Diamondbacks 9, Cubs 5: Better late than never

Cactus League record: 11-6-1

Bit of a mixed bag as far as pitching performances are concerned from the Diamondbacks tonight. Rubby de la Rosa was the starter, and even he was more a collection of moments. His control was off, with four walks in four innings, giving him a total of 10 in 12 spring innings. But at least one-quarter of his pitch (and possibly more, as it seems the radar gun was down for the first frame) were clocked at 95 mph or better, and there were plenty of swings and misses. Sounds a little too much like Trevor Cahill i.e. grand strikeout rate, but far too many walks, for me to be comfortable with him in the rotation. Paging Randall Delgado?

Andrew Chafin may have crossed himself out of a bullpen spot, after a nasty fifth inning. He struck out the side, but that's where the good news stops, as those K's came interspersed with three hits and a walk, leading to three earned runs for the Cubs. However, Enrique Burgos posted a hitless sixth, and A.J. Schugel continue his fine spring with three strikeouts in the seventh: Over six scoreless innings, he has allowed two hits and a walk, with six strikeouts. Dan Runzler put up a zero in the eighth, netting the W, and Oliver Perez struck out three more in the ninth. We ended the night with eight walks and 14 strikeouts.

After falling behind 2-0 in the third, the Diamondbacks came back with three runs in the fourth, scoring courtesy of a Cubs error, a Jake Lamb sacrifice fly and a Gerald Laird RBI double. Laird also was involved in our next score, but hitting into a double-play denies him an RBI for your efforts. We trailed 5-4 going to the bottom of the eighth, but a very long inning saw Arizona bat around, feasting on the Cubs' soft underbelly to score five runs off three Chicago pitchers, capped by a two-run single by Danny Worth while several small mountain ranges rose and fell in the distance. Yeah, it took a while.  And would have been longer still, if not for a Blake Lalli TOOTBLAN.

We outhit the Cubs 13-7. Ender Inciarte and David Peralta picked up a pair of hits, with a hit and a walk for Chris Owings. The last-named also stole a base, while Inciarte was caught stealing. It's back to day games tomorrow, with Arizona heading over to Maryvale, to take on the Brewers with a first pitch scheduled for 1:05pm. Trevor Cahill gets the start for the Diamondbacks.