Owings homers as D-backs close spring training victorious
PHOENIX -- Chris Owings, in his first game playing center field in professional baseball, hit a three-run homer to lead the Arizona Diamondbacks over the Kansas City Royals 4-2 on Saturday.
Diamondbacks starter Robbie Ray pitched 4 1/3 innings in his last start before the regular season. The Royals fielded a lineup of mostly minor leaguers.
Ray allowed a run on three hits, struck out six and walked three. Royals starter Yordano Ventura was on a pitch count and threw only two innings before leaving the game.
Ventura gave up a run on four hits with four strikeouts. The Royals' Christian Colon had two hits.
Brandon Drury had three hits and drove in a run for Arizona.
John Lannan shut out the Diamondbacks on five hits over four innings in relief, striking out three. Brad Ziegler, Evan Marshall and Andrew Chafin each pitched a scoreless inning out of Arizona's bullpen.
It was the spring training finale for both teams. The Royals open defense of their World Series championship Sunday night in Kansas City and the Diamondbacks start the regular season on Monday night.
Royals: Ventura is the Royals No. 3 starter to open the season. His fifth and final spring training start went much better than his fourth, when he gave up 10 runs in four innings.
Diamondbacks: Ray, who'll be the fifth starter in the Arizona rotation, threw more offspeed pitches than he's used to, by design. "Felt good. Pitches were working for me well," he said. "I just had that one kind of long inning (the second), got the pitch count up. But I was able to get out of it and limit the damage."
Royals: Those Royals who will be on the big league roster were scheduled to fly back to Kansas City right after Saturday's game, and Kansas City will open the season Sunday night against the team they faced in last year's World Series, the Mets.
Diamondbacks: After an off-day Sunday, the Diamondbacks are home for opening day on Monday. Zack Greinke, their biggest acquisition of the offseason, will start against the Rockies.
