Diamondbacks 10, Giants 6: The runs and wins keep piling up
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The Diamondbacks continued their high-scoring, winning Cactus League ways on Wednesday, belting three home runs in a 10-6 victory over the San Francisco Giants.
Jake Lamb came off the bench as a pinch-hitter in the fourth inning and connected on a three-run homer off Matt Cain, his second home run of the spring. Can gave up six runs on seven hits in four innings.
Chris Owings led off the first inning with a solo homer, and speedy center field Jason Bourgeous hit a three-run, inside-the-park homer in the fifth. Bourgeous lined a Chris Heston pitch to left-center field and rounded the bases as the ball rolled to the wall, scoring standing up.
Brandon Belt hit two homers, both of D-backs starter Robbie Ray, and a double for the Giants.
Ray struggled with his location early on and lasted only four innings, giving up five hits, two walks and four earned runs. He also had a wild pitch and hit a batter.
"He just didn't have his best stuff today," manager Chip Hale said. "He wasn't locating, wasn't getting ahead and paid for it.
"He's been pitching better than that. This wasn't one of his better ones. He got his pitches in, but only threw four innings. We'd like to get him into the sixth innings at least."
The D-backs are a major-league best 18-4-2, are 14-1-1 in their last 16 games and have scored a major-league leading 173 runs in 24 games.
"It's more fun to win, whether we're playing, ping-pong, pool or whatever," Hale said. "But again, it's not going to carry over, so as long as we're getting all our work in and we're not just trying to win games, not playing the guys we need to see, I think it's OK."
THREE TAKEAWAYS
* Owings also tripled, walked and stole his seventh base of the season, continuing to complicate Hale's decision on playing time in the middle infield. He's hitting .356, Nick Ahmed is at .422 and Jean Segura is at .525.
"It's painful to have indecision," Hale said. "I'd rather almost make the wrong decision that keep having indecision. We'll make a decision sooner or later, we have to obviously, but they're making it awfully tough."
* Ray is clearly the man to beat for the fifth spot in the starting rotation, but his high pitch count on Wednesday mirrored a season-long issue he battled last season.
"It's what we went through last year," Hale said. "Eighty-five in four innings is a lot of pitches. And he knows that, and he's done better this spring. He's shown he can do it. Just needs to locate early in the count and get ahead."
* The dugouts were warned as three batters were hit by pitches -- Rickie Weeks twice by the Giants and San Francisco catcher Trevor Brown by Ray -- but Hale said there were no issues that he was aware of.
"Just couldn't figure out (what was going on)," Hale said. "Weeks almost got hit three times, and he got hit twice. I didn't know if there was history, but he said they just pitch him in a lot. The warning thing is just going to happen all the time."
EXTRA BASES
* A.J. Pollock, recovering from a sore arm, played center field and got two at-bats Wednesday in an intrasquad game. He was 1 for 2, beating out a bunt. Josh Collmenter pitched three innings and gave up six hits and four earned runs.
"(Pollock) will playin a minor-league game tomorrow full tilt, probably six, seven innings and hit," Hale said. "We'll probably keep him on the minor-league side for the rest of the week, tmaybe give him Friday off, have him play Saturday, Sunday, and see how he feels."
* Minor-leaguer Anthony Banda is scheduled to make his first Cactus League start Thursday as the Diamondbacks play the San Diego Padres in Peoria. Zack Greinke will pitch in a Triple-A game at Salt River Fields.
