Arizona Diamondbacks 5, Chicago Cubs 5: Honors even

Cactus League record: 13-10-2. Change on 2016: -6.

Zack Greinke got the start for the Diamondbacks, his penultimate outing before Opening Day at Chase, and... wasn’t bad. He did seem to flag after becoming the first Arizona pitcher to go out into the sixth inning, allowing a lead-off double followed by a walk. That was the end of Greinke’s day, and Brian Matusz allowed one inherited runner to score, leaving Zack possessing a line of three runs on six hits and two walks with four strikeouts, having thrown 83 pitches. Somewhat amusingly, the first run he allowed was Jake Arretta absolutely ambushing a pitch, for a home-run estimated by Statcast at 464 feet. There was only one Cub HR longer than that in all 2016.

Bit of a B-bullpen day. After Matusz had tidied up, Jorge De La Rosa worked round some traffic for a scoreless seventh. But Randall Delgado allowed a solo home-run in the two hits he gave up for the eighth, and T.J. McFarland another run on three hits in the ninth. He has now allowed eight hits and a walk in his three innings, without recording a strike out. I would not be surprised if he is in the next round of roster cuts, which must surely be looming large. All told, it wasn’t one of the D-backs better pitching performances this spring: they allowed five runs on 12 hits, with a mediocre K:BB ratio for the day of 6:4.

However, the offense almost exactly mirrored those numbers, also scoring five runs on 12 hits and four walks. Jake Lamb got things going with a two-run homer (below, via @dbacks) off Jake Arrietta in the second inning, Lamb’s third of spring. Chris Iannetta brought Chris Owings home with a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning, and Oswaldo Arcia hit his team-leading fourth homer in the seventh. Finally, in the bottom of the ninth, Carlos Rivero tied things up for good with another sacrifice fly, this one scoring Arcia. Brandon Drury, Kevin Medrano and Owings each had a pair of hits, with Arcia and Iannetta getting a hit and a walk apiece.

An SRF record crowd for this one, the venue cracking the fourteen thousand mark for the first spring game ever, at 14,002. Tomorrow is a game against the Dodgers at Camelback Ranch. Patrick Corbin was the scheduled starter, but the team doesn’t want him to go against a divisional rival so close to the start of the season. So he’ll work in a minor-league game instead, with Andrew Chafin starting for the Diamondbacks, in a bullpen game.