SAN DIEGO -- D-backs starter Shelby Miller was forced to leave Saturday night's 5-3, 14-inning loss against the Padres with two outs in the second inning after suffering cuts on both knuckles of his right index finger.
With one run in, runners at first and third and pitcher Andrew Cashner at the plate in the second, Miller scraped his right hand on the mound on his follow through of the 1-1 pitch. He then did it again on the final pitch of the at-bat when he walked Cashner.
"Some poor mechanics more than anything," Miller said. "I kind of fell off the side of the mound in that at-bat against Cashner. The cut really wasn't it, when I hit the ground it was throbbing maybe a little bit, but I wouldn't say it was the reason I was walking guys. I just couldn't locate. After that, I just kind of fell out of sync."
From that point on, Miller struggled mightily with his command. Head athletic trainer Ken Crenshaw came out after Miller threw the next pitch and, after a couple of practice tosses, he stayed in the game.
Miller walked Cashner and then when he went 3-0 on Jon Jay, Crenshaw came out to check on Miller again and he remained in the game.
After walking Jay, though, to force in a run to make it 2-0, the D-backs removed Miller in favor of Matt Buschmann, who struck out Wil Myers to retire the side.

"Never seen that," manager Chip Hale said of his pitcher hitting his hand on the ground. "Strange. He banged his hand right on the mound. The bottom line is he was locating the ball very well with a high velocity and all of a sudden he banged his finger, the velocity dropped and the location went away."
Miller, who expects to be able to make his next start said he had never before hit his hand on the pitching mound like that.
"It was kind of weird," Miller said. "When I was out there I was kind of trying to fix myself while I was doing it and had to figure out way not to do that again. That's obviously not what you want."