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Record: 15-18; Pace: 74-88; Change on 2011: 0
Having just sent the reigning World Series Champions home with three wins for their first sweep of the season (it was also Arizona's first losing sweep of the season), the Diamondbacks were happy to see anybody but St. Louis in the first base dugout this evening. It helped to have it be the San Francisco Giants, who the Diamondbacks swept in the season opener and from whom they took the previous five contents last September.
And the Diamondbacks extended the winning streak to nine games and snapped their own five game losing streak this evening with a 5-1 victory. Patrick Corbin pitched seven strong innings, and Paul Goldschmidt and A.J. Pollock both homered. Read on for the joyous details.
It seems the Diamondback starting pitchers still haven't gotten my "STOP GIVING UP HOME RUNS" memo from Monday, because in the first inning, Patrick Corbin allowed a solo shot to Melky Cabrera. (What, was my memo sent by courier or something?) In the bottom half of the first inning, the Diamondbacks went down in order on six pitches by Madison Bumgarner, and it took only 12 to be erased in the second inning, so from the fans' perspective, it wasn't looking good for the home team early on.
Luckily, Arizona tied up the game in the 3rd inning on a Gerardo Parra reach-on-error, a double by A.J. Pollock, and a single by Willie Bloomquist to bring in Parra. Then the Diamondbacks took the lead in the 5th inning, during an 18-minute span which I happened NOT to have television access because MLB.TV blackout rules are stupid. It also corresponded with DbacksSkins turning on the radio, so pick your fire starter. Bloomquist led off the inning with a double, and it looked like he might be stranded over at third base. Luckily, Miguel Montero decided not to over-swing and nearly hit a home run off the end of the bat, and thanks to a circuitous route by left fielder Brett Pill, Miggy had himself a double and a go-ahead RBI. Paul Goldschmidt followed suit and also hit the ball to deep left, but this time, the ball went over the fence for a two-run home run. It was his first home run in 88 at-bats, his first home run since opening day, which, if you all remember, was also against the Giants. That makes Bumgarner just another Giants pitcher for Goldschmidt to be able to take downtown; his other three home runs from the Giants were all off of Tim Lincecum.
In the 6th inning, A.J. Pollock smacked his first major league home run, also to the left field bleachers, and received quite the silent treatment in the dugout afterwards. That capped the scoring of the night for both teams; it was also when I was able to turn the game back on again, go figure.
Meanwhile, Patrick Corbin's first home start was going swimmingly. Aside from the home run to Cabrera, Corbin had a truly excellent outing. Due to a pickoff throw of Emmanuel Burriss in the 2nd inning (which took six throw-overs), Corbin faced one batter over the minimum until the end of the 6th inning, and retired 12 batters in a row in that stretch. Angel Pagan singled in the 6th and Buster Posey reached base in the 7th inning on an error by Justin Upton. Corbin's line tonight - 7 IP, 3 H, 1R, 0BB, 4K, and he didn't even reach 90 pitches. He was pretty even on ground- and fly-ball outs and the defense played well behind him too, including a sparkling up-the-middle diving catch by Aaron Hill and some nice throws by Ryan Roberts. What a solid night for Corbin.
The Diamondbacks sent Bryan Shaw out for the 8th inning and David Hernandez out for the 9th and the non-save-situation save. Each pitcher allowed a hit but nothing more in their frames. The Diamondbacks had a relaxing game and shook hands to the D'backs Swing at the end of it!
Source: FanGraphs
King of the Hill: P Corbin, +25%
Family Guy: P Goldschmidt, +23.2%
The Tick: A Hill, -15.1%
It was a much happier gameday thread tonight, though there weren't too many people around for it. Maybe a lot of you headed to the game and the fireworks show afterwards. Out of the 670 or so comments, BattleMoses led the way with 85 of them. Dan and I each had over 70. All present were: 4 Corners Fan, Augdogs, BattleMoses, JoeCB1991, CaptainCanuck, Britback, hotclaws, Jim McLennan, dbacks79, snakecharmer, Rockkstarr12, rd33, txzona, Zavada's Moustache, Majabe, dback4life, shoewizard, Dan Strittmatter, luckycc, DbackCardsFan, blank_38, Muu, DbacksSkins, AzDbackfanInDc, Marc Fournier, and The so-called Beautiful.
Comment of the Day was a no-doubter, much like Paul Goldschmidt's home run, by DbackCardsFan:
I don't always hit home runs but when i do
it's against the Giants
Tomorrow the Diamondbacks face Matt Cain, whom they had the pleasure of tagging for five runs in six innings back on April 8th. Trevor Cahill is on the mound for Arizona. Don't forget to wear your black unis!