Arizona Diamondbacks 3, San Diego Padres 3: Kiss your sister

Record: 12-9-1. Change on 2017: +0.5

It was a B-squad kind of day for the Diamondbacks’ pitching staff, with an inning from Silvino Bracho the only one to be worked by anyone who has played for Arizona to this point. But all, told, they performed credibly, holding the Padres to two earned runs this afternoon, while striking out thirteen, in a game called as a tie without even the usual token tenth spring inning. I guess everyone wanted to make an early start at getting their Irish on tonight. :) Ryan Atkinson got the start, and though he had some control issues, walking three, he held an at least somewhat recognisable San Diego line-up hitless for three innings, with four strikeouts.

Bracho worked a scoreless fourth, then Michael Blazek struck out the side in the fifth, albeit round a solo home-run to Hunter Renfroe. Joey Krehbiel continued his good spring (his 1.13 ERA has surely got him on the up on the bullpen depth charts) with a scoreless sixth, and the ball was then turned over to Anthony Vasquez for the final three frames. He scattered three hits, but walked none and struck out four. However, the Padres did ties the game on his watch, with a two-run eighth, albeit one being unearned due to an error by Kevin Medrano. The inning ended on the old 3-2 double-play, Christian Walker firing home to get the runner trying to advance from third, after snagging a pop-up in foul territory.

Arizona had taken the lead in the bottom of the second inning, courtesy of a Nick Ahmed sacrifice fly. After the homer off Blazek evened the score in the top of the fifth, Paul Goldschmidt quickly unevened it with his second home-run of spring, scoring himself and Rey Fuentes. But that would be the end of the D-backs’ scoring, That famous Irish-back, Chris O’Wings had an appropriate good game for St. Patrick’s Day, getting three hits, scoring on Ahmed’s SF, and stealing a base. Daniel Descalso got a hit and a walk, but the team went 0-for-4 with RISP, sending the sellout crowd of 13,669 at Salt River Fields home only somewhat satisfied with their luck.

Tomorrow, the Diamondbacks take on the Reds over near SnakePit Towers in Goodyear, though the game is also on Fox Sports Arizona. Zack Godley will make his penultimate start of the pre-season for us.