Diamondbacks 4, Giants 3: Never Mind The Pollocks, Here's The Walk-Off

Well, one of the two top Diamondbacks prospects appearing in this afternoon's contest had themselves a very good game. However, in an upset of near-Biblical proportions, from which the world may never recover, it wasn't Trevor Bauer. He seemed to suffer from death by a thousand of cuts, with the Giants managing to get to him with what was described early in the Gameday Thread as "Broken bats, slow rollers, the works." But Bauer didn't help himself by throwing first-pitch strikes to only 40% of the batters faced, and that helped lead to his removal after three of the planned four innings.

More on this contest, where A.J. Pollock walked the Diamondbacks off with a ninth-inning homer, after the jump.

Not a great outing for Bauer. Some soft singles allowed early, several hard-hit balls later. Dbacks were hoping he'd go 4 IP. Only went 3.

— Nick Piecoro (@nickpiecoro) March 20, 2012

The final line was not exactly Baueresque. Three innings pitched, two runs, both earned on six hits, with no walks, and only two strikeouts to the 15 Giants' hitters faced this afternoon. The first hit he gave up was broke that bat of Melky Cabrera, and the second was a ground-ball that found a hole into right-field, with the runner advancing to third, then coming home on a sacrifice fly. The second run allowed came in the second, after a single, stolen-base, groundout, and another groundball that made it through the infield, which had been drawn in to try and get the runner at the plate. After the game, Bauer seemed a bit exasperated:

"What are you going to do? They hit one ball hard in three innings and ended up with six hits and two runs. I think I did a pretty job of disrupting their timing. Not really a whole lot to be displeased with other than being behind in the count a lot, which I haven't really done this spring."

After an unexpected fill-in frame from Takashi Saito, where the Giants scored their third and final run on a squeeze bunt, it was over to Patrick Corbin, who delivered a much better line. In his four shutout innings, he allowed one hit while striking out six batters, with a couple of walks the only area of concern. That brought his spring ERA all the way down to a minuscule 0.84; Bauer's sits at 3.60 after today's contest. Actually, worth posting their lines in full:
Corbin: 10.2 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 5 BB, 12 K
Bauer: 10 IP, 11 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 9 K
Not bad work by either of them.

It looked like this was going to be a laugher early on, with Barry "He's getting paid how much?" Zito pitching for San Francisco and retiring one of the firsr six Diamondbacks he faced, including giving up a two-run homer to Gerardo Parra. Unfortunately, that one was a Jason Kubel double-play, and another twin-killing in the third, this one with the bases-loaded and off the bat of Ryan Roberts, helped Zito avoid the damage he deserved. Oh, well: save it up for the regular season, I guess. Don't want to inflate his spring ERA too far, and risk the Giants DFA'ing his extremely expensive ass before Opening Day.

Neither side managed to score again after the top of the fourth, until Pollock accepted a 2-2 pitch with one out in the bottom of the ninth, and deposited it over the fence in left-center field, to cheer the home fans in another record crowd at Salt River Fields - this one being 12,575, not bad for a weekday afternoon. Paul Goldschmidt led the Arizona offense, reaching base all three times he came up, with a hit and a couple of walks, while Miguel Montero picked up a couple of hits, and Kubel got on base twice, with a hit and a walk (just a shame about that double-play...). A decent 4:4 K:BB ratio for our hitters, while the pitchers went 10:2 there.

No-one really dominated the Gameday Thread, with half a dozen people all managing comment numbers in the twenties. SongBird just came out on top, ahead of grimmy01 and Bcawz. Also taking part: PR151, DivineWolfwood, Ridster09, SenSurround, snakecharmer, Jim McLennan, kishi, Shawnwck, blue bulldog, ptoulon, txzona, NASCARbernet, CaptainCanuck, 4 Corners Fan, Clefo, LiamNeeson and Gildo. Tomorrow sees the Diamondbacks hosting the Brewers at Salt River Fields, with Daniel Hudson scheduled to start for Arizona.

With most of the innings being used up by Bauer and Corbin, the team opted to have Ian Kennedy and Barry Enright throw against the Giants' minor-leaguers on SRF back-fields. This makes sense, since you generally don't want the opposition to become comfortable with your starting rotation, through over-familiarity in spring training. Kennedy faced the Triple-A Giants, and scattered three hits and two walks over five innings, with five K's and one earned run; Enright saw action against the Double-A line-up, and pitched 4.2 scoreless frames, with four hits and four strikeouts for him.