Diamondbacks 6, Rockies 2: Arizona cools off Colorado

Cactus League record: 10-6-1

Jeremy Hellickson was the starter for the Diamondbacks, and had a reasonably solid performance, going by the box-score. He worked four innings, allowing two runs on four hits and a walk, with four strikeouts, and lowered his Cactus League ERA to 5.87, which is good to see. He was particularly impressive early on, keeping the Rockies hitless until the fourth inning, when he seemed to flag, allowing all four hits - and it could have been more than two runs, but for a Rockies TOOTBLAN. He was followed by prospect Yoan Lopez, who recovered further from his awful debut, with three scoreless innings of work, giving up one hit and a walk with a pair of strikeouts.

Matt Reynolds and Evan Marshall closed things out, each pitching a perfect inning, Reynolds getting a pair of strikeouts, with what was reported to be a "very effective split/change." With our heavily - indeed, quite possibly, entirely - right-handed rotation, we will probably see both Reynolds and Oliver Perez getting heavily used, so good outings from them will be key. The offense got off to another quick start, tagging the Rockies' Jon Grey for three runs in the first inning, two coming home on a single by David Peralta, with a Mark Trumbo ground-out adding another.

A Tuffy Gosewisch sac fly in the fourth made it 4-0 to Arizona, and although Colorado pegged two back in the bottom of that inning, the "visitors" restored their lead with single runs in the seventh and eighth, on RBI hits by Trumbo and Nick Buss. Ender Inciarte had three hits, scoring twice, while there were two hit nights for Peralta, Jake Lamb (starting at first this evening) and Yasmany Tomas, though the  latter committed his second error of spring at the hot corner. A solid victory for the Diamondbacks especially considering the unfair advantage (below) conferred on the Rockies. Perhaps that was to counter them having a split-squad. Or maybe Gameday was just acting up again. :)

Tomorrow sees another evening game at Salt River - hopefully, in slightly more pleasant spring surrounding! - as the Cubs come to visit. First pitch is 6:40pm, with the game again being webcast on dbacks.com. Rubby de la Rosa is the scheduled starter for Arizona.