295 with an .875 OPS. In 29 on the road, they’re at .219 and .646.

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“I feel like it’s going to be something we’ll figure out,” Lovullo said. “I know we’re very comfortable in our stadium. I think we understand the nooks and crannies and the reasons why we’re successful there and we’re confident there. We just need to bring that same approach on the road. I think by the end of the year, it’ll probably balance itself out.”

Not only were they unable to get a hit Saturday, they were hitless on Friday night against the Marlins’ bullpen, which retired the final 14 batters of the game.

The closest the Diamondbacks came to a hit was in the fourth, when Rey Fuentes grounded a ball that looked ticketed for right field before second baseman Dee Gordon made a diving stop and threw him out from his knees. Other than that, there were relatively few memorable moments in the field, at least as far as no-hitters go.

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“We hit some balls, I guess, kind of hard, but I wouldn’t say we had great at-bats today by any means,” Diamondbacks second baseman Brandon Drury said. “It was one of those days.”

Sitting in the 92-93 mph range, Volquez pounded the bottom of the zone with his two-seam fastball, complementing it with a nose-diving change-up and a breaking ball; he got 10 swings-and-misses on the change-up alone. And unlike in recent starts, he had no trouble throwing strikes.

“His command – he was hitting his spots pretty well,” the Diamondbacks’ Chris Herrmann said. “Obviously, he had a great change-up that kept a lot of our hitters off balance today. He just did a really good job today.”

Volquez threw well despite rolling his ankle after a collision with Fuentes at the bag on the first play of the game.

“In the fourth, I didn’t know if I was going to keep pitching,” Volquez said. “When I got to the seventh, I was like, ‘You’ve got to go for it.’ It’s a little early to start thinking about a no-hitter in the fifth or the fourth. When I was past the seventh, I was like, ‘You’ve got to do it. You’ve got to go for it.’ ”

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Volquez became more dominant as the game progressed. Meanwhile, Herrmann and Fuentes both said they could sense their side thinking about the potential no-hitter. Herrmann said he felt “tension” in the dugout; Fuentes thought they “got a little antsy at the plate.”

It was the second time the Diamondbacks were held hitless in this city. Eleven years ago, right-hander Anibal Sanchez no-hit them at the facility formerly known as Joe Robbie Stadium. Prior to that, the only other pitcher to no-hit the Diamondbacks was St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Jose Jimenez in 1999 in Phoenix.

The Diamondbacks’ last turn through the order was their least competitive. Fuentes and Paul Goldschmidt struck out in the seventh. Jake Lamb went down on strikes in the eighth, an inning that ended when Drury bounced into a double play after Herrmann’s one-out walk.

Ahmed, who had broken up a pair of no-hitters late in games in his career, was the first to strike out in the ninth. Pinch-hitters Descalso and Owings followed suit.

With a win on Sunday, the Diamondbacks will return home with their first winning, multi-city trip of the year.

“I know people believe in the home-field advantage and all that stuff, but I know people on this team don’t,” Herrmann said. “We just haven’t really been playing that great on the road this year. I feel like if we pick up those games and we play better on the road, we’re going to be a first-place team.

“It’s been a somewhat good road trip for us, but I know we could have won some of these games, which is just unfortunate.”

Reach Piecoro at (602) 444-8680 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @nickpiecoro.

Sunday’s game 

Diamondbacks at Marlins

When: 10:10 a.m.

Where: Marlins Park, Miami.

Pitchers: Diamondbacks RHP Braden Shipley (0-1, 6.75) vs. Marlins RHP Vance Worley (0-2, 4.50).

TV/Radio: FSAZ/KMVP-FM (98.7), KHOV-FM (105.1).

Shipley, who posted a 5.27 ERA in 70 innings last year, will be making his second start of the season on Sunday. He pitched on May 4 in Washington, giving up three runs in four innings against the Nationals. … In four starts in Triple-A Reno since that, he has posted a 3.67 ERA with a .200 opponents’ batting average. … Worley had been in Triple-A for the Marlins up until two weeks ago. In 10 innings since being recalled he has allowed five runs on one walk and eight hits, including two home runs. … The Marlins are Worley’s fifth team. He’s also pitched for the Phillies, Twins, Pirates and Orioles. … He hasn’t faced the Diamondbacks since 2014, but he owns a 2.05 ERA in 22 innings against them.

Coming up

Monday: Off.

Tuesday: At Chase Field, 6:40 p.m., Diamondbacks LHP Robbie Ray (5-3, 3.00) vs. Padres RHP Dinelson Lamet (2-0, 2.70).

Wednesday: At Chase Field, 6:40 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Zack Greinke (7-3, 3.06) vs. Padres RHP Luis Perdomo (0-2, 5.01).

Thursday: At Chase Field, 12:40 p.m., Diamondbacks LHP Patrick Corbin (4-6, 5.43) vs. Padres LHP Clayton Richard (3-6, 4.33).