Diamondbacks 2, Indians 6: Late to the party

Cactus League record: 6-4-1

Batting practice for Cleveland was extended today, as the Diamondbacks' early pitching staff served up nine hits, including a trio of homers, and three walks on their way to a 6-0 deficit before they retired a batter in the third inning. The main victim was Jeremy Hellickson, whose second outing was shorter than his first, as he lasted only 1.2 innings this afternoon. However, he faced a lot more batters: twice as many, in fact, Hellickson allowing seven hits, two of which didn't come back, and a pair of walks, with two strikeouts. Three runs resulted, and in might have been more, save for a TOOTBLAN in the first by the Indians.

After R.J. Hively got the final out of the second. Daniel Hudson came in for the third, and things did not initially go any better at all. As in: walk, single, three-run homer. To borrow a line from yesterday's special guest-star: "Well, that escalated quickly," Hudson did settle down thereafter, retiring six of the next seven batters, with just a walk, but the damage has been done. A.J. Schugel and Yoan Lopez each pitch two scoreless thereafter: the latter certainly showed a big improvement over his first outing for Arizona, holding the Indians hitless and striking out two, while walking one.

The offense wasn't doing much. Through seven, we were scoreless, being held to five hits and a walk over that time. Arizona finally got onto the board in the eighth, scoring on an error and an RBI single by Jordan Pacheco. Paul Goldschmidt picked up a pair of hits, and is now hitting .357 for the spring and also stole his second Cactus League base. David Peralta reached base twice, on a hit and a walk, and picked up an outfield assist, while Jake Lamb had our only extra-base hit of the day, a double.

Tomorrow sees some split-squad action at Salt River Fields, with the team facing the Mariners in the afternoon, then the Giants in the evening. Scheduled pitchers are Chase Anderson and Rubby de la Rosa respectively.